“... objects of moral concern. We see also, reading between the lines, the birth of a cruder idea which may be described as the Mediterranean macho paradigm, the notion that virility depends on being on top and that the gender or even species of what is underneath is immaterial. This alternative view of sexuality, a folk view still extant and not limited to the ...”

“... with artistic works the features of beauty and unexpectedness – qualities which general readers may have been enabled by Hardy’s Mathematician’s Apology to perceive in this simple but profound theorem: a prime number that leaves the remainder I when divided by 4 can be expressed as the sum of two squares in one and only one way. Mathematical ...”

“... in on the lowest worked-out seam. This graveyard on the brink of Beeston Hill’s the place I may well rest if there’s a spot under the rose roots and the daffodils by which dad dignified the family plot. If buried ashes saw then I’d survey the places I learned Latin, and learned Greek, and left, the ground where Leeds United play but disappoint their ...”

“... Carter’s political errors were legion: but his greatest sin, in the eyes of the American Right, may have been his recognition that the problems of the modern world are complex and that solutions are not simple. The dramatic role reversal of the two major parties – the Republicans now presenting themselves as the party of hope and the Democrats as the ...”

“... revelation’, ‘inner light’ and ‘visible and sensible communion with the angels’ may be appealing as dogmas of dissent, but they are of little help as guidelines of organisation. Infuriatingly if predictably, Utopia turns out to be an objective more utopian than utilitarian. Not surprisingly, then, the names of sects like the ...”

“... is that it is definitely “middle-class”. But all schools here are that.’ Beatrice Webb, who may have had some interest in defining the area in which humility was appropriate, complained that her ‘absence of humility ... narrowed her influence to those whom she happened to like and who happened to like her’. She had a point: there was something of ...”

“... to find. One reason for this is that, as in the case of John Stuart Mill, a writer with whom one may notice many parallels, there is something of a conflict between heart and head, and between the intellectual positions which logic forces him to accept and the ones with which he feels most at home. Although union monopoly power plays a key role in his ...”

“... before it appeared in print. The Adages also acted as an encyclopedia. ‘To bear the palm’ may not be much of an adage: for Erasmus it was a peg on which to hang a lot of interesting details about what the Ancients believed or did. Anyone with the Adages in his workroom can give the impression of knowing poets by the dozen and ...”

“... municipal catering with youthful experience of school stodge and custard – outdated as that may now be – and remain loyal to the fast-food they know and love. In Socialism in a Cold Climate one may survey broadly the same battlefield but from a higher vantage-point. This, too, is a collection of essays on the ...”

“... for not giving any – as well as being admirably genial. After all, says Aldiss, the definition may be wrong, but it doesn’t matter: ‘we can modify it as we go along.’ The definition is as follows: ‘Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of ...”

“... forced exile of citizens at the behest of a European government in pre-modern history’; we may compare it with the uprootings of peoples by Assyrian or Mongol conquerors. His book is massively researched, with the fullest use of official papers, but with the greatest weight attached to the convicts’ own testimony, surviving in ...”

“... he demonstrated that Andrea del Castagno was buried in August 1457, while Domenico lived on until May 1461. Andrea was a man of strange powers, but murdering Domenico when he had himself been dead for nearly four years was beyond them. This is generally taken as one of Vasari’s most egregious blunders, a glaring instance of his unreliability as a ...”

“... its outline distinct or was it so brilliant that outline could not be perceived. In other words I may say did it look like the moon definite in form or like a large bright fire at a distance quite indefinite except as a centre of light? Did it distinctly cut ducks & drakes on the surface of the lake? Were its bounds perceived & traced by the eye? Were any ...”

“... and no one got hurt. The press described him as more Austin Powers than James Bond, and even that may have been too much of a compliment. You may find the story quite farcical, and in a sense it is, but the farce had a sinister side to it. Take the recent case of Mark Kennedy. Kennedy, a police officer, infiltrated the ...”

“... under the age of 50, the odds are that you’re not, and if you’re under the age of 30, you may well be bloody furious. Britain has become a polity plagued by a fear of its own rejuvenation. How has this situation come about? It’s tempting to view the division in wholly ‘cultural’ terms – a clash of values. This story is well ...”