“... that the fall of Soviet Communism had at last allowed people to disentangle Marxism from Moscow. Francis Wheen, the author of a recent biography of Marx, made a similar point. The man had finally emerged from under the political debris, and barely resembled the quasi-religious icon and prophetic travesty of the 20th century. Jacques Attali’s book is ...”

“... fortress in which were imprisoned the Man in the Iron Mask (said to be the twin brother of the Sun King, Louis XIV, who wanted to keep him out of the way) and Marshal Bazaine, who had the bad luck of having to surrender Metz to the Prussians in 1870 and the good luck to have his death sentence commuted to imprisonment. Apart from this plodding example, the ...”

“... how the continuing clamour of the past acts as a help, not a hindrance, to the making of the new. Francis Bacon is quoted on one of the final walls, saying: ‘To create something … is a sort of echo from one artist to another.’ So there might be – well, there is – a graphite self-portrait by Degas next to the Lorenzo di Credi, then a Legros ...”

“... at having connived at his father’s arrest for treason in Nahum Tate’s 1681 acting version of King Lear, Regan whispers to him: ‘The Grotto, Sir, within the lower Grove,/Has Privacy to suit a Mourner’s Thought.’ The next scene duly opens on ‘A Grotto’, where we find ‘Edmund and Regan amorously Seated, Listning to Musick’. But ...”

“... the screen Nazi he had once or twice played in his early days as an actor; he was a scaled down Francis L. Sullivan, managing nevertheless to be surprisingly successful in finding partners. Not invariably, though. Sometime in the 1970s he was in a New York bath house where the practice was for someone wanting a partner to leave the cubicle door open. This ...”

“... its – or her – place. A lovely thing. 31 December. Because some 25 years ago The Madness of King George was nominated for an Oscar, around Christmas we generally get a clutch of DVDs soliciting votes for the next year’s awards. Today it’s Call Me by Your Name, which has been much lauded, so much so that when we come to watch it this rather gets in ...”

“... is, transported to Australia. Oliver’s role was exposed by the Leeds Mercury, and retold by Sir Francis Burdett in the House of Commons (Sidmouth ‘abused Oliver for a great fool for being detected’), but the operation was another successful exercise in sending shivers down the spines of the respectable classes and in justifying further acts of ...”

“... The future Lord Protector first appears in the early Royalist elegy Marvell wrote for Lord Francis Villiers, who was killed in 1648 in a skirmish with Parliamentary forces. The only surviving copy of this poem is in Worcester College, Oxford, and though it cannot definitely be proved to be by Marvell, George Clark, the early editor who discovered ...”

“... stood out even there. The other soldiers found him hilarious: they would whistle ‘God Save the King’ in the middle of the night for the pleasure of seeing him jump out of bed and stand to attention. He caught rheumatic fever from wearing damp fatigues, an illness which, according to Kenny, stunted his growth. Having been thrown out of the Royal ...”

“... when this year Pontius Pilate is not the only one washing his hands.16 April. A card from Tom King with news of the tattoo of me that he had put on his arm (pictured in the Diary published in the LRB of 3 January 2019): ‘The tattoo remains popular, though bizarrely one person thought it was of Henry Kissinger. It also makes for an amusing conversation ...”

“... a support network for the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), headed by the philosopher Francis Jeanson. The porteurs smuggled funds and documents, and provided safe passage and sanctuary for FLN activists throughout Western Europe. Roger asked Kaminsky about his work as a forger for the Resistance. When he had finished telling his story, she ...”

“... Lord of the Rings experience are about to be replaced with fast-food tie-ins (a deal with Burger King has been announced), a hit pop record, trading cards, furry backpacks. It is a strange reversal. Except that in a way it is not.Take a look at the Fellowship trailers, different versions of which can be downloaded from www.lordoftherings.net. The landscapes ...”

“... has written: ‘he wrested his idiom bare-handed out of a literary nowhere.’ ‘I am king,’ wrote Kavanagh of himself in a beautiful poem, ‘Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.’ ‘Peasant poet’ will look derogatory to some, and it is as well to add that the peasant’s nowhere and nothing hardly characterise the work of ...”

“... status quo ante Trump. They remain oblivious to popular impatience with familiar formulas. Jess King – a Mennonite woman, Bard College MBA and founder of a local non-profit who is running for Congress as a Justice Democrat in Lancaster, Pennsylvania – put it this way: ‘We see a changing political landscape right now that isn’t measured by ...”

“... arguments. ‘In the words of A. Sonnenschein’, ‘to this definition might be added that of Francis Warrain’, ‘it was E. d’Eichtal who formulated’, ‘we must agree with Pius Servien’, ‘in the words of Matila Glyka’, ‘as Herbert Spencer puts it’, ‘as Gaston Bachelard assures us’: all these phrases occur on one page. Mitry thinks ...”