1.   Duck or diver, it had dived, and, though I waited for long minutes, it did not appear again.

2.   I was dressed and out of the house in ten long minutes with gas-fuelled hair tongs in my hand.

3.   And then there were long minutes of crying and embracing and mangled French-English before they even moved indoors.

4.   The cyclist knows, give or take the wind speed and direction, almost to the minute how long the journey will take.

5.   Five long minutes went past.

6.   He held her in his arms for a long minute.

7.   When they launched themselves into the dusk they seemed to fill the sky to the north for long minutes, and their cries reached as far as the village.

8.   I stand another long minute on the cold pavement opposite his terraced house, and I watch.

9.   And, as the long minutes ticked by while he was still busy on the phone, she defiantly poured herself another glass of wine.

10.   For a long minute they seemed as one, then, abruptly, the spell was broken.