1.   And, mining her past, she lectures area teen-agers about the importance of staying in school.

2.   Alas, his past is mined by a reporter, who asks him to reconcile his hate-riddled beliefs with his own Jewishness.

3.   Alas, his past is mined by a reporter, who asks him to reconcile his hate- riddled beliefs with his own Jewishness.

4.   Burdened by decades of guilt, Germans are understandably reluctant to mine their past for laughs.

5.   Koehn mines the past to illuminate the present.

6.   The London theatrical event of the year is likely to be provided by Tom Stoppard, a thoroughly modern playwright who often mines the past for ideas.

7.   These days we mine the past for plot and characters, in much the same way as we drill ancient rock for oil.