“... an autumn ballot, by which time Britain might even be out of recession. Westminster gossip about a May election seems optimistic. Much turns on whether the Conservative Party leadership really believes that it can, somehow, win the next election. Despite its polling death spiral, many at the top of the party believe affection for Labour is lukewarm. The ...”

“... Churchill made in 1947-48. In a speech to a United Europe Meeting at the Albert Hall on 14 May 1947, Churchill asked:Are we Europeans to become incapable, with all our tropical and colonial dependencies, with all our long-created trading connections, with all that modern production and transportation can do, of even averting famine from the mass of our ...”

“... from translation of one sort or another; nearly every form we have is a borrowed form. One may or may not know that Milton translated his poems into Latin and back again, or that the first nine poems in Robert Frost’s first book correspond to the first nine cantos of Tennyson’s In Memoriam. Rather than ...”

“... becomes a season in hell, a life sentence. Simple things like buttons start to defeat you. You may feel constantly bilious. Your handwriting becomes illegible, the fountain pen redundant. Five miles with a walking group of elderly dons became too much for me. When I ceased to be able to manage even two miles I had to give up. Miles? I now measure my ...”

“... shabby, looks at Ophelia in silence, an effect put into action by her narration to Polonius. There may be a kind of echo of this late in the play in the fact that there is a character to report Ophelia’s death but none to save her life – a wholly original, perhaps accidental piece of dramaturgy that always leaves its own silence and chill. Hamlet is and ...”

“... where’s the evidence?Like the United Nations and the World Health and Trade Organisations, Nato may continue to exist on paper, but if it still has any meaning, the onus is on the believers to prove it. Perhaps the United States would take action to defend Estonia or Poland if Russia attacked; but as things stand, there’s no reason to suppose it ...”

“... I?Uruk rebels agin yir Muin      – nae way!Uruk maun be dinged doon      by the Heich God!May it be jeedged,      let Enlil jeedge it noo!May its cryin bairns      nae be soothered by their mithers!O Leddy, the hairp o murnin’s      in the dirt.Yir bait o murnin’s steekit      on furrin strands.Noo ...”

“... that we still celebrate today (Christmas, New Year, Valentine’s Day, Shrove Tuesday, Easter, May Day, Guy Fawkes and some others) can be traced back to a specific moment in British history, and that few, if any, are connected with the surviving remnants of ancient or pre-Christian Britain. Ignoring the religious content of the Christian overlay, this ...”

“... us? – orange juice as we cast off, fudge as we meet the ocean funnelling into the inlet of Cape May, then boiled chestnuts, grey and wrinkled as the seas our stomachs ride (the heaving field of Delaware Bay) all morning, and for lunch a chocolate kiss and an apple from the pollen of two trees sensibly rooted, restaurants of bees ... What can our helpless ...”

“... towered stand Are the famed brandy of the damned And Wunderkinder who begin With champagne lights may end in gin. A drink, lest I forget thee, Zion. Which human host can match the Devil? God’s watery water is no use – The anthropologists’ excuse States every known society Makes alcohol and poetry Which in their likenesses explore Creation’s toxic ...”

“... closed These two sweet pages you were crushed between? Here is a green bus-ticket for one week In May, my place-mark in ‘The Dill Pickle’. I did not come home that Friday. I flick Through all our years, my love; and I love you still. These stories must have been inside my head That day, falling in love, preparing this Good life; and this, this ...”

“... pity when the story is so briskly anecdotal. However, the book has a fine, strange beginning which may be enough to make you decide to get it into your hands immediately: How could the wind be so strong, so far inland, that cyclists coming into the town in the late afternoon looked more like sailors in peril? This was on the way into Cambridge, up Mill ...”

“... entirely wrong to regard Gash, Tory or not, as a narrow historian. His notions of history-writing may not accommodate the wilder ambitions of Whigs like John Morley, who said that ‘the history of England ought to end with something that might be called a moral,’ or Professor Seeley, whose Expansion of England, invigorating though it is, gave ample proof ...”

“... at least have some sense of style. Wishing-wells, piped organ music and Cadillacs on the house may not be everyone’s choice, but they would certainly brighten up what most British have to suffer in the process of getting wed. And the idea that these chapels offer a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week service also has its appeal. Better surely than 10 to ...”

“... critics. Such disagreement will require a serious answer to the question of how Muslim nations may work to build a just and free society within a religious framework, without surrender to or constant threat from extremist elements. If the novel is remembered for having once again raised the possibility of such reformist consciousness among moderate ...”