“... in meaning. In Language, Truth and Logic (published in 1936), Ayer maintained that what appears to be a moral assertion (e.g. ‘Stealing money is wrong’) ‘expresses no proposition which can be either true or false’. Such sentences are unverifiable and hence meaningless, for the central tenet of his logical positivism ...”

“... forces in the one case, and to avoid any concessions about the way the coal industry was to be restructured in the other. Moreover, the electorate was much more impressed by the Falklands campaign than by the coal strike: for all the talk of ‘the enemy within’, the citizenry ...”

“... brought tensions out into the open and revealed the “undeclared civil war” which would need to be resolved in the 20th century.’ It is, perhaps, a curious notion that there could be any time when it would be ‘a good thing’ for a country to experience a racking political scandal ...”

“... that morning, in an odd mood I couldn’t explain other than to say, lamely, that I was sorry to be leaving Finnmark, I had left the borrowed lakeside cabin where I’d been staying and decided to go for one last walk along a not at all hazardous eight-mile trail about thirty miles east of Kautokeino. I had all the right gear, or most of it – layers of ...”

“... Spring have come to an end. The counter-revolution, Régis Debray once observed, is revolutionised by the revolution. And so it has been. In Syria, protests have degenerated into sectarian warfare, fomented by a thuggish ruling clique that seems ready to bring the entire country down with it. In Yemen, President Saleh has ...”

“... as one of Belloc’s Cautionary Tales, a bouncy fellow demanding his tea and laying plans ‘to be/the next Prime Minister but three’. But the mind’s eye can be wrong – Johnson’s biographer, Andrew Gimson, records that Boris was a quiet boy who had hearing difficulties – and it may ...”

“... a significant anniversary; it is 350 years since the final version of the book was authorised by Parliament in 1662. It comes hard on the heels of the quatercentenary celebrations last year for another milestone of Stuart English prose composition, the King James Bible, and although I was surprised by the large amount ...”

“... the locals all assumed he was a gangster. ‘They think any Russian who drives a Lexus has to be mafia. The whole gangster thing was way back, in the 1990s, but they can’t believe Russian immigrants could make it by just working hard.’ Eddie, it has to be said, looks like a ...”

“... MPs, the honorand of universities. He was Britain’s first literary celebrity, at least to judge by the throng that hailed him outside Berwick as he journeyed to Scotland on foot in 1618 – though he went not for charity, as he might today, but (it seems) for a bet. His early reputation is now a surprise. His poems, though frequently studied in ...”

“... the project twice, in the 1970s and 1990s, and slowed it down again in 2009: it was supposed to be finished in time for the Olympics, then budget cuts forced the completion date forward to 2018. Now, at least, construction is irreversibly underway, despite general indignation over the disruption it’s caused and who stands to benefit most from it – the ...”

“... from London. Assembly elections were taking place in India – they have been taking place, phase by phase, since the beginning of April – and there would be new governments in at least some states. In most states there is a shift in control every five or ten years; the non-ideological alliances of compromise and mutual ...”

“... necessity of some of the matériel in his admittedly fabulous argumentative armamentarium. I’ll be jiggered if I survive death on Johnston’s terms; I don’t know whether he holds out much hope for himself. And his success won’t please anyone who believes in anything supernatural. Any conception of God as essentially a supernatural being is idolatry in ...”

“... to replace Mubarak, the SCAF was forced instead to co-operate with the ministry to avert chaos. By the summer of 2012, it was ready to hand over government to anyone who seemed reasonably capable, so long as they pledged to respect the military’s status. The Muslim Brotherhood was the most plausible candidate. Its familiar willingness to appease whoever ...”

“... to the (very slightly) variant worlds when she dies in them, but then how would this information be conveyed? It’s a religious problem more than one of narrative technique. At some points, though, Ursula sacrifices herself for others, which would be an empty act if the world she was leaving ceased to exist. The cosmology ...”

“... until you have a substantive conception of the natural in relation to which something can be classified as non-natural. I do have one: I take it that concrete reality – anything that exists in space-time – is entirely physical. I’m a physicalist naturalist, and I think metaphysical naturalism is the same thing as physicalism as I’ve just ...”