def Element(cls, s, *args):
        """given a string s and string *args, return an Element."""
        sargs = []
        for arg in args:
            if type(arg) == etree._Element:
                sargs.append(etree.tounicode(arg))
            else:
                sargs.append(arg)
        if type(s) == etree._Element:
            t = etree.tounicode(s)
        else:
            t = s
        if len(args) == 0:
            return XML.fromstring(t)
        else:
            return XML.fromstring(t % tuple(sargs))