“... white slatted blinds. It’s the best I could do. Some lack of courage – I wouldn’t want to be thought extreme – has prevented me from having a white bedstead and side tables. They are wood, and they annoy me a little. Opposite my bed, in the very small room, a wall of mirrored cupboards reflects the whiteness back at itself, making it twice the size ...”

“... to dwell on. This is an EU member-state a large part of which is under long-standing occupation by a foreign army. Behind tanks and artillery, a population of settlers has been planted that is relatively more numerous than the settlers on the West Bank, without a flicker of protest from the Council or Commission. From its territory are further subtracted ...”

“... fundamental way.1 They had thought it a Third World society among others, ready for liberation by guerrilla uprisings, in the towns or in the mountains. The paradox they had failed to grasp was that although the Turkey of the time was indeed ‘a relatively backward country economically … and socially’ – with a per capita GNP similar to that of ...”

“... mother, who is serving a life sentence for his father’s murder, James visited Millbank Prison by the Thames: ‘a worse act of violence’, he called it, ‘than any it was erected to punish’. Hyacinth is accompanied by the dressmaker who has been looking after him. ‘If the place,’ James wrote, ‘had seemed cruel ...”

“... 14 years, the Workers’ Party (PT) has been comprehensively repudiated and its survival may now be in doubt. Lula, the most popular ruler in Brazilian history, has been incarcerated by Moro and awaits further jail sentences. His successor, evicted from office midway through her second term, is a virtual outcast, reduced ...”

“... of delicate domestic negotiations. (‘Sorry, could you do the school run tomorrow? I’ll be knackered: it’s DR Congo v. Uzbekistan at 12.30 a.m., which could well be decisive.’) It is a global soap opera with a cast of geographically varying heroes and villains and imperishable stereotypes, and we check back in ...”

“... morning on Tuesday, 31 August 2021, the consultant in charge of Martha told us he had been alarmed by her condition when she arrived and wasn’t prepared to sign a death certificate. In such situations, the case is reported to a coroner and a postmortem arranged.Nine hours earlier, Merope and I had been in the ambulance that sped north through the city to ...”

“... in which the organisation is unmistakeably close to breakdown. In universe one, the NHS will be upturned to give most of the healthcare people need at home or on their doorstep and admit to the big hospitals only patients with major trauma, or suffering diseases that demand intensive care, or complex surgical or biochemical expertise. Big hospitals are ...”