1. More flood–tide will occur in Ho Chi Minh City next January, according to the Meteorology and Hydrography Centre.

2. The present pattern looks increasingly shaky because it involves a perilous contradiction –– other countries like selling to America, but they may choke on the resulting flood tide of dollars.

3. Passions run deepest among those alarmed by what they see as a flood tide of illegal immigrants and by what they fear is a movement that is changing the culture and identity of the country.

4. The composition of the chamber, whose unrepresentative nature has loosed a flood tide of ink here lately, is not really interesting in and of itself; but it is of interest for the peculiarities of the crooked–mirror reflection it provides –– a reflection not of the society the chamber supposedly serves, but of the powers that created it.

5. Suddenly, our new partner citizens in the EU – those same people whose deliverance from Communism, wrought by their own bravery, we celebrated 14 years ago – have become potential ‘benefit tourists‘ (Daily Mail), agents of ‘social upheaval‘ (Financial Times), a ‘menace‘ (the Mail again) to our social services, a horde of gypsies, or a ‘flood tide‘ (Daily Express) of ‘millions of immigrants‘ (the Mail again). Government talk is not of liberty or union, but of ‘habitual residence requirements‘ and ‘employment registration certificates‘. The legality of Britain‘s U–turn – the government will tighten the UK‘s habitual residence requirement, a discretionary test limiting workers‘ access to means–tested benefits, including housing benefit – is likely to be challenged in the European Court.