Though he has stood only once (unsuccessfully) for elected office, he is young at 52, and may well hanker after a top job, one day, in government.

ECONOMIST: Pascal Lamy, free-market Frenchman?

Lyon, who are leading Ligue 1 and Group E of the Champions League, will head across the Channel full of confidence, even though they have won only once on English soil.

BBC: Lisandro poses threat to Reds

It just takes too long to go through four critiques of every performance, and instead of a built-in majority you know have a tendency to split, forcing them to bring in producer Jimmy Iovine as a tiebreaker (though this season he was only used once).

FORBES: American Idol Judges: Little Ladybug A Disappointment

Let us generously assume that profits in the health insurance industry are 7% (even though the previous figure shows they reached this level only once in the past 6 years).

FORBES: 5 Myths in Steven Brill's "Bitter Pill" -- Part 2

Jules called only once a week, on Sunday afternoons, though he could easily have called more often.

NEWYORKER: Ghosts

One particular example has it guiding users though an efficient power nap, by starting a timer once they've started dozing and only waking them once they've come out of a deeper sleep state.

ENGADGET: Sony patent application puts electrodes in a pillow, eases you out of slumber

Those periods, though, are measurable only because they are short enough for astronomers to have seen the comets in question more than once.

ECONOMIST: Comet Ikeya-Zhang is enlivening the skies

It was remembered that, as a minister, he once allowed a woman singer to perform in public (even though it was to a female audience only, the Islamic Republic bans any woman singing solo).

ECONOMIST: Islam and the ballot box | The