1.   If a Soviet leader was crass enough to bang his shoe on the table at the United Nations, what other savagery might he be capable of?

2.   Nikita banging his shoe at the UN was ludicrous, until he went to the nuclear brink with Kennedy over Cuba.

3.   President Vladimir Putin banged no shoes and threw no drunken fits.

4.   The pervasive image of Russians as louts who bang their shoes on the table to express displeasure outlived Khrushchev in the Communist heyday.

5.   Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe at it and Charles de Gaulle called it ce machin.

6.   This is the son of the bald-headed nemesis who banged his shoe on the table at the United Nations.