1.   A few years later, at UCLA where she worked in the student store, I made a vain bid to take her to a football game.

2.   He tried no less than eight bowlers in a vain bid to stem the tide of Sri Lankan runs.

3.   Protesters, many of them openly weeping, also chained themselves to trees in a vain bid to stop them being felled.

4.   Sinclair and Bright last month arranged a preview for ex-guerillas and other establishment figures in a vain bid to appease their anger.

5.   The rebel leader spent several months here in vain bid to win political asylum.

6.   The rebel leader spent several months in Rome in a vain bid to win political asylum.

7.   A sixth blew himself up with on Tuesday as he made a vain bid to escape from the hospital.

8.   Amid the rubble are photographs of fallen soldiers and the chunky leather charm bracelets worn by government forces in a vain bid to ward off death.

9.   Dugarry, who joined last summer from Bordeaux, has been hampered by injury in his vain bid to win a regular slot alongside George Weah.

10.   Throughout the day police and social workers issued constant appeals to parents to keep their children indoors in a vain bid to prevent further violence.