“... and alarms the audience on the final morning with a viewing of the video he designed for Michael Jackson’s ‘Scream’, the song Jackson released after the child abuse allegations fell away. Makela acknowledged that $7.5 million was a substantial amount of money for a five-minute video, but was consoled when Jackson donated $4 million worth of ...”

“... of those with Christian backgrounds who remain uncertain of New Labour’s merits, such as Michael Meacher, an Anglican and ex-Bennite, or the Old Labour heirs to Eric Heffer, a staunch Anglo-Catholic, or Tony Benn, an agnostic who nonetheless argues that ‘the moral roots of socialism lie in religion’ and that ‘political agitation is groundless ...”

“... Children of the Arbat is set in the early Thirties; the children of the title are a group of young people, acquaintances and friends, who live in and around the Arbat, that Moscow street which runs south-west from Arbat Square to Smolensk Square, between the inner, boulevard ring and the outer, garden ring, the main artery of a district – now mutilated ...”

“... instructor is devoted to for its spiritual dimensions, its ESP and UFO news) are so full of the young English nobility and their dangerous drug habits that they pick up in imitation of the rock stars, out of class guilt and a subconscious Marxist wish to destroy themselves I suppose.’ (Updike takes care to give Sarah just enough education to make that ...”

“... an adventure. I go into Stratford to look at the Swan, the new RSC auditorium. Its architect, Michael Reardon, has done a stunning job – almost literally, since the steep concentrated space feels physically violent. People talk about Blackfriars as its model, but Reardon says that when invited to fit a structure inside the old rehearsal rooms, he ...”

“... Swales; and the draft notes were prepared for the simultaneous German edition of the letters by Michael Schröter. Masson’s contribution was evidently to polish and edit the translation and to contribute those limited notes which he considered necessary for English-language readers. Rather than informing the reader, he often uses the footnotes – and ...”

“... radicals attempted to bridge the gap. Something like an ‘indigenous’ movement sprang up as young intellectuals came increasingly to understand the importance of Peru’s cultural duality. José Carlos Mariategui, who in 1930 founded the Socialist Party and whose thought has been an important influence on Sendero, mixed his highly theoretical Marxism ...”

“... de Man toady’, but how reassuring to hear that they were really ignorant sycophants. If a young woman with degrees from Yale and Oxford has written a feminist critique of the beauty industry which becomes a best-seller, and she’s pretty to boot, how comforting to hear that she’s ‘a parent-pleasing, teacher-pleasing little kiss-ass’. If a ...”

“... myself’ – that is, bare her arms and upper bosom in public, like all those duchesses and young beauties, ‘at my age after being muffled up so many years!’ Mr C. was peremptory: ‘Eve he supposed had as much sense as I had and she wore no clothes at all!!!’ A white silk dress was duly ordered (Mr C. graciously agreed to pay) and arrived ...”

“... in his village for worthless things; Virginia Woolf’s ‘Solid Objects’, in which a young man gives up a promising parliamentary career so he can walk around London in search of beautiful shards of pottery) and printed off academic articles in which psychiatrists argued over definitions. For months, the books and papers kept accumulating. I’d ...”

“... address – 5 Cwmdonkin Drive – but also of the fact that Thomas is the more convincing young dog. Nevertheless, this attempt to find new goddesses, and new rites, has its moments, as the ‘Epitaph’ entitled ‘The Touch-Typist’ demonstrates: Brought from time’s glare and the electric bracket, Her eyes close under yews and ...”

“... important, in a quite different way, for many Tory MPs. Clegg’s immediately hostile reaction to Michael Gove’s suggestion that O-levels could be restored for brainy children but not for the rest is another instance. Gove, despite what he says, is a social reactionary; Clegg is not. Cameron’s recent musings on the desirability of further welfare cuts ...”

“... of the world’s crimes, but has always felt compelled to make his voice heard. When he was young and first realised he was gay, he had to sing dumb, of course. Later, he began training for the priesthood, but when the silence about sexuality continued, he refused to accept the pretence and left. MacCulloch doesn’t exactly go in for howling, but he is ...”

“... coupling (such squelchings), the money, the lies that they have already begun to tell’. But the young, long-ago Ada does not in fact go on to marry Lamb Nugent, and therein lies the problem. She marries his friend Charlie Spillane instead. Charlie who has a car, and who drives them all to the races, and who is pleased for her when her horse wins – unlike ...”

“... inspired by allusions in Sappho’s poetry to an Adonis-like myth about the ageing Aphrodite and a young sun deity called Phaon (perhaps identifiable with Phaethon). The legend was widely known in post-classical times through an Ovidian or pseudo-Ovidian epistle, ‘Sappho to Phaon’, and assumed a central position in almost all later responses to the ...”