“... echoes, would the Administrative Reform Association’s anxiety to bring the standards of public service up to those of private business mean? The answers to such questions, he shows, were often indistinct, partly because the problems were intrinsically complicated, partly because it was hardly likely that any solution would commend itself to all strands of ...”

“... from New South Wales, both came to a speedy end: one died and the other was shot by a gamekeeper. Robert Cecil is said to have given his parakeet claret. A zebra brought from Ethiopia by the East India Company in 1826 was allowed to make frequent visits to the canteen of the Royal Menagerie to drink ale, of which it was reported to be ‘exceedingly ...”

“... been something personal. Field notes Malory’s good luck in having a rich Crusader uncle in Sir Robert Malory, prior of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, who led an English contingent against the Turks, 1435-8; but also his bad luck in having Uncle Robert die in 1440, before his nephew could profit from any ...”

“... his teeth on edge. Although he spent his whole life teaching in universities – apart from war service, a year on the Nation and a stint as poetry consultant at the Library of Congress – he repeatedly let it be known that he did not belong on campus. In his letters from academia, he casts himself as a highly superior misfit, and his wearyingly witty ...”

“... David Starkey found no occasion even to mention Cromwell’s name.* Now, with the publication of Robert Hutchinson’s biography of Cromwell, it is as if Beria has come back to haunt us, requiring a further revision of the Encyclopedia. And the analogy is not so far-fetched, since Hutchinson tells us that Cromwell was responsible for transforming the England ...”

“... had drawn up a short list of nominees, supposedly on the basis of career ‘quality’ plus service to Harvard, the class and ‘the community’: we elected Martin Feldstein, former chief economic adviser to President Reagan. I had, though, to admire the lavish care reflected in the pre-reunion mailings. On the back of each letter, every name in the ...”

“... which ‘pledged to build a “New Jerusalem” after the war’ with a new National Health Service, full employment and the beginning of the process which would turn the British Empire into the Commonwealth. But, as Kowol notes, ‘Baker White was a Conservative, and a decidedly reactionary one.’There was a large variety of competing visions on the ...”

“... The Drudge Report takes the form of his latest ‘scoop’, accompanied by a gateway-link service to a hundred or so other proprietary news services and syndicated columnists. What most visitors do is click their Drudge bookmark, scan his text of the day, and then go off to their regular supplier. What the Drudge Report offers is ‘hot news, right on ...”

“... and confirmed by ‘its ability to contribute to that tradition, essentially through military service’. Further processes of accommodation and adaptation followed in the fourth and fifth centuries: ‘One might be both a Roman and a barbarian.’ Yet possession of multiple identities was nothing new. Since the Empire’s creation, ‘local men’ had ...”

“... a post-war career. He can see nothing beyond the Army and wants nothing but to get back to active service. The chance collection of individuals whose fortunes the novels trace are neither better nor worse than most. They are not important hardly even important to themselves; they belong to no society, for all have been uprooted from wherever it was they were ...”

“... So irregular, appealing and – if one may say – so pitiable a figure is the Swiss writer Robert Walser (1878-1956) that he comfortably resists summary description. Even his biographer, Robert Mächler, begins by warning himself, via a feisty sentence of his subject’s: ‘No one is entitled to behave towards me as if they knew me ...”

“... the impossible. Bear in mind that even in this group there are sharp differences in ability. As Robert X. Cringely, a (pseudonymous) commentator on the computer business who in 1991 published Accidental Empires, the first and still the best book on the growth of the industry, explains: at the extreme edge of the normal distribution, there are programmers ...”

“... work is universally described as the crown of all the works of the master’. By the time of Robert Stevenson’s Spanish Cathedral Music of the Golden Age (1961), ‘the master’ had become ‘a great genius’. Evidence of actual performances also began to increase, particularly in France, where Charles Bordes, basing his edition on Haberl’s and ...”

“... with egg yolk and oats and then exposed to the mercy of two hungry ducks. A merchant called Robert Nettleton was awarded the rank of ‘archimandrite’ in a club called the British Monastery, although he also allowed his house to be used for divine service and was actively involved in petitioning George I for ...”

“... attempt to identify a ‘real’ Robin Hood was made 130 years ago by Joseph Hunter, who spotted a Robert Hood at Wakefield in 1316-17 and a ‘Robyn Hode, porter’ in the royal chamber in 1324. Since the Gest envisages a tour of the North by ‘Edwarde, our comly kynge’ as the context of Robin’s pardon and entry into royal ...”