In interviews, officials lamented the situation but blamed the lake's continuing depiction on bureaucratic obstacles.

Both officials lamented the easy access that many children have to guns.

Down the hall, the mood was more somber, with officials from Atlanta, Houston and South Florida lamenting the news that their bids had been rejected.

One official lamented that "it cost a shilling to collect tuppence".

But the officials acknowledged, and even lamented, that the two sides were trapped in a cycle of violence and retribution.

The trend was painfully clear, officials and owners lamented, and would never be reversed without some drastic change in the system.

"The fiscal flexibility is so low now," lamented an official in the budget bureau of the Ministry of Finance.

The financial officials lamented the expenditure, while the military was weary from the Persian war and feared Vandal sea-power.

"I'm a little disturbed that his press people may be as good as ours," one official lamented.

But in the state's richest district - Bloomfield Hills, just north of Detroit - officials lamented the passage of the plan.