Even with his limitless funds, Mr Brügger endures a tortuous struggle to get his hands on diplomatic credentials.
Having moved to Scotland, it took years of tortuous consultations to get an equally unsatisfactory diagnosis for Annie: minimal brain dysfunction (MBD) occurring in pregnancy.
"It has been a long and tortuous battle to get this far, and even during the inquest the trust continued to disclose new information, including the death of another patient in the same bath in 2006.
It has taken almost five years of tortuous negotiations to get to the point where the EU's 15 current members are at last almost ready to strike a deal to admit ten new ones: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta.
"It has been a long and tortuous battle to get this far," they wrote in a statement last week.
"So with Paula in 'Moonlight,' despite the tortuous journey to get to her, once I found her was incredibly comfortable on set.
He has also borrowed a number of tricks from the private sector: setting up a marketing department to sell the city to outside business (not always an easy task); publishing a concise version of his annual budget modelled on company statements; simplifying the tortuous process needed to get a licence; lightening the tax burden in the hope that greater compliance may actually increase revenues.
Nobody knows all the tortuous steps to getting a break, to getting recognized".
It's been "tortuous" to find the right words and movements, she says.
The tortuous process of attempting to get the song precisely right meant it almost never happened.
Leaving them to their tortuous trails, it was blissful to get up each day and have the wide slopes virtually to ourselves.
