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“... were not at home, stayed at the best hotels, where in the words of the leading character in Wes Anderson’s new film, their needs were met ‘before the needs were needed’. The wealthy were pampered, and the pampered felt wealthy. Is the Grand Budapest Hotel of the movie in Budapest? How could you ask? Budapest is just a name, a link to Eastern ...”

“... explain that they didn’t expect to be fighting this kind of war. In a dark hut, Staff Sgt Jeremy Anderson, leader of a squad of eight sappers, says he and his men were trained to deal with big conventional minefields such as those laid by the old Soviet army. Nobody thought they would be dealing with the sort of amateur but lethal devices planted by ...”

“... past decade. Four enormous corporations – headed by the late Roy Thomson, Rupert Murdoch, Robert Anderson and ‘Tiny’ Rowland – have been involved in their rescue. And without the intervention of firms of this size, these papers would already be dead. It is unlikely, however, that giant corporations can play the role of publishers of papers of this kind ...”

“... and mouth epidemic. He was actually there to give the Wordsworth Memorial Lecture, but since Janet Anderson, the Minister for Tourism (at least I think that’s what she is; the Guardian recently referred to her as the ‘Creative Industries Minister’), was in the West Country and not even Government ministers can be in two places at once, Smith nobly ...”

“... in its infancy. In 1717, the Grand Lodge of England was formally established and in 1723, James Anderson, commissioned in 1721 to ‘digest’ the old ‘Gothic’ charges of Masonry, published its modern Constitutions. A Jacobite, the Duke of Wharton, did hold the Grand Mastership in 1722-23, but left – tongue and throat intact – in 1723, under ...”

“... for the Peaky Blinders gang. Going further still, I wonder if Cillian Murphy, Helen McCrory, Paul Anderson and Tom Hardy might not come to the wrecked Weimar of 1929 and install Claire Foy of the Crown to ward off the lethal arrival of Adolf H. That’s silly, of course, but no sillier than a feeling in 1932 that things would be all right. You can’t do that ...”

“... AD’, but that, in its very essence, time was now ‘man-made’ and ‘man-co-ordinated’. From David Landes’s work we know that in exactly the same year in which the Thirteen Colonies declared their Independence, London’s Gentlemen’s Magazine included this brief obituary for John Harrison: ‘He was the most ingenious mechanic, and received the ...”

“... worth fifty million pounds.’ This is Kenwright’s mother. Ferguson can’t quite believe it: David Moyes was giving me the eyes. For a minute I thought it was a get-up, a performance. Bill’s background was in theatre, after all. It occurred to me while all this was going on that I ought to check Wayne’s medical records. Was there something physically ...”

“... of condolence. Arguably, the real stars of the film are the Lancasters, which the director Michael Anderson and his cameraman photographed in black and white with great skill and artistry, posing their unmistakable profiles against the flat landscapes and huge skies of East Anglia to poignant effect, or showing their great wings thrillingly skimming the ...”

“... grievance comes from the fact that the bowlers responsible for much of England’s success (Broad, Anderson, Swann) had built up their role, as though they were the ones who mattered. For Pietersen, cricket is a batsman’s game; bowlers are there as extras to do the heavy lifting. The batsman is alone, exposed, standing or falling by his own genius. ‘When ...”

“... Cup Final ...’ ‘When we had Huw Wheldon at the BBC ...’ ‘When we were first married ...’ David Hare calls the curators of these arcadias the ‘whenwes’. They guard their territory with a dogged devotion. Although the theatre is a medium that exists entirely in the present tense, it is not immune to the arcadian virus: ‘the National Theatre at ...”