“... opens up, as they say, a world of hurt. In the presence of real violence mirror-touch synaesthetes may feel themselves slapped, punched or stabbed, and experience similar shocks when watching television or a film. Strangely, they will only feel, or fully feel, such sensations as they have already experienced: if they’ve never been passionately kissed, or ...”

“... Cruises, a line of defence that Berlusconi would never fall back on. In that sense the shipwreck may yet come to be seen not as an echo of Berlusconi’s premiership, but as a foreshadowing of Monti’s, as he carries out the wishes of the EU, the IMF and the bond markets – if he stays in power long enough to do their bidding. Monti governs only by ...”

“... like these form a substantial part of the Batoni exhibition at the National Gallery (until 18 May). It has not drawn great crowds. It is advertised by a portrait of Richard Milles, which is typical in its confident projection of the sitter’s position and the painter’s skills; it could be that hackles are raised by the prospect of a succession of ...”

“... and profane readings implies that his art will do more than finally float down to a level that may be solemn, but is essentially, and merely, aesthetic. At the Rothko Chapel in Houston, and in the rooms in which the Seagram murals have been displayed in the Tate, people gather and sit quietly. But when you stop thinking, and start looking, you’re left ...”

“... a plaque, to mark the site of the US Army Disciplinary Training Center where Pound was held from May to November 1945 for treasonable broadcasts on Radio Rome. The DTC was in Metato, a small town in a swathe of unremarkable farmland north of Pisa. Nowadays, from a couple of spots in the middle of nowhere you can look back across the plain to the Baptistry ...”

“... a video booth in St Peter’s where you can listen to cardinals defending the virgin birth. It may have seemed necessary because this is a joint exhibition to which the American Museum of Natural History and other US institutions have contributed. The voices are from America, where creationism is a greater threat to science teaching. (Not that the British ...”

“... Genzken’s example, take on both grotty and seemly, implicitly neat, even elegant forms. It may be no accident that of the ones I remember those by women are of the seemly kind – Sarah Sze comes to mind. On the one hand, you can feel that this is a picture of human civilisation overwhelmed by its inability to stop turning raw materials into ...”

“... turns out to have little else going for it – the anecdote ceases to be told. Félicien Rops may now have his own museum in Namur, but his name no longer means much. In such cases the anger of the affronted can seem more alive than the work that aroused it.It’s easy to overstate both the extent to which transgression dominated Saatchi’s collections ...”

“... structure will never be lost among foliage. The only aesthetic anxiety one has is that the plants may be overwhelmed by the architecture, as drawings can be by heavy gilt frames.The architecture will be dominant, and some aspects of the building look like architecture for architecture’s sake. But they have practical justifications: this isn’t ...”

“... that makes most of Strindberg’s little pictures in the exhibition at Tate Modern (until 15 May) unpleasant to look at. And they don’t offer much that makes up for the nasty surface. There is usually a band of sea, a band of sky and something rocky or sandy in the foreground. There are cliffs or a lighthouse. In some of them a small, solitary plant is ...”

“... speculating upon possible contributors and reaching the cautious conclusion that Wordsworth ‘may well have contributed in some capacity’. I think that on this occasion his speculations might have been more bold. The journal is ill-edited and lazily conducted. It is an eight-page sheet, coming from the press of Daniel Isaac Eaton, a printer of great ...”

“... beliefs are false (though we do not know which), making our beliefs consistent with one another may as easily reduce as increase our store of knowledge. On the other hand, it is not easy to see how to conduct the search for truths independent of our beliefs. The problem is to recognise such truths as we encounter them, since the only standards we can use ...”

“... reasons given are pitiably sad. The most distressing case this surely of its kind and one that may awake the national mind to saner methods of curing a terrible disease than by criminal legislation.’ On 19 and 30 April Casement made further references to Hector Macdonald’s suicide. In March in the same diary, as Casement’s ship made various stops on ...”

“... manners and habits are part of a time that has almost passed.The figure at the centre of That They May Face the Rising Sun, however, is Joe Ruttledge, who has come home from London to live in this isolated place. He is both insider and outsider, watching and noticing just as a novelist does. His house resembles the one McGahern lived in, and some of the ...”

“... separately back in 1984 (War Diaries: Politics and War in the Mediterranean, January 1943-May 1945). Those diaries were published pretty much entire and contain fine descriptions of North Africa as well as sharp pen portraits and nippy asides. And besides, they describe an extremely delicate and fascinating mission, told as deftly as it was ...”