Three million is a nice round figure, and kidnappers always demand millions for Americans, usually somewhere between one and five.

You are demanding millions of dollars so you can make yourself look good to the other commanders.

Yet Mr. Hyatt has demanded, with mixed success, millions of dollars from a broad range of electronics companies.

Companies often demand millions of dollars in tax abatements and new roads and other repairs, they say.

When the country has stabilised, vulture funds return to demand millions of dollars in interest repayments and fees on the original debt.

They demand millions of dollars in development costs and there are no promises about any payoff.

Or at least to the aid of their agents who, whether the Mets win or lose, surely will demand more millions for their unappreciated and underachieving clients.

They still haven't signed Jones, who is demanding millions of dollars commensurate with his station in the draft.

Some of them even demanded millions of dollars, not that they ever got it.

Perhaps if she had been seized by orthodox kidnappers, demanding millions of pounds in ransom, it would have been different.