“... at its most rigid, a duke and an Indian army subaltern were equal in class, however different they may have been in rank or wealth.’ And they go on: ‘there is only one essential prerequisite for being counted among the British aristocracy: the right to be called a gentleman … so that anyone who has inherited the gentlemanly values, or for that ...”

“... by the domination of unions and professional organisations. Not a bad thing in principle, this may have worked, though, to narrow the teacher concerns the Council was prepared to address and to exclude those classroom teachers whose commitment to their work, or vulnerability to its pressures, make such public forums intimidating and unproductive. There are ...”

“... century of national politics are in crisis; an astonishing YouGov poll conducted at the end of May put both Labour and the Conservatives on 19 per cent, behind the Liberal Democrats and Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party. An Opinium poll subsequently put the Brexit Party out in front on 26 per cent. Farage’s outfit has adopted the model of a platform ...”

“... Black Mischief, another old Chapman & Hall first, no dj, but handsome mottled brown boards.’ We may choose to believe Richard Rayner, as he presents himself to us raw: ‘Perhaps we all have this dream, to tell everything and yet not forfeit love – the only sinner not to be roasted.’ What he’s admitting to, though, is not a series of ...”

“... the Teacher Training Agency, John Patten’s attempt to gain control of the training colleges, may serve for an example; and finally direct intervention, as symbolised by David Blunkett’s threat (Independent on Sunday, 23 February) to ‘lay down from the centre exactly how reading should be taught’. Hobbes would ...”

“... are smiling waitresses, not seen-it-all barkeeps; its anonymous New York voices say ‘yes-how-may-I help-you?’ not ‘how you doin’?’; its background noise is the hiss of espresso machines. If you don’t catch a ride to the Hamptons with your father-in-law in his chopper you must endure the discomforts of the Hampton Jitney. The novel’s frequent ...”

“... among the hundreds of functionaries – more famous than the others, admittedly, though his clerk may exaggerate his fame – who work at and for the Agency, the only force of law and order in the city. What’s more, as often as not he solves his cases incorrectly. Sivart does at least talk like a textbook hard-boiled detective – or rather he writes like ...”

“... or a warped reflection of the real, or a reflection of a reflection of the real; and all of it may or may not refer, however obliquely, to the world outside the novel, a world in which its author is an acclaimed creator of warped realities. It recalls all the conventions of the genre only to subvert them.The first and ...”

“... male and female alike (and particularly the younger ones). Some of them, such as Dyan Sheldon and David Holden, have interesting things to say: others merely plod on across well-trodden ground. Stephen Wall’s ‘The Bridge’ is a wispy and indulgent fragment about a marital break-up and a one-night stand: old themes, old ideas, old forms, old ...”

“... the stage goes up in flames. Loudspeakers fall, records are scattered in the mud. This last item may seem pretty minor in a context of such horror and confusion, but it is shot and situated – we see the disc jockeys eager to save their records rather than themselves – in a way that makes the records stand for much else that is scattered here and could be ...”

“... one needs to know that these are songs of a rather peculiar kind, and that other sorts of letters may have been dropped into the pillar-box with them. Rupert was secretly engaged to Noel from August 1910 to December 1911, and often begged her to marry him; but had it come to the push, he would neither have expected nor wanted the marriage to take place. He ...”

“... their tight formations, the ranks hold each other up; soloists are apt to droop. Dickens finishes David Copperfield uncharacteristically: ‘O Agnes, O my soul, so may thy face be by me when I close my life indeed; so may I, when realities are melting from me, like the shadows which I now ...”

“... to report, it is perfectly obvious that no one has a duty to disclose – it is merely that they may be forced to. The claim of a right to know is often bogus, but it is not always so. It does apply if the information you want to know is information about yourself held by some public body. It also applies to a lot of information relevant to public ...”

“... or special than any secondary discourse about it, so that a tertiary discourse about the secondary may be undertaken without inhibition. There is no trace of the irony of Tate’s title, and a good deal of Shandean buttonholing: ‘I found it impossible to avoid sounding smug ...’ Donoghue’s sense of art as perennially subjected to biological and ...”

“... the many small groups that filled the square. Movement veterans like the anarchist anthropologist David Graeber and Marina Sitrin, the author of a book about horizontal organising methods used in Argentina, conversed with twenty-somethings freshly radicalised by disappointment in the president they helped to elect. Not long after the police massed at the ...”