Once the province of high-pressure peddlers of gadgets of dubious utility, infomercials have expanded in the last couple of years to include nationally known marketers selling well-known products.

The music was not consistently top shelf: a folksy Partita by Albrechtsberger, surely a functional work in its day, seemed of dubious utility as a concert piece.

Here in Beijing, SARS has spawned a booming industry, a macabre world of potions, creams, disinfectants, shots, gloves, masks and more, many of dubious utility.

Regarded by others as a tour de force of dubious utility, he drew on Mendelian principles with singular vigour.

Traditional weapons of any kind were of dubious utility against the nightcreatures, but certainly something sharp or hard in his hand would have lent more confidence to his gait.

Economists say this spending has wasted huge sums of money on public works of dubious utility and merely postponed the day of reckoning for thousands of unprofitable protected companies.

While of dubious utility, especially for shorter strings, it nevertheless may save time during translations.

An unusual interior feature of dubious utility was the passenger grab handle on the dash in place of the standard glovebox.

There's plant science, too, which is interesting if of dubious utility.

Those qualities are happily evident in his new film, "An Everlasting Piece," another comedy about striving salesmen pushing a product of dubious utility, in this case toupees.