“... that the agents knew – in the way that we know, and in a way that other creatures seemingly do not – what it is like to contemplate and to relate physical objects, on some plane distinct from the objects themselves. ‘Mind’ is the obvious label for that not exactly material zone. It is not obvious, however, where mind cuts off from the larger ...”

“... battle strategy: ‘On se dégage, et puis on voit.’ What exactly is Out supposed to entail? How do they picture Britain’s relationship with the EU, and with the rest of the world, after they’ve secured a vote for Exit on 23 June? That’s far from clear, not least because of the bad blood between the rival Leave organisations. Leave.eu is financed by ...”

“... draped Art Deco dryads, fishbowl lights and heavy velvet curtains. The set was screaming for a David Lynch remake of The Masque of the Red Death. Room Three, Hotel Esperance, Finistère: a beacon of hope at the end of a darkening continent. But something embedded layers deep, mephitic and beyond redemption, was present in this city. All the coded signs ...”

“... which begin next month will be different. On 10 June, Scotland will play Brazil at the Stade de France in the opening game. For the first time in eight years, English supporters, too, will be able to admire, or rail at, their team on the most important international stage. The media and advertising bonanza will last for more than four weeks. The final ...”

“... day I remember how precarious the talks had been. Reading an article in the Daily Telegraph where David Trimble concludes his argument for a Yes vote by saying ‘we must have confidence in ourselves to face the future, not use the troubles of the past as a comfort blanket,’ I wonder how many Unionists will follow his advice. The vote will be Yes, but he ...”

“... Why is Tony Crosland one of the few Old Labour heroes that nobody mocks? Keir Hardie, G.D.H. Cole, Stafford Cripps, Gaitskell, even Nye Bevan, have become the subject of New Labour locker-room ribaldry. Yet to describe yourself as a ‘Crosland socialist’ still carries meaning. Maybe it is because of that sardonic smile, and an uneasy feeling that, if he were alive today, he would be doing the mocking ...”

“... sense that the narrative, if you don’t keep your wits about you, will carry you somewhere you’d rather not go. What is the source of this confidence? Perhaps it derives from the author’s name. It can’t be easy in the current climate of headbanging provincialism, rap scripts, scratch ’n’ sniff novellas, to have to answer to ‘Tim’. A moniker ...”

“... not the case anymore, but you know, he’s a very engaging guy … And he’s a real star. Do brilliantly. And he got selected. Now, just as an indication of how the party’s changing, Wilfred got selected for Chippenham – white, middle-class, you know, deepest Wiltshire. And Wilfred tooled up to the selection meeting, wearing his jeans and an ...”

“... 1998 Sudan was bombed. Atrocities have been committed against Muslims in Chechnya and Afghanistan. Do you have a minute’s silence for them? No. You remember only non-Muslims.’ The spokesman’s voice is distorted by the cheap amplification system. The press do not know what to make of these outspoken, confident ...”

“... serving a life sentence in solitary confinement on an island off the Turkish coast. In prison he’d abandoned Marxism-Leninism and was in search of a new philosophy. He told Bookchin that he considered himself his ‘student’, ‘had acquired a good understanding of his work, and was eager to make the ideas applicable to Middle Eastern ...”

“... Yorker.Actually I’m not game at all, just timid; and, short of taking my clothes off, ready to do anything, even climb trees, rather than be thought ‘difficult’.A propos of which is Whitman’s description of himself to Edward Carpenter: ‘An old hen … with something in my nature furtive’.2 February. Late for a final rehearsal for the tour of ...”

“... that soundtracked a club scene in the North of England in the early Seventies. In Last Night a DJ Saved My Life Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton put Northern Soul in a historical context, not just as the ‘first rave culture’ but also ‘a vitally important step in the creation of today’s club culture and in the evolution of the ...”

“... by one whose sole privilege is in a grateful admiration, to Walter Savage Landor. A reader would do well to trade in Room’s thumbnail-Landor (‘colourful’, ‘apparently ungovernable temper’, ‘irascible’) and ask instead please for what Room does not supply, a simple identification of the praiser of Shakespeare, upon whose words the whole ...”

“... to all the world beside, I suppose the writer is without a rival.’ Well, something odd will do for ever if the sensation-seekers have their way; Tristram Shandy has outlasted Johnson’s Dictionary, even in the classroom. Sterne was the first author to come up with fully explicatable – as distinct from explicable – texts, in English fiction ...”

“... will not join the salute. In the first number of the Powys Review, in 1977, George Steiner blamed Dr Leavis for praising Theodore Francis Powys above John Cowper, thus denying J. C. his meed of lectures, tutorials and research students. Nevertheless, the book-addicted young, the Colin Wilsons of our time, find John Cowper instantly available in the heart of ...”