stagnation

The lyrics are the only giveaway that this is the work of a band in their late middle age - as Cocker, the poet laureate of suburban misfits, sings movingly about stagnation, divorce and mortality.

The union says its employer's removal of six days' annual leave from members' contracts, pay stagnation and a widening ethnicity pay gap has made them "particularly angry".

These assessments suggest meaningful technical progress rather than stagnation.

The UK government has made boosting economic growth a key priority and the latest data beat forecasts of 0.1% expansion, which would have been near stagnation.

The fulcrum of a cultural transition from vibrancy to stagnation was the 1970s, an era remembered now, if at all, for leisure suits, burnt-orange shag carpeting and muttonchop sideburns.