“... logic in how politicians are singled out for the honour of a personal ‘ism’. Churchill got by without one, and on all the evidence would have been deeply embarrassed had one been accorded. Attlee, another mighty achiever in government, also went happily without. Across the Channel, de Gaulle had one but so, it is salutary to recall, did Poujade and, in ...”

“... For the major features of the literature she identifies as ‘puritan-provincial’ are to be found in other national literatures as well, including those of Catholic France, Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe. There are also non-puritan tributaries feeding into streams of American and Scottish literature that can account for some of these ...”

“... the best generals, the clever and hard-working the best staff-officers, the stupid and lazy could be fitted in as regimental officers; but the stupid and hard-working were a positive menace and had to be got rid of as quickly as possible. Douglas Haig belonged to the fourth group. That at least would probably ...”

“... wives. This year the Liberal Democrats followed a fortnight later, swallowed up like every party by the vulgar vastness of Blackpool, as the whole of Northern England arrives to see the Lights. Labour took the third slot, also at Blackpool, and the Conservatives brought matters to a close, at Bournemouth, well into October. There was a time, long ago, when ...”

“... Some friends of mine at Paramount wanted to make it. Columbia changed its mind. I decided to stick by my friends. From a cottage in Somerset I tried to make sense of the transatlantic phone calls. I have on occasion bought a Sunday paper in Crewkerne and had dinner that night on Rodeo Drive. I was approached to direct a Mafia film called Donnie Brasco. The ...”

“... are concerned with her Catholicism. For any necessary background there are the volumes written by her two daughters. Susan Chitty insists that they are only memoirs and of course she can say what she likes about her own book, Now to my Mother, but she is being a little unfair to that of her half-sister Lyndall Hopkinson, ominously entitled Nothing to ...”

“... at his friend’s service. The hullabaloo they evoked bore out a Carter point which had been cited by Rushdie as an example of her genial frankness. When her lung cancer was diagnosed a year ago, he had volunteered his assistance: ‘I don’t think,’ she replied in her meticulous way, ‘I need any help from you ...’ Angela Carter would have liked the ...”

“... of establishment blue-stocking. Her best books have been called novels of ideas, but could perhaps be more accurately described as diversions, for the ideas in them are seldom allowed to settle: the genteel humour which guaranteed her popularity in her own day and relative obscurity in ours diverts the novels away from anything too conclusive. Rose Macaulay ...”

“... sentimentality. The disclosure, some weeks ago, that the 201-year-old Observer was to be sold, and might disappear, was the occasion for some stirring comment about the paper, both from people who properly respect its liberal traditions and from people who have spent years talking it down. In the event the Observer was bought not ...”

“... grist to Selbourne’s meditative mill. What he aims to do is tell us the meaning of our times by placing them in a self-consciously Hebraic perspective. The Christians and (more especially) the Muslims have taken over the post-1989 act. Time, therefore, for the Jews to fight their own corner. Whet it comes to prophecy they can still take on the rest of ...”

“... a bleak Copenhagen December, and go on to describe a still colder place – Greenland, covered by an icecap up to a mile thick, with a climate so severe that if you need to drop your trousers to relieve yourself, you must first light a Primus stove under a blanket to prevent instant frost-bite. Miss Smilla differs from other chilly bestsellers like Ice ...”

“... Isherwood knew. In June 1849 Edward Leeves, an elderly expatriate, driven out of Venice by the Austrian bombardment, made his way to London. There he met Jack Brand, a trooper in the Blues. A month later Leeves went to Scotland to stay with the Queensberrys having fixed with Jack a day to meet on his return. Jack never showed up. He had died that ...”

“... Is that adequate? I suspect not. The French version carried on front and back two pictures by the 43-year-old German artist Anita Albus about whom Lévi-Strauss writes enthusiastically in Chapter 20. The text refers directly to both pictures. The present English edition has a cover picture by Max Ernst, who is the ...”

“... a fait accompli to his workers. What he actually said was: ‘Gentlemen, the Times is printed – by steam.’ The year was 1814; the proprietor was John Walter II; the new technology was the Koenig steam-driven press capable of over a thousand impressions an hour, against the 250 impressions which was all the old Stanhope iron press could manage; and his ...”

“... Minister’s decision – with the minimum of Cabinet consultation – to play the part of an ally by sanctioning the use for that purpose of bases in Britain. The best of the debate justified Mr Healey’s words of praise, and those of other participants. A high standard of argument was achieved, there was far less of the usual bombast, posturing and silly ...”