“... evoking the uncanny. And the uncanny is everywhere: in the actor/actress in a Kafka adaptation who may provide a link between Trumilcik, Jackson and Carol; in the sudden attraction to Miller that the college attorney seems to develop; in the calls to a battered women’s shelter someone appears to be making from Miller’s office at night; in Miller’s ...”

“... But in Roma he stays at home, or goes back home: to Mexico, to the past, to the family. The title may not suggest home to many of us: we’re not bound to know that Roma is the name of a neighbourhood in Mexico City, any more than we have to remember that Petty France is in London and Little Italy in New York. But then home isn’t always what we think it ...”

“... wild roots and by theft: come and lay down your arms … so that your thirst and great hunger may be appeased.’ Today, only a small stone memorial in the Omaheke desert marks this crime. In Bengal, the East India Company secured hegemony by force of arms over a once prospering land. According to the governor, Warren Hastings, as many as ten million ...”

“... Nixon, Carter, Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Losing 35 seats (that’s the number as I write; it may go one or two higher) puts him right in the middle of the range. He did much better than most of his predecessors in the Senate, but that was in large part because the electoral map favoured him, as it did in 2016. Many things about the campaign were ...”

“... Artistic influence​ may benefit from a degree of misunderstanding: it keeps it from lapsing into imitation. By the time William Morris launched the Arts and Crafts movement in the 1860s, it took a certain wilful ignorance to believe, as he and Ruskin did, that the builders of the Gothic cathedrals were anonymous artisans, working humbly for the glory of God ...”

“... and the manger in a Nativity are unclear. Clouds supporting angels and broad swathes of drapery may make strong patterns against these backgrounds, but even the angels seem to be contained in the same shallow space as the other figures.Photographers and cinematographers were the last Caravaggisti; it is Caravaggio light that first picks out Harry Lime’s ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... Greene: ‘This is one of the most famous episodes in Graham Greene’s life. However, it may not be entirely true.’ What has not been questioned by anyone but is vividly absurd to me is ‘the small lady-like’ revolver with the ‘tiny egg-stand’ chambers – he means the cylinder. It seems unlikely that anyone serious about playing Russian ...”