When the wax surrounding the nail melts, the nail clatters onto a plate below.

SJ I think it's under my right hand.

So, now you don't know where the spike is, and I don't know where it is either, OK.

KB Now, Steve, do you think it's here? Yes or no?

Now, Steve, you know where the spike is, but nobody else, does? Correct?

Do you think the spike is under your left hand, or under your right hand?

The death knell for the Spanish Empire in the Americas was Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian peninsula in 1808.

Recent developments in molecular biology have put the final nail in the coffin of traditional genetic determinism.

Don't move the cups, because I don't want anybody to see where the spike is, but give the plinths an extra mix up, and then line them up, like this, all right?

KB OK. Now, Steve, I'm going to stand in front of the table, OK. When I stand in front of the table, I want you to put the cups on the plinths, like this, in any order you want, and then mix them all up, so nobody has any idea where the spike is, all right?

But even a purely rhetorical structure would probably sound the death knell of the OAS, and weaken its human rights instruments, which have proved increasingly valuable and effective.

While I do not believe that a West Bank Jordan confederation could ever be a viable option, it might be the last nail in the coffin of a two state solution.

And the euro s appreciation in recent years driven in part by the European Central Bank s excessively tight monetary policy was the final nail in the competitiveness coffin.