Between speeches, there are quorum calls, time killers in which a Senate clerk calls the roll at the rate of one name every few minutes.

NEWYORKER: The Empty Chamber

But compared to other time-killers, she thinks the phone is a good option.

CNN: Have smartphones killed boredom (and is that good)?

Mobile-phone users have also taken a shine to such games as Wireless Pets (about the trials of pet ownership), as well as such tried-and-tested time-killers as Hangman and Blackjack.

ECONOMIST: Hangman on your handset? It's becoming big business

Silent treatment A year ago we argued that the U.S. federal government had overreacted when it sentenced the computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, 36, to five years in jail--more time than most plea-bargaining killers serve (" Kevin Mitnick, the hackers' first martyr").

FORBES: Another Look

"The Killers were fairly unknown at that time, but we became friends when we were staying in London at the Columbia, which is sort of a rock 'n roll hotel, three beds to a room, " he said.

BBC: Brandon Flowers

It is high time for us to start comprehensively tackling the newest killers in the developing world.

FORBES: Pharma Be Aware: The Next Killers

Darren Beckett grew up in Templepatrick before moving to New York in 1995 to seek fame as a drummer, and has known Flowers and his Killers bandmates from before they hit the big time.

BBC: Brandon Flowers

According to the prosecution the killers left the nearby Mount Vernon estate, where they lived at the time of the stabbing, and carried out their assault.

BBC: Thomas Devlin murder convictions appeal fails

In contrast, Michael Howard, the home secretary at the time of the Bulger case, decided to increase the sentences passed on the child's killers to a minimum of 15 years, and explicitly justified his decision by reference to public opinion.

ECONOMIST: The hounding of Mary Bell