“... of Dryden to the mid-20th century, Dr Brewer argues, English literary culture has been dominated by what he calls ‘Neoclassicism’ – by a taste, that is, for the realistic representation of likely events. A.C. Bradley is in this sense a Neoclassical critic; and the most characteristic product of Neoclassical taste is ...”

“... when we are being shifted from him to her. The result is a blurred hagiography: Ingrid Bergman, to be sure, but softly flattering, the hard outlines left to the imagination. A pity, because Miss Bergman wants something from her readers. ‘lt could never happen today,’ she says in effect, referring to the world-shattering scandal of 1948, when she bolted ...”

“... revolutions, it is also about the past. There is a half-remembered sense of a past which has to be restored: a more glorious time which must have preceded the arrival of the occupying invaders, a past when the people had their own sovereignty, their own dignity, their own freedom to make mistakes. The very name ‘Sandinista’, from Augusto Sandino who in ...”

“... enduring and improbable stereotype of the journalist-as-hero). Writers, directors and actors may be forgiven for misrepresenting the minutiae of the life of a journalist: they may not, after all, be lucky enough to observe the proprietor, the editor and the reporter, from life. But the one area of which they do have some ...”

“... That is a disconcerting fact for our modern environmental awareness – which thus appears not to be modern at all, but almost as old as the manufacturing processes that have caused all the trouble. We have a triumphalist perception of human treatment of the environment: for a long time there was benighted callousness about it, then wisdom dawned, in isolated ...”

“... and forms of their trade, but at the moment they have six stirring, whirling automata created by Paul Spooner. They can be observed in motion on the hour, every hour, but are almost as nice when they are still. Three of them feature animals. One, called Winter, has 16 blackbirds rotating on a number of axes, swooping ...”

“... to its population, transforming the Republican heartland into a small, livid bud enveloped by a corolla of healthy blue petals. This was an example of consolation cartography, a representation of the United States of liberal dreams. Students of geography call this kind of graphic an ‘area cartogram’, and Mark Monmonier invokes them in his spirited ...”

“... Once​ upon a time there was a place called Europe. All the paintings there were by Klimt and all the music by Mahler. No, there were also special Richard Strauss evenings, and the cafés played Johann Strauss waltzes all the time. Everyone was analysed by Freud, but it didn’t make any difference ...”

“... counterpart. After all the adulation given to Richter in recent years, there was bound to be a swing in the direction of Polke; this impressive show is that swing. If Rauschenberg and Johns prepared the way for Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, Polke and Richter quickly adapted American Pop, which they first encountered in magazines, to German ...”

“... it. But we can also remember the values of such a system, whatever the costs. My parents had to be persuaded to let me stay at school after I was 16, but they were fairly easily persuaded, and the whole larger culture helped to persuade them. Higher education was a good thing because it was free, and it was free because it was a good thing. It was what we ...”

“... 2008 the underperforming club was bought from Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Thai prime minister, by Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi. Now City are trying to buy their way to a major trophy and Tevez, an Argentinian striker, is part of the masterplan: he is paid £250,000 a week. (Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that, as ...”

“... court or place out of Parlyament’. Parliament in return has made it a rule, enforced until now by the speakers of both Houses, that it will not interfere with the decisions of the courts, whether by anticipating their judgments or by attacking them. If Parliament does not like what the ...”

“... pictures appeared showing bruises and grazes on Tymoshenko’s skin, caused, Tymoshenko said, by a beating at the hands of prison staff, Merkel raised the stakes. In a speech to the Bundestag, she bracketed Ukraine with Belarus as a European country where ‘people are still suffering under dictatorship and repression’. She still hasn’t decided ...”

“... Museum (until 25 July). First, paper was expensive and vellum more so. The drawings tend to be small and nothing is wasted – variations or new subjects are often found on the other side of the sheet or in unoccupied corners. Second, painters kept hold of drawings so that an unfamiliar thing, a cheetah say, or a difficult one, such as a gesturing ...”

“... Republic, was fired from his job at the branch of the fast-food chain Pret A Manger in York Way, by St Pancras Station, in the middle of September. He had been working there for two years. A statement on Pret’s website explains that he was ‘dismissed for misconduct’, having ‘made homophobic comments to a colleague’ in December 2011. Pret wanted to ...”