“... warmongers. The precautionary principle is championed by all sorts of people who were not at all keen on the war in Iraq. For example, it’s often used to urge much stronger interventionist action to deal with the threat of global warming. Even if some of the science is uncertain, it is argued, the balance of risk requires acting as though the gloomiest ...”

“... that no one would suspect that the pope had left the building. At the church of SS Marcellin and Peter, the pope’s coach was met by the Bavarian ambassador, Count Karl von Spaur, who was clutching a pistol in his right hand, in case they were challenged. The fugitive was bustled into a small open carriage and driven out of the city, his face obscured by ...”

“... where they first got going. He has a colourful cast of characters – like the bouffant-haired Peter Brimelow, who started out as a fairly standard Thatcherite in the UK and ended up in the US as a white supremacist, or Murray Rothbard, who went from paleolibertarianism to promoting David Duke and Holocaust denial – but after a while they are hard to ...”

“... Christ is a portrait of none other than Ernest Renan, Apostolos-Cappadona writes. She shows a keen interest in depictions of Mary Magdalene by women artists, but they rarely diverge from conventional iconography (indeed Artemisia Gentileschi surpasses her male counterparts in swooning ecstasy). This changes only in the present day: Kiki Smith’s hirsute ...”

“... had dealings with both companies. ‘YouTube knows they have lots of dirty things going on and are keen to try and do some good to alleviate it,’ he told me. I asked what he meant by ‘dirty’. ‘Terrorist and extremist content, stolen content, copyright violations. That kind of thing. But Google in my experience knows that there are ambiguities, moral ...”

“... a poor thing if I thank them here alphabetically. They include Mr Gerald Albertini, The Rt Hon. Peter Archer MP, Miss Amanda Aspinall, Dr Robert Aspinall, The Duke of Atholl, Miss Julie Battersea, Mr Tom Begg, Dr Kurt Benirschke, Mr Robin Birley, Mr Anthony Blond, Mr Robert Boutwood, Mr Claus von Bülow, Mr Timothy Cassel, The Hon. Mr Alan Clark, Sir David ...”

“... up an alternative life, and to develop her vital allure reading movie magazines. Norma Jeane had a keen sense of how to conquer people’s affections – especially those of men. She wore lipstick. She wore short skirts. She told a sad story of her upbringing. And after a spell modelling and flirting and screwing and practising her walk, waiting in line with ...”

“... Records, in which jazz took its place alongside what would be called world music. Avakian was keen for Shankar to tour with Brubeck, a plan that foundered on Shankar’s reluctance to involve himself too deeply with contemporary jazz. The jazz that spoke to him – Armstrong, Basie, Ellington – had, he said, ‘innocence, life and soul in it. Their ...”

“... recalled, ‘you couldn’t give comic books away’. Lee’s production partner wasn’t keen on them either, and Saturday morning cartoons based on non-Marvel properties such as the Transformers and My Little Pony became the company’s bread and butter. By the 1990s, Lee was ‘a minister without portfolio’, one executive told Riesman. ‘He ...”

“... because I may be some help on Commons’). Blair also offered advice to Rupert and James Murdoch. Peter Mandelson offered to prep Brooks for an appearance before the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. Two Conservative peers gave glowing character references: Baron Black of Brentwood, a former director of the Press Complaints Commission, for ...”

“... secret degenerates,’ as Lord Acton put it long ago; which is why we still need to keep a keen eye on MI5. In particular we might want to watch how it interprets the change in its brief in the late 1980s, which extended its duties to the safeguarding of ‘the economic well-being of the United Kingdom’, in case it takes that as code for simply ...”

“... class="highlight-term">keen’, ‘emaciated’, ‘preoccupied’, quite often ‘attractive’, yet more often animal-like in the sheer strikingness of his animation. ‘He has still the air and manner of a young man,’ the journalist William Archer wrote, ‘for illness has neither ...”

“... as surrender, which boded ill for the all-party talks. The situation wasn’t simple. Trimble was keen to attract Catholics into the Unionist Party, but for that to happen breaking the party’s link with the Orange Order was necessary, and he failed to do the preparatory work which would have been required to bring this about. Then came the second battle of ...”

“... there with them. It’s not significantly less boring in the game than it would be in real life. Peter Molyneux, a brilliant British game designer with a particular interest in ‘God games’ – games in which the player creates a world – had a great notion in a game called The Movies, which came out in 2005. In it the player designs and then runs a ...”

“... Eliot professed himself mystified by these exemplarily Shelleyan lines from ‘To a Skylark’:Keen as are the arrows      Of that silver sphereWhose intense lamp narrows      In the white dawn clear,Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.‘I should be grateful for any explanation of this stanza’, Eliot said.Until now I am still ...”