1.   But the World Trade Center attacks may simply have been a handy excuse to scrap a deal in shaky times, the venture sources said.

2.   Canseco blew off the first day of practice last week, and Kennedy provided a handy excuse about a team-related golf commitment.

3.   He had lost much of his enthusiasm for golf even before injuries gave him a handy excuse to leave it.

4.   Local control, he says, has always been a handy excuse for keeping the status quo on everything from education to environmental protection.

5.   Not having Pierce and Walker for long stretches of the fourth quarter would have been a handy excuse for defeat.

6.   One is that the mayor never really cared about reforming the system at all, but merely wanted a handy excuse for cutting the school budget.

7.   Pets can be a handy excuse.

8.   Some fear that it is a handy excuse for doing nothing.

9.   The strike is a handy excuse, one that fits every occasion.

10.   This was a handy excuse to divorce his second wife, Pfeiffer, and marry writer Martha Gellhorn, with whom he had been conducting a long-term affair.