“... all the main parties are soon going to be in severe financial difficulty. The Labour Party may even have to sack a few press officers. The Hayden Phillips review of party funding, commissioned by Blair in order to get the press off his back, is due to report in December. Phillips has made a big deal of opening up the discussion of options – state ...”

“... football tournaments: the Republic of Ireland’s nil-nil draw with Liechtenstein in the mid 1990s may have been a low point, but the RTE commentator was happy enough to inform us that there were 20 people signing on in the entire country. Other interesting facts: Liechtenstein is now the only absolute monarchy in Europe, after its king decided he was bored ...”

“... Egyptian things still close packed in crowded cases was a reminder that, while a new environment may draw you in, it is the things themselves that keep you coming back. Acquisitiveness, curiosity, the pursuit of knowledge, aesthetic pleasure: these are enough to explain why some things were collected. They don’t always explain why we want to go and look at ...”

“... money made the country seem ridiculous and exhausted. The 1990s don’t yet have a mood. They may forever be defined by the style they preceded, what Martin Amis, rather horrifically, called Horrorism. Others may see it as a last golden age of selling the silver and weeping over Diana and burning the dead cows, a ...”

“... Chris Ofili, ‘Mono Amarillo’ (1999-2002) A shrine may be personal, private, even secret. It is a place where votive objects (models of limbs, figures, charms) are collected, where sacrifices are made, where curious memorials, fading flowers, dishes of food, are left. Here gods are propitiated, saints appealed to, spirits appeased ...”

“... psychological effects – these are aspects of the dystopian society we all live in now. Ballard may have started out as a science fiction writer, but his texts now read as social fact.’ When you pick up the daily paper and read of casual violence on a run-down estate or see plans for a new road, hypermarket or runway, it is easy to feel Ballardian ...”

“... to drink from, hats are to wear. In an art gallery, where the relevance of the use such objects may once have had is diminished, the question ‘What is it for?’ seems obtuse. The function of works of art is, on the whole, to be splendidly themselves. Yet ask the question of the 17th-century Spanish religious paintings and polychrome sculptures that are ...”

“... and central government. Meanwhile, Lansley, having stood down as an MP before the election in May, has been given a peerage and hired as a consultant to Bain & Company, which, according to its website, ‘helps leading healthcare companies work on the full spectrum of strategy, operations, organisation and mergers and acquisitions’. The appointment at ...”

“... when he leaves office. Cotton’s letter was characteristically pedantic (‘the president may serve only two four-year terms, whereas senators may serve an unlimited number of six-year terms’) and condescending (‘we hope this letter enriches your knowledge of our constitutional system’). The response of ...”

“... to another requires a large and not dissimilar range of decisions or, slender as the distinction may be, choices, in order to deliver the poem, still breathing, into a different language, culture and often era. There is a large and fascinating literature about the act and art of translation, often described metaphorically, as by Christopher Middleton: ‘The ...”

“... 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 ...”