“... about what would be best for ‘Jacob’ (Zuma), how ‘Cyril’ (Ramaphosa) was distressingly keen to keep his trade union and civic association jobs while taking over as ANC Secretary-General and, above all, how ‘if we can just get Thabo in, we’re set for the next twenty years.’ (I heard of one business supremo who, in the midst of just such a ...”

“... reading: Whatever might have been Mr Bohun’s fancies when absent from his country, his keen brain, on his return, soon detected the spirit of the Reform Bill. He saw it was a Whig measure, and not a democratic one. He perceived that its only object was to destroy the balance of parties in the state, and that it intrenched in power a party who by ...”

“... driven, totalising identity. As such, it looks very much like a subset of race. Maine was a keen admirer of the Roman Empire, which endured for six hundred years; Britain’s empire was shorter-lived. The British and other European empires were organised quite differently from the Roman Empire. Not only was there no physical contiguity between modern ...”

“... Office staff board flights for Quito and the Ecuadorian government checks every safety mechanism, keen to avoid any misunderstandings with the British. Meanwhile the high-level Syrian emails now being released by WikiLeaks are proof that Assange isn’t twiddling his thumbs. Western surveillance technology companies and defence contractors will feature ...”

“... but close to the shore in Filey Bay.In 1779 the War of Independence was in its fifth year. France, keen to exact revenge on Britain for the Seven Years’ War, had signed a treaty with the Thirteen Colonies, effectively declaring war on its old enemy. Spain, too, declared war on Britain, and hatched a plan with France to send a joint armada to the South ...”

“... was one of them. Sampson ignores all manner of glaring indications that this was the case. Why did Peter Mda, one of Mandela’s closest friends, regard him as a secret Communist? Why did Mandela refuse to condemn Stalin even after Khrushchev had? Listen to Slovo on Mandela: ‘ideologically he has taken giant strides ... on die role of the Party in the ...”

“... the Villa attracted the Deux Magots crowd of a Sunday). Varian Fry remembered a ‘dyspeptic but keen-minded old Bolshevik . . . At the house he talked for hours about his experiences in Russian prisons . . . or discussed the ramifications and interrelations of the European secret police . . . Listening to him was like reading a Russian novel.’ Mary Jayne ...”

“... of political muscle? Take one of the best-known arguments in contemporary moral philosophy: Peter Singer’s attempt to prove that there is no ‘domestic’ and ‘foreign’ when it comes to suffering in a globalised world. Singer first made his case in 1971, in response to the humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh. The core of the argument is ...”

“... as first minister. The independence movement has splintered; the party is mired in scandal. Peter Murrell, Sturgeon’s husband and the SNP’s former chief executive, has been charged with embezzlement, while Sturgeon’s replacement as party leader, Humza Yousaf, had to resign after ill-advisedly cancelling the party’s co-operation agreement with ...”

“... knowledge’ to work for counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Peter Mandler wants to rescue Mead. His book portrays her as one of the more sympathetic US internationalists. First, she got Americans interested in the far corners of the globe in the early 1940s when, in Mandler’s view, many were inclined to turn their ...”

“... by masking areas with opaque paper and exposing them to violet light. He was particularly keen to share the news with Brewster, an optical innovator, who was visiting from Scotland. When Herschel accepted Babbage’s invitation to join them, he added in a postscript that he had himself discovered three days earlier ‘a striking instance of the effect ...”

“... us in luxury.‘I’m on the pill,’ I said. An urge rose in me, to say: we are sexually very keen so I take three a day, do you think that’s enough? But then a stronger urge rose in me, to be sick on his shoes.I can see him, now that the years have flown; his crinkly fairish hair sheared short, his rimless glasses, his highly polished brogues. He was a ...”

“... catalogue. And if Indianness is addable, it’s also subtractable. Karim, an aspiring actor, is keen to exploit this insight. Since childhood he’s been a fan of another chameleon and shape-shifter, David Bowie, who was raised, like the author, in Bromley. Similarly, Kureishi’s next novel The Black Album was named after a bootleg LP by Prince to whom the ...”

“... were aware that others weren’t so fortunate. During trips to London, Michael and his brother, Peter, helped serve food in East End soup kitchens and were taken along to suffragist meetings. Tippett attended his first orchestral concert at this time: Henry Wood conducting music by Tchaikovsky at the Queen’s Hall. When the Great War began, the Hôtel ...”

“... sky: playing ball on sands beside blue sea – like one of those classical Picassos Miss L. is so keen on. But do not really care for pink, monumental women – a bit like M.! – but cannot imagine M. playing ball w. nothing on. Used to wonder if when grown up D. wd BUY Lesbos for me. But all that ages ago. Realise now it was naive idea.All this converting ...”