“... has framed a guilty man.’ Among the jokes spawned by the trials of O.J. Simpson, that one may tell the most truth. The man in question had been a famous athlete who became – thanks to a delightful, long-running TV commercial – white America’s black teddy bear. How cuddly he was, how handsome and rich. He flashed a smile of infinite ...”

“... of military rebellion. ‘The idea of Lord Edward as an incurable and innocent romantic – which may conceal the belief that because he was an aristocrat it was impossible for him to have been a committed revolutionary – was promulgated and advertised immediately after his death.’ The powerful, extended family of the Kildares, to which he belonged as a ...”

“... it all than her intellectual lover. ‘You learned a lot in living with me,’ she writes on 2 May 1942. ‘You were a thin turnip, and now you are a very intelligent asparagus.’ The statement is illustrated with a sketch of an erect penis. Sixteen years earlier, in July 1926, when they were on their honeymoon, Weill had confided to her: ‘When I feel ...”

“... and at the same time that nothing in it has any significance at all. Every situation or event may have a story in it, but the short story’s best an will also reveal an absence: the absence of its own meaning. The story’s epiphany must also encounter and accept emptiness. To put it like that may sound a bit glib, but ...”

“... Charterhouse of Parma’ appears in a few sentences on the last page of the novel, so he may as well call it that. The Charterhouse of Parma begins with a brilliant and incisive encapsulation of the Napoleonic romance, and its effect on Europe and on society. Any orthodox novel reader, picking up this excellent new translation by Richard ...”

“... up against a long history of titling: a painter’s wish not to fuss, not to distract the viewer, may be strong and benign. Some say they’ll call their works something, anything, just to oblige gallery owners; or to remove the vexation for curators of having more than one Untitled a year; or for those collectors who like a proper title. The overbearing ...”

“... dramatic rather than a functional gesture), write out a ticket in bold, emphatic letters. People may wheedle. They may beg forgiveness, promising never, ever to do it again. But nothing can deter me. I am Patrol Officer Dredd of Mega Car Park One, judge, jury and executioner, coldly dispensing car park justice. Well, not ...”

“... Steven Aronson’s Hype, a guide to the latest techniques of mass manipulation, may have less impact on British readers than it has had on American. The word is a recent coinage, but since the days of Dickens’s American Notes or, even earlier, of Fanny Trollope’s Domestic Manners of the Americans, we have been accustomed to associate the practice of hype with what many Brits still call the Yank ...”

“... the mark. Even assuming significant population increase, the men of the resourceful earth (as we may call them) see no reason why there should be a diminution in the primary per capita supplies of food. In order to produce the necessary increase in calories for a higher world living standard, there is clearly a need for greater concentration of productive ...”

“... by radical alteration before the final curtain was reached. Three separate versions survive: they may be seen to correspond with adequate fidelity to the three main ‘acts’ in the drama of her life. The name of her play was The Triflers. The first version belongs to the 1890s and was conceived as a vehicle for her favourite performer, Charles Hawtrey. She ...”

“... The thorough understanding of a difficult text, even of one written in one’s own language, may be made far easier by a good commentary. Eliot himself provided, if not a commentary, useful notes upon The Waste Land, and an Oxford don, John Fuller, has written an excellent commentary on Auden’s poems. In the case of a text written in an ancient language, a commentary is particularly useful ...”

“... professionalism in football itself, one realises, to put it bluntly, that supreme achievement may be unprofessional; what professionalism ensures is a minimal level of competence which may be mediocre, and a maximum of achievement seems to be impossible on the basis of mere mastery, on the basis of a thoroughly ...”

“... down for him.’ Weber’s remark as to the German spirit of Fidelio is significant. He himself may be regarded as the father-figure of the nationalist movement in music that was soon to sweep across Europe; and in his position as Music Director at the Dresden opera house, he attempted to place German opera on a firm footing. To this end, he wrote his own ...”

“... on the earnings of their ‘prostitution’ – and on those two counts, the jury convicted. It may be debatable whether such things ought to be criminal offences; if so, how they should be defined; and what should be the burden of proof. But that was how the law stood then, and on this occasion at least it was the prosecution, and not the law, that made an ...”

“... his chief concern is to explain the conduct, or misconduct, of the war to his father. It may be that the Guards had better opportunities of knowing what was afoot through being stationed near headquarters, but how an ensign barely of age contrives to get hold of so much information about the dispositions, strengths, handicaps and intentions of the ...”