“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... that shatters as it rings – clearly means something above and beyond this, and his meaning may be justified in the light of Rilke’s conception of the sublime nature of poetic utterance. Unfortunately, the sublime and the quotidian are not always the most compatible of partners, and the observer who was immune to the enchantment of Rilke’s poetry ...”

“... Grey Rabbit (1929-1973), Richmal Crompton thought of Just William and kept him going for 48 years, May Annette Beauchamp invented herself as Elizabeth. All three of them were, and had to be, resilient women, gallant survivors, Elizabeth in particular. As May Beauchamp, she had, after all, a doubtful start. Her father had ...”

“... is perhaps because readers no longer expect books simply to ‘reflect’ reality. Another reason may be that mirrors themselves are no longer convex, as they usually were until the 17th century, so that the word has ceased to carry the attractive promise of a larger reality compressed into a small and manageable compass. One of the most widely read of all ...”

“... He and I taught together at University College London in the 1970s. These personal allusions may savour of the excessive. Let me plead that they serve as an introduction to the uncertainties and inconsistencies of his experience of life, to his changing fortunes, contrasting reputations, to the human interest and eccentric charm of Stephen. Of the ...”

“... and as a theologian to evade it. Interrogated in the Tower in Cromwell’s presence in early May 1535, he was asked – according to the indictment – whether he accepted that Henry was now the earthly head of the English church, and replied: ‘I will not meddle with any such matters.’ A letter More wrote to his favourite daughter, Margaret ...”

“... Maxwell Fyfe’s speech came in the triumphal wake of the Congress of Europe, held in The Hague in May 1948 with Churchill as its honorary chairman and 750 delegates from 17 European countries. Although the congress possessed no governmental authority, its cultural committee drew up a charter of fundamental rights to be enforced by a continental supranational ...”

“... to adultery. Since we are not told much about Othello and Desdemona’s sex-life, the connection may seem gratuitous. Greenblatt linked the two by interpreting a phrase of Iago’s, when he is describing his plot to entrap Othello, to mean that he will appeal to a guilt in Othello about the excess of his erotic feelings for his wife: ‘that he is too ...”

“... I might already have protruding breasts. We spend so much of the day with trunks upright that I may signal my attractiveness from the front, not just from the rear. I am female but that does not necessarily imply you are male. Chimpanzees, bonobos and humans all have same-sexed kin, friends and sometimes same-sexed sex partners: our precursors were surely ...”

“... French criticism, and with Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). These ideas may seem to yield the pedigree of the book, and are arguably the source of some falsification of the cultural history, as well as much that is of positive interest. Trotter contends that the ‘intellectual revolution’ left its mark on Cowley more than on any ...”

“... and the same enthusiasm as those of earlier times. Where they are the work of scholars, they may be intellectual forays in their own right. And, as the professionals sharpen their wits upon each other’s opinions and theories concerning the countryside, the amateurs enjoy the new light that filters through to illuminate their understanding of old ...”

“... dangerous forces of working-class unrest and political protest were deeply unsettling. Today we may relate that unrest to the increased share of the new prosperity of a modernising and developing society which had been mopped up by the better-off, and may relate this prosperity to the new, British dimension. Given the ...”