However it is not plain what these disparate examples have in common.
James Janaway, who farms arable land in the Czech Republic and Romania as well as Hampshire, explains that farming in Eastern Europe is not plain sailing for Britons.
Mr Putin, it has become plain, is not the sort of politician who brooks either critics or rivals.
The television networks are too full of people tearfully evoking memories of maternal or paternal neglect or misunderstanding, not to make it plain that being somebody's parent is not an occupation to fail at lightly.
Sir Peter is careful to keep Henry's evangelical enthusiasm in plain sight, though it is hard not to conclude that profits were the sharper spur.
Pressing 'Escape' only works in some apps and not others, which is plain frustrating.
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It is not, of course, all plain sailing, particularly within India and China, which have both relied on years of rapid economic growth to try and employ ever-growing numbers joining the workforce.
Be sure your business card is plain on the back and not smooth to allow you to write on it.
The bottom line is that most people who lightly exercise do not need sports drinks or even coconut water- plain water is just fine.
And, according to Ms Armstrong, the tobacco industry is not quaking with fear about a wave of plain packaging legislation.
But the one for the new online game, Save the World or Not from Singapore developer Kingdom Crafting is just plain bizarre.
But it is also plain that the jobs mess is not just about demand: it cannot be solved with more stimulus alone.
No less obvious is the fact that ideas about plain speaking do not travel easily across the Channel.
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It is not her heritage that appeals to voters but her plain speaking.
Rep. ROSS: FEMA's excuse that they give, which is not a good one, is that they won't locate a manufactured home to a flood plain.
The closest thing we have in the UK is Salisbury Plain (in Wiltshire) which is just not big enough.
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Rome was not built in a day and nor, it is plain, will be any new Roman political system.
Not included in the 38m is the 1.5m acre coastal plain area of ANWR.
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With all the money flowing through the event, the contributions to education, and the plain old fun of the whole thing, it is not hard to see why.
If not, maybe he should go somewhere where plain old friendly is good enough.
DreamWorks did not respond to requests for comment, but the appeal for both sides is plain.
What will hurt the housing market is not the alleged excess in prices we've been hearing so much about but the plain old higher cost of money.
But the plain fact is that a bipartisan vote of that committee, something we have not yet had in this process on any substantive question, rejected that article.
There are plenty of metaphors and allegories in scripture, but the plain reading of the text does not in any way indicate that Genesis is an example of this.
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Though widely acknowledged as a pragmatic operator who is excellent at his job, life at the Premier League helm has certainly not been all plain sailing for Scudamore and he has deep experience in riding various storms of controversy.
And they performed a "WIGGLE" test. (I know you will find this hard to believe, but that is NOT an acronym for Wire Integration Gross Gyration Looseness Exam -- it's just a plain old wiggle test.) In any case, the wires all checked out -- and on went the flow toward a January 19 launch.
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