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“... Assad performed the function in the Syrian national revolution that Cromwell had performed in the English revolution: he stabilised it so that the country could be governed and defended. In the process, he induced the Syrian Baath to concentrate on making Syria itself, at last, a viable state. The retreat from the romantic pan-Arabism that had encouraged the ...”

“... taste for freedom. We had favourite hiding places: mysterious cemeteries where the tombstones had English names on them (many had died young) and a deserted Gothic church that had been charred by lightning.We also explored the many burned houses. How were they burned? I would ask the locals. Back would come the casual reply. ‘They belonged to Hindus and ...”

“... outlook in 25 years. He has already seen off Schröder’s attempt to install a wan version of Richard Branson as Minister of the Economy, and shaken the composure of the Bundesbank. The direction of the Government, of course, will not be set by the SPD leadership alone. The rules of any German coalition give significant leverage to the lesser partner. The ...”

“... under political pressure at two universities, held at another – a bestselling memoir (now in English: Fethiye Çetin, My Grandmother), a novel (Elif Shafak’s The Bastard of Istanbul), iconoclastic reportage (Ece Temelkuran’s Deep Mountain), and many columns in the press (Murat Belge, in Radikal). But above all, the outstanding work of the historian ...”

“... a TV crew reassured us that we were still in the real world. The tall, London-based CNN presenter Richard Quest, in tailored trenchcoat, waited impressively for his gear. CNN was here for some really significant story – the marriage of Sir Paul McCartney and anti-landmine campaigner Heather Mills, perhaps; a shade less probably, the wedding in St Eugene’s ...”

“... but Rania didn’t care. ‘She was very religious, very devout,’ a woman who went to the same English classes as Rania said, ‘and she gave off a sort of spirit of blessing. You’d leave the party saying: “I want to be a bit more like Rania, and act that way.”’She said she would happily have a dozen children. She found it easy. She was incredibly ...”

“... more than 16 hours to be admitted. An A&E consultant at the Royal Stoke University Hospital, Dr Richard Fawcett, broadcast his frustration on Twitter. ‘It breaks my heart,’ he wrote, ‘to see so many frail and elderly patients in the corridor for hours and hours … I personally apologise to the people of Stoke for the Third World conditions of the ...”

“... in Dumbarton) arrived on the Thames in 1815; the next year it became the first to cross the English Channel and the first to be seen in Paris, where an excited crowd watched it from the Tuileries. In the face of more powerful marine engines, larger ships and fiercer competition, Bell began to look for new routes for the Comet – and found them in 1819 ...”