“... called Tim Beauchamp: ‘The links on this page are a mishmash of eclectic destinations that may be of interest to you. Actually, they may only be of interest to Tim but what the heck. It is his site!’) Lesser men might have considered that a bad omen, but Larry and Sergey are not bad-omen kind of guys. Just over ...”

“... their mock at our accursed lot.If we must die, o let us nobly die,So that our precious blood may not be shedIn vain; then even the monsters we defyShall be constrained to honour us though dead!O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!What though before us lies the ...”

“... was allowed to return to Chile. But Britain’s sense of pioneering rectitude, justified though it may be, has tended to eclipse the role of the Chilean judiciary. In particular, it is widely believed in this country that it was only our extradition process which finally kickstarted legal proceedings against Pinochet in his home country. In fact, in addition ...”

“... is proved right. This Pixar animation seems to be a political fable. The daycare centre may be taken to represent the public realm, the polity, and Andy the private realm, the family; the cowboy is the hero because he stands for family values. But why make the hero a cowboy? Boys may still play with toy ...”

“... require proof of scienter (knowingly fraudulent intent); it seems too that the attorney general may not even have to show that losses were caused by the bank’s behaviour. Nicholas Thompson, writing in Legal Affairs in 2004, reported that those questioned under the Martin Act have no automatic right to have a lawyer present and that the Fifth Amendment ...”

“... which six Syrian MiGs were shot down; in a further humiliation, IDF jets flew over Damascus. On 12 May, Yitzhak Rabin, the chief of staff, threatened to invade Syria. An Israeli-Syrian war looked imminent. The following day, Nasser received intelligence from the Soviets that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border. This wasn’t true, but the Syrians ...”

“... is the first person I’ve spoken to who is actually looking forward to the Olympics.2 May. Jeremy Hunt has the look of an estate agent waiting to show someone a property.10 May, Rome. I sit in Rome airport while R. stands by the baggage carousel. We’re only here for four days, and did either of us have bags on ...”

“... more referred to than read. Its title, together with the generalised sense of ‘Whig history’, may have entered the language, but beyond having a vague awareness that Whiggish history is, in the terms used by another historical classic of the same vintage, a Bad Thing, many of us might struggle to state Butterfield’s argument any more precisely, and ...”

“... part of the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme, and thus are part of a microcosm of what may become a worldwide carbon market. One doesn’t usually think of universities as big carbon dioxide emitters, but the capacity at two of Edinburgh’s three highly efficient combined heat and power centres pushes them over the 20 megawatt threshold of ...”

“... strange old books and ornaments brought from the old country. They know the words of old songs. It may even be that second-generation immigrants, feeling discriminated against, misunderstood and rejected by America, seek to immerse themselves in the culture and ideals of their parents’ homeland, fabricating a hybrid identity for themselves based on an ...”

“... since these are not finite possessions but transferable gifts that can grow and change. The ego may be founded on wave upon wave of reactions and violences of which it is only partially aware, but it is also founded on words, and words can be the communicants of gentle relationships between people and nations as well as violent ones. You might feel ...”

“... last boy vanishes,A blazer half-on, through the rigid trees.This isn’t quite cricket. We may approve the orderly syllable count, but the rhymes are playing truant. The vignette resembles the ‘lovely innocent countrysides’ Auden would later imagine, which allow for the possibility of ‘the sudden intrusion of a horrid corpse onto the tennis court ...”

“... the ketchup factory that the residents of Rainbow Centre can’t ignore during the summer months may seem an expressionist touch, but it corresponds to the conditions of life in Bowling Green, the town on which Purdy based it.Again Snyder hails the bravery involved: ‘The topic of same-sex love and desire was edgy for a novel published nine years before the ...”

“... evil, full of deadly poison.’ Dabhoiwala points out that the saying ‘while sticks and stones may break my bones, words can never hurt me’ is first recorded only in 1862, but the contrary sentiment, ‘the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones,’ is found in the Book of Ecclesiastes. The dangers to individuals and to society were considered so great ...”

“... and hit ‘return’. Almost instantaneously, a list of links will appear. To find them, you may have to scroll past a bit of clutter – ads and, these days, an ‘AI Overview’ – but even if your query is obscure, and mine often are, it’s nevertheless quite likely that one of the links on your screen will take you to what you’re looking ...”