He cleans up after himself, criticises waste and excess, and wants to be treated like an ordinary guy, someone who hung out at a popular Damascus restaurant before he got his new title (I expect to see him back before long, the manager told me).

BBC: Syria's changing face

He made superb fighters like Bernard Hopkins and James Toney look ordinary.

BBC: Jones out to prove his greatness

He is part of a movement to begin treating AIDS like an ordinary medical condition.

NPR: The Call for Routine HIV Testing Grows in the U.S.

"I like the ability to create that kind of magic out of the ordinary, " he said.

WSJ: Tony Award winner brings Broadway to Oscars

He rarely touched directly on the big events of the times but, like the European novelists he so enjoyed, he explored historical trends as experienced by ordinary people.

ECONOMIST: Naguib Mahfouz | The

But, he warns, ordinary Malawians will measure the president's success on more mundane matters like his ability to deliver drugs to hospitals and fertiliser to farms.

BBC: Bingu wa Mutharika

Furthermore, like many successful strongmen, he has the common touch, which allows him to connect with ordinary Cambodians in a way that his principal opponent, Sam Rainsy of the eponymous Sam Rainsy Party, has struggled to equal.

ECONOMIST: One of the last (we hope) Asian strongmen

Boston collector Fred Sharf collects 1950s "high style" pieces designed by Van Cleef, but he's lately started buying "retro" pieces that were made with "ordinary stones" like citrine during the Depression and World War II.

WSJ: Collectors Focus on Jewels as Investments