Over the years, much of the kitsch that characterised it when new seems to have been quietly abandoned, although traces remain: the landscape, covered with what looks like pink bubble bath, that replaces the backdrop of Nagasaki when Butterfly makes her first appearance; and the tacky flapping gestures she makes as she dies.
amysmartgirls.com Because of the decline that characterised its later seasons, it's easy to forget how singular and exciting True Blood (pictured, inset) seemed back in 2008.
To our 'insider' eyes, it contains signs of the many negotiated settlements that characterised its development.
When we write about business, we often talk about the jargon and cant that characterise it.
For the urban revival of any city, it's a prerequisite that citizens engage with the spaces, buildings and histories that characterise it, rather than deny those features; that they understand and reuse them.
For this subtype, consideration is given to the suitability of treating not only the feelings of despair, passive coping and inefficacy that characterise it, but also of intervening in the actual contingency system of the organisation, directing its influence as much as possible towards developing commitment to tasks and encouraging the establishment of a social support network.
The pop idols of the day were crooners like Dickie Valentine, Lita Rosa and Dennis Lotis, but, with a fleetness of foot that still characterises it, the NME recognised the emergence of rock 'n' rollers like Elvis Presley - who was denounced in the Melody Maker - and British aspirants such as Tommy Steele and Billy Fury.
Motion said: "It strikes a balance that characterises the best nature writing: it makes us feel a part of what it presents, while at the same time reminding us how separate we are from it".
It is something that characterises the whole shortlist this year," he said.
But it's a response that characterises the Baird Government's approach.
