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“... terms a pamphlet of mine, published in Belfast as part of a series that included Seamus Deane, Michael Longley, Derek Mahon, Stewart Parker, James Simmons, and several other Northern Irish poets whose voices were beginning to raise themselves in the mid-Sixties. To hear John Carey now, almost a quarter of a century later, go farther still along that road ...”

“... and was then struck off when I revealed that I do not lecture from a script. Perhaps it was wise to eliminate me. No doubt I should not have been able to resist John Bright’s definition of British foreign policy as ‘a gigantic system of out-relief for the British aristocracy’. 1882 is even less fertile. All I can discover is that in 1882 Charles ...”

“... the facts of ‘what really passed between them’ is doomed to failure in advance. Neither Michael Bloch’s cautious scholarship nor Osbert Sitwell’s posthumous malice will erode posterity’s obstinate penchant for romantic love. Having said that, it has to be admitted that both the volumes under review are full of historical insights of the most ...”

“... or consent, and this company has nothing to do with me whatsoever. I think that it would be wise for other writers (or their agents) to check with Companies House as to whether they too have been turned unawares into limited companies. As to what should be done next, perhaps the universally-acknowledged-to-be-reputable Withers of Goff Square might be ...”

“... have it both ways. We must recognise him as one of our own kind. As Roger Smith points out in this wise book, when we call certain murderers animals, we are really expressing our conviction and hope that a persistent and uncontrolled desire to take human life does not form part of human nature. Figures like Sutcliffe, like the ‘Greenwich murderess’ of a ...”

“... of the sexes is a necessary equilibrium not lightly to be tampered with. Victor makes many wise and humane observations on this theme. The wisdom and the decency, however, although admirable in themselves, lend to dilute and confuse what might have been a fine black comedy. ‘She was surprisingly strong for a dead woman,’ notes Victor, as he ...”

“... Erwin; Lukas, the ‘brigade leader’, an industrial worker with an appreciation of art; the wise party secretary Bergemann; even Ohm Heiners, the somewhat villainous old-school painter. On the one hand, the array of possible relationships is so great and potentially so variegated, from the neutral pool of comrade, colleague, workmate; on the other, all ...”

“... of revisionist historians to rehabilitate the myth of Camelot on the Potomac. Almost, but not yet. Michael Beschloss’s absorbing and authoritative study of US-Soviet relations from January 1961 until Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963 adds significantly to the case amassed by the demolition squad. Like many US authors, Beschloss assumes that his ...”

“... In politics, Peter Mandelson and Roger Liddle explain for the benefit of their less worldly-wise readers, ‘getting your way can require a degree of intrigue and manoeuvring.’ The straight-dealing Tony Blair would, they say, prefer that this was unnecessary and does not really ‘enjoy the modus operandi’. How very fortunate the Labour leader is, then, to be able to count on the services of one whose name has become a byword for political manipulation and deviousness ...”

“... Ladies eyes, Which makes her bark to see a Pudding creep, For creeping puddings alwayes please the Wise. Malcolm writes that a poem published in 1815 by the minor American author Henry Coggswell Knight, entitled ‘Lunar Stanzas’, has long been recognised as one of the path-breaking works of 19th-century nonsense ... Two lines in this ...”

“... inexpensive pastime known as ‘Cheating the Prophet’, which consisted simply in listening to wise men forecasting what would happen and then doing exactly the opposite. People are still quite good at playing that particular game. Whether right or wrong, however, Dr van Creveld’s prognosis is based upon an interesting and original analysis. It shares ...”

“... and in his critical notes and autobiographical essays Mamet certainly tries too hard for the wise and pithy effect. He’s always interesting, but he’s also busy being smart, and he’s hooked on the myth of the American writer as picaresque hero, the man whose life before success was all odd jobs and intimacy with the down and outs. That’s why The ...”

“... Since being acquitted of child molestation charges last summer, Michael Jackson has been hanging out in Bahrain, enjoying the hospitality of the ruler’s poptastic son Sheikh Abdullah. Jackson is said to have become a Muslim (which is sure to please his critics on Good Morning America), but evidence would suggest he has yet to get the hang of Islamic custom ...”

“... his lack of an inside, goes not only with the ability to turn his hand to anything, poetry-wise, but with his continual casual references to wife and children, objects in his life which his poetry can rightly make nothing of, although Lowell and Berryman, in their obsessive way, made so much of them. So at least one would think. Dryden also would never ...”

“... two years later when the parliamentary Conservative Party effectively staged a coup, installing Michael Howard as the sole candidate without consulting the membership. In 2007, Lib Dem members chose Nick Clegg over Chris Huhne as their leader by the narrowest of margins. Given that Huhne was to end up in jail in 2013 you might think this was the ...”