“... he is up to. We know that as a young man he moved to Moscow because he was a Communist. But he may have been involved there in something more sinister than tailoring; he may be mad; he may have intended to murder the fashion magnate and fled from a bad conscience. Two American couples ...”

“... we can handle all the European themes, but without superstition, with an irreverence which may have, which already has, happy consequences.’ Culture in this sense, to add contemporary Europeans to the analogy, would be ours to play with, to learn from, to adapt and prolong, it would be what literature always is for ...”

“... of pain and loss of self can represent the almost intolerable shamanic journey from which you may emerge a poet, like Taliesin, or a healer, like Vikram.‘Anancy and the Hideaway Garden’ (James Berry’s excellent rendering), gives us the opposite scenario. Old Witch-Sister has a beautiful garden which Anancy Spider-man wants to enjoy. ‘Look at ...”

“... approaches, bows unsteadily, and declares with exaggerated gallantry: ‘Oh beautiful lady in red, may I have this waltz?’ The person thus addressed replies: ‘No, Mr Brown, and for three reasons. First, you are too drunk to dance. Secondly, this is not a waltz but the Brazilian national anthem. And thirdly, I am not a beautiful lady in red but the Papal ...”

“... the place of anti-swell-mob ones.   Presently a glimpse of green country or of distant hills may be caught between the wider spaces of the houses, and frequent settings down increase the space between the passengers; gradually conservatories appear, and conversation strikes up; then comes the exclusiveness of villas, some detached and others running out ...”

“... the ‘progress’, which were sometimes described as comic history painting, and which may have contained the implication that the commercial England of the mid-18th century was not a place in which ideal history painting in the Italian manner could flourish – and that this was a cause for congratulation, not regret. What the English needed was ...”

“... prime minister; Terry is now a dab hand at the DIY. The two callings are not worlds apart, as some may think. And Terry, as the bigger boy, still has the edge. On the front cover of his ‘Memories of an Older Brother’, he is to be seen alongside one of the old firm’s garden ornaments: a dinky humanoid in ruminative stance. Terry is slightly in the ...”

“... Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Twelfth Night, and quite a lot more about Hamlet. This account may make the book sound scrappy, but it holds together. Its chief hero Hamlet keeps returning to the scene like a reassuring leitmotif, and there are other compensating virtues. Ms Everett is, as always, discursive, and as always ready to take any promising ...”

“... periodic revolts in Upper Egypt. Finally the Romans take over and whip everyone back into line. It may be that this overview is broadly correct, but it is only just beginning to be put to the test. And the test comes from study of other documents, preferably archives, of different date and provenance from the Zenon archive, and including Egyptian texts, all ...”

“... and reinforced. Those partial to the conspiracy theory of the sinking island of English letters may take comfort from the fact that the selection of poems in Essential Reading (1986) is edited by Alan Jenkins of the TLS. And that book contains a few examples of what are (in part at least) knowing winks: after describing a catalogue of sufferings in ...”

“... Federal Germans are giving to those ‘from over there’ is warm and generous. Lubeck and Hamburg may have said, ‘Enough is enough,’ but even the mafiosi Bavarians, with their traditional hatred of everything Prussian and Protestant, for whom ‘socialism’ and ‘atheism’ are synonyms, got schools, town halls and Ratskeller ready to receive the masses ...”

“... Johnson, whose ghostly appearance in this survey of ‘post-war pop’ (he died before the war) may be conclusive proof of his supernatural powers. Johnson’s life and music are legendary, largely because he is thought to have sold his soul to the devil. Hendrix and Johnson have obvious affinities – both died young, both were keen philanderers, both were ...”

“... are distinct Japanese characteristics (such as indirectness) in Ishiguro’s work, however much he may disclaim them. But the choice of a loyal elderly senior servant as his English narrator has meant that Ishiguro can use indirectness, obliquity, and indeed the troubling pressures of obligation and indebtedness, in a way that is clearly congenial to him, and ...”

“... mediated’, in Conrad’s phrase, and patches of its careful prose feel as if they may have been polished once or twice too often, as in ‘there were larks and plovers over the fields, and the tall blue days seemed amazed by their own candour,’ or ‘there was ... an impenetrable thoughtfulness hanging on the air like scent.’ Edward ...”

“... were paid for by his brother-in-law John T. Milliken, who had married Patrick’s beautiful sister May. Milliken had telegraphed Patrick’s counsel at the beginning of the case: ‘One million dollars, if necessary, for Patrick’s legitimate defence.’ As the case wore on and the defence case became clearer more and more people were willing to testify that ...”