“... like the GDP figures which are responsible for that. We’re deep in the land of Rumsfeld’s unknown unknowns. (Why, incidentally, was he so widely mocked for talking about the difference between known and unknown unknowns? It seems to me an immensely useful distinction, not least as a way of describing the difference ...”

“... a widening and widening optic, that returns us unexpectedly (‘the variable/when the outcome is unknown,/as always the outcome is unknown’ – take that, Mr Rumsfeld) to the place we began. It may be to comic or grievous effect. It is an adventitious gallivanting movement across country that makes denser, bunched sense ...”

“... what those early explorers who left us their accounts of coming into contact with previously unknown cultures, or their fictional counterparts like Swift’s Gulliver, would make of today’s Americans. Delegated by God to be the masters of the universe, convinced of their moral superiority, they find it easy to slaughter both the guilty and the innocent ...”

“... of a massive killing of innocent people by a bureaucracy acting in accordance with beliefs which, unknown or rejected in earlier centuries, had come to be taken for granted, as self-evident truths’. Of course popular beliefs had to fall into line with the bureaucracy’s position, and Cohn provides plenty of examples to show that they did: rural and ...”

“... habitat for various forms of marine life. Chunks of the coral are dragged up, along with hitherto unknown species of fish and other creatures that go unrecognised and are simply tipped back dead by the tonne as ‘bycatch’. This goes on night and day all year round. Now vessels are increasingly fishing outside national boundaries and far down the ...”

“... Obama; minor military interventions in French Africa, in tribute to Franco-German friendship; an unknown number of special ops forces doing active duty in unknown places, together with colleagues from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and elsewhere, but always under US direction. Add the (generous) provision of airbases for the use ...”

“... to show us the way. ‘Such is the service that these kind genies perform for us, they show us the unknown strengths of our soul, which we increase by using them.’ But then there is another fairy, almost too Proustian to be true. She explains that her gifts are very different from the ones her sisters have offered, because she is ‘the fairy of ...”

“... he first chanced upon the work of these American trail-blazers at a time when they were virtually unknown in this country. Discovered at random, long and clandestinely puzzled over, the few pieces by Pound, Stevens, Moore, Crane and others that came to his attention gradually revealed that there were other ways of writing verse than those prescribed either by ...”

“... with a reduced right to family reunion and no welfare benefits, and the prospect of removal to an unknown destination after that. The higher courts have ruled that the statement in the Refugee Convention that, to avoid penalties for unauthorised entry, a refugee must come ‘directly’ from their country of origin should not be taken literally – but this ...”

“... the old days. We were west of civilisation in the United States, stranded in a place where law was unknown, or had just arrived, or immediately been superseded by galloping, ill-organised crime, quite different from the tidy, housebound business of the east. If we were allegorically inclined we knew some sort of fable of good and evil was lurking in the ...”

“... has written that ‘safeguards are designed to detect diversion of materials for military or unknown purposes. Nothing in the NPT or safeguards agreements legally prevents a state party to them from acquiring nuclear weapon capability, for example by enriching uranium to high grades, reprocessing spent fuel and so on.’† In March, the Security Council ...”

“... and seems to be the candidate most favoured by startled journalists, unsettled by these unknown names. Will the judges go for it? It’s hard to say. The final decision always lacks ‘prestige’, Martin Amis has complained, because it is so arbitrary – ‘administered’, he writes in Experience, ‘by an ad hoc and not a standing ...”

“... from the traffic of styles and reputations that Eardley exemplifies. It is not that she was unknown outside Scotland or ignorant of what was going on in the world. She made regular trips to London to see exhibitions, and her own at Roland, Browse and Delbanco in the last year of her life was a critical and financial success. But the self-confidence that ...”

“... politicians by lending its political and financial clout to the election campaign of a practically unknown rival. But in a presidential race? Obama’s fawning to the Israel lobby stands out more than that of the other candidates because his dizzying success in the primaries was due to his promise to bring about change, not to compromise his principles. The ...”

“... Jerome’s letter. Henner exhibited his Fabiola in the Salon of 1885 (its present whereabouts are unknown). It shows a woman’s head, covered by a red shawl, in profile. Fourteen years earlier, in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, Henner’s picture of a young woman in black peasant costume, L’Alsace, Elle attend, had become a patriotic icon. Both ...”