It was clear that the miscreant was in a parlous state.

Daylight, after I had been four hours in the water, found me in a parlous condition in the tide-rips off Mare Island light, where the swift ebbs from Vallejo Straits and Carquinez Straits were fighting with each other, and where, at that particular moment, they were fighting the flood tide setting up against them from San Pablo Bay.

Sir, it is parlous news I bring, and -- be these pilgrims?

If you find us in so parlous a state, it is surely scarcely dignified or gracious, on the part of a great nation like yours, to leave us so abruptly to our fate.

But it was not until we had effected our entry through the room which had been my very own, and made our parlous way across the lighted landing, to the best bedroom of those days and these, that I really felt myself a worm.

On a two-paced pitch which was well exploited by the Sussex seamers, Vaughan was strong in defence and quick to attack as he helped Yorkshire recover from a parlous 31-3 to close on 227-5 and go on to win by 14 runs.

Mr Elias knows the parlous state of the Towy's salmon and sea-trout.

This family's plight is parlous but doesn't it strike you that some of their ills are self-inflicted?

It is precisely that kind of contradiction that explains why British tennis is in such a parlous state, fighting for its life on the shores of the Black Sea.

That begs two questions.Firstly, has the government in London left us in such a parlous state with an economy so weak that we would be on our knees in no time.

The move, which will take place over the coming Bank holiday weekend, was forced on the party by rising rents and the parlous state of its own finances.