Moderation or Death

Christopher Hitchens: Isaiah Berlin, 26 November 1998

Isaiah Berlin: A Life 
by Michael Ignatieff.
Chatto, 386 pp., £20, October 1998, 0 7011 6325 9
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The Guest from the Future: Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin 
by György Dalos.
Murray, 250 pp., £17.95, September 2002, 0 7195 5476 4
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“... to please, was later to refuse to shake Menachem Begin’s hand when he met him in the lift of the King David Hotel. For as long as seemed feasible, he took the part of those Jews who favoured a bi-national state. It could be argued that he adopted this ‘moderate’ line to try and defuse any quarrel between his new English home and a putative Jewish ...”

‘I wouldn’t pay it either’

Simon Skinner: World Cup Wallcharts, 25 June 2026

The Power and the Glory: A New History of the World Cup 
by Jonathan Wilson.
Little Brown, 608 pp., £12.99, May, 978 0 349 14573 0
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“... revelations that he frequented an S&M brothel. Romania sent a team only because the newly crowned King Carol II insisted and picked the squad. There were meant to be a nicely symmetrical as well as regionally representative sixteen teams, but the two Asian invitees, Japan and Siam, withdrew, and Egypt (who had reached the Olympic semis in 1928) literally ...”

The Tower

Andrew O’Hagan, 7 June 2018

“... that day so they went there and met up with their friend Muna Ali. They all went to Falafel King afterwards to have lemonade. They just sat at the window watching the world go by, and they discussed Ramadan. Naseem promised to come to Grenfell Tower so they could break their fast together and make her famous cheese pie. ‘It had been such a big iftar ...”