“... self-appointed superhuman status is nowhere justified by the play. In a materialist sense this may be true, but ‘we cannot but admire the temerity with which Mr Mason offers clusters of the most mind-ravishing quotations as a logical part of his indictment ... The play is not only about “infatuation”, it is actually written as from a consciousness of ...”

“... Chinese, it does not even label ‘free’ and ‘bound’ morphemes or show which compounds may be split by insertions in certain contexts, and which may not. Nor does the Pinyin show the effect of neighbouring tones on each other, which makes it an unreliable guide to pronunciation. Somewhat primitive ...”

“... are to be explained as deliberate: there is a series of secret Polish puns, and unidiomatic speech may signal moments of narrative turbulence, when the story is saying more than it appears to be. Earlier there is a famous instance of this kind of thing in Lord Jim: the significance of Stein’s parable (‘A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who ...”

“... is a Common Cause beyond the Borders. Even after some reverses in the General Election and in the May local elections, Labour is still the dominant party in Scotland (though with a support comparable to that enjoyed by the Tories in Ukania). The message of the General Election was an ambiguous one for Labour. It enforces the tactic of calling (yet again) for ...”

“... town would have brought Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird to mind. Now, the novel’s appeal may have more to do with our conflicting feelings about the trial and how it should have been conducted. In Guterson there are no lecherous journalists chasing exclusives or high-powered lawyers negotiating film rights. The sessions do not take place under the ...”

“... much re-evaluation of authors has taken place, and such a toppling of old hierarchies, that they may be surprised by what they find: a sophisticated Plautus, a refined Ennius, a serious Ovid, a joky Tacitus, an obscene Horace, an ironic Juvenal. Silver Latin is no longer debased and comedy no longer read only for the laughs. Cicero and Livy, less fashionable ...”

“... Those who have visited the House of Lords as tourists may remember a notice entreating them not to sit on the Woolsack. Nobody at all will remember a light novel of thirty years ago in which the hero, detained in the Palace of Westminster for contempt of Parliament, was found on the Woolsack passionately entwined with his girlfriend ...”

“... question is why both men and women should conspire in the claim that it is a feminine matter. We may feel that a particular garment is in its nature masculine or feminine, despite knowing that at another period it had the opposite connotation. Think of the associations trousers and skirts have, though trousers are now unisex and skirts originally represented ...”

“... generations no true-born Joyce has been female.’ The female element was supplied by his wife May, the unwitting instigator of her husband’s intense dislike for his wife’s relations, especially the females – ‘the sink of the Murrays’, as he referred to them – who must on no account be allowed to pollute the hallowed ground of the Joyce ...”

“... B. Cunningham on Hamid Karzai, 23 September 2014While America’s combat mission in Afghanistan may be over, our commitment to Afghanistan and its people endures.President Barack Obama, 15 October 2015When [Afghans] leave, they break the social contract. This is an existential choice. Countries do not survive with their best attempting to flee. So I have no ...”

“... home unexpectedly, but he keeps missing his chance – until he suddenly suspects that his father may in fact have something to do with the horror in the pit. So it’s partly with relief, and partly with fear, that Michele discovers il Teschio’s older brother, Felice Natale (Hunt doesn’t translate his name as ‘Happy Christmas’), lurking at the ...”

“... not dead. So far, he has lost only the top part of the index finger of his right hand, though he may lose more. He works with chainsaws. Or rather, he used to work with chainsaws. He did not lose the fingertip in a chainsaw accident, though. That would be an improbable scenario, since he is right-handed: this was the trigger finger. In October last year, my ...”

“... even outdo the Bible, which was of course written by divers hands, over a 1500-year period, and may have been assisted in its composition by the Spirit of God Him or Herself. ‘I have now devoted over 25 years of my life,’ Hillier announces in his preface, ‘to the 78 of John Betjeman’s.’ One begins to suspect that Hillier does not in fact ...”

“... table they could use their pocket handkerchiefs. Mountain-high above the sea, today’s passengers may not notice the first intimation of a New World close ahead, the Sargasso Sea of spent condoms washed down from those topless towers (‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’ … ‘God, Aldous Huxley would love this!’). It ...”

“... said, kicking a stone, and getting himself into more philosophical trouble than he knew. We may think a kick is not much of a refutation anyway, but a kick in this case actually confirms the opposing argument, since the ‘he’ in question was Berkeley, who had argued that the world exists only as and when we (or God) perceive it. Or kick it. Johnson ...”