Elaborate bra straps. Designer trunks riding above low-slung jeans. The fashion for flaunting one's underwear may have more to do with conspicuous consumption than a decline in decency, says Lisa Jardine.

An army sergeant from a battalion is awarded a Conspicuous Gallantry Cross.

Baby boomers like to trumpet their achievements. But their fondness for conspicuous consumption and foreign travel has led to many a modern-day ill, from rising debt to environmental woes.

A High Court judge has called control orders "conspicuously unfair". The BBC's Jon Silverman looks at the legal implications.

Khalilou Fadiga and Salif Diao are conspicuously missing from the 23 players selected by Senegal for Egypt 2006.

BBC Sport pays tribute to those players who will be conspicuous only in their absence from this year's Six Nations championship.

The French president's call for legislation to ban the display of conspicuous religious symbols in state schools has prompted a heated debate in papers not just in France but beyond its borders.

Excerpts of a speech by French President Jacques Chirac on banning conspicuously religious symbols from schools.

A French ban on conspicuous religious signs in schools is greeted by complaints from the Muslim community.

Religious leaders in France condemn a proposed ban on "conspicuous" religious signs in schools.

Cambodia's Prime Minister, Hun Sen, has been conspicuously absent during campaigning for national elections.

The sacking of five UK investment bankers for drinking £44,007 worth of vintage wine they paid for themselves suggests conspicuous consumption is stone dead.

As veteran warlords compete for position, one of Afghanistan's most legenday commanders is conspicuous by his absence.

Cuba's Fidel Castro is among the world leaders at the controversial World Conference Against Racism in Durban while Western leaders are conspicuous by their absence.

Ariel Sharon gained office by promising to get tough and make Israelis feel safer, but so far he has conspicuously failed to deliver better security.

As Peruvians await the final results of Sunday's presidential polls, the man who ruled the country for the last decade remains conspicuously silent.

Australia's original inhabitants continue to suffer, but their plight is conspicuously absent from campaign rhetoric.