“... of infidels and Jews and determined to conquer the West, a civilisation gone soft, weakened by self-doubt, political correctness bordering on treason, and, worst of all, a ‘culture of denial’. Gilbert spells it out: In the 1930s, the danger of Nazism was there . . . but people thought, well, this is a German problem, it’s a limited problem ...”

“... of Rothko’s statements is now, and probably always was, an act of faith that requires a sort of self-hypnosis. ‘Red on Maroon’ (1959), section four of the Seagram mural. The series that dominates the exhibition, the Seagram murals, arose from a commission for paintings to line the walls of a private dining-room in the Four Seasons restaurant in ...”

“... it has taken over the slightly older Passmore Edwards Library next door. Passmore Edwards, a self-educated social reformer and newspaper proprietor, provided money for the gallery – he had funded other, similar buildings. He wanted his name on this one. Henrietta Barnett, the driving force behind the project, objected and what would, it seems, have ...”

“... runs until 5 April at the Val-de-Grâce military hospital in Paris. It is a cautious, self-regarding show about lives led in the Legion and famous legionnaires. As you’d expect, grizzled ex-Nazis flushing out the Viet Minh along the Red River Delta are downplayed. The Legion’s stars include the poet Blaise Cendrars, who joined in 1914, and the ...”

“... more persuasively to us from the margins of the technological landscape.’ In the catalogue Will Self writes of Ballard’s ability to see the nature of what has grown up around us: ‘Bleak man-made landscapes, technological, social and environmental developments and their psychological effects – these are aspects of the dystopian society we all live in ...”

“... manifestations, because they are so humble, so daily, because people don’t use them as a form of self-definition, and because the differences between them are real: a Crunchie is not just a differently packaged Mars bar – it’s a genuinely different thing. Consumers will have sincerely held differing opinions about their merits. Added to this is the fact ...”

“... under the footage of Boyle’s triumph. YouTube, you could say, is the depot for international self-realisation. Danny MacAskill, a young guy in Edinburgh who can do brilliant tricks on his mountain bike, gets himself filmed and somebody sticks it up on YouTube. Three million views. The young guy’s a legend. Andy McKee, a man who picks and slaps his ...”

“... on themes from Hogarth, which included some wonderful late flourishes, role-playing (many are self-portraits) and memorable images. The florid iconography and symbolism of the Café Deutschland series spills over into the late works, but without the political imperative the vitality somehow dwindles. One of the most striking paintings in the Ashmolean ...”

“... merit, most of them gratuitously concerned with the Second World War and so helping to sustain the self-justifying national myth: Women of the Second World War, Animals in War, Bomber Command etc. Then there is the Armed Forces Memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, unveiled in 2007: an impressive circular structure in which a diluted ...”

“... asymmetry that fractured the psychological monotony, touching some faultline in his subject’s self-possession. He must surely be a fool – this guileless, posh young Londoner, this obverse of Ingres’s Monsieur Bertin – to allow himself to be so immobilised. See how, in his slouch, his figure balloons away from that absurd little apex of a head, his ...”

“... budgets to individual GP practices); the replacement of health authorities by ‘NHS trusts’ (self-governing accounting centres with borrowing powers, and their own finance, human resources and PR departments) and the splitting of purchasers from providers (the planning and delivery of services was to be undertaken by separate bodies, with the money ...”

“... side two). But the sense of time slipping away is perhaps best expressed – with anger, despair, self-deflating bathos – in the refrain of ‘Girl Loves Me’: ‘Where the fuck did Monday ...”

“... of what went wrong was blunt: ‘Civil servants are by their nature cautious. There is collective self-discipline and people wanting an easy life and becoming morally and intellectually lazy, so they just do what the minister wants.’ Now, of course, that minister is Boris Johnson, a man who has written of the ‘watermelon smiles’ of Congolese ‘tribal ...”

“... any discernible paperwork. I have never met anyone more blithe about the contrast between their self-image and the facts of their life. He sees himself as an entrepreneur bringing a much needed service to market. He is helping people realise their dreams – it just so happens that these dreams involve extra-legal measures. Others see him as the villainous ...”

“... but before the camera sees her above water she has turned into another person: her grown-up self, swimming in a different latitude. She is Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), from Spectre, now living happily with a retired Bond in Jamaica. I’m not sure what to make of this shift of twenty years or so between shots, but it’s certainly memorable, and ...”