“... not give a damn? Perhaps the question is: should we? Maybe it is a sign of maturity and inner self-confidence to be the first nation in Europe not to need a national anthem/flag/dress/history/myth of origins. We meant the Act of Union, even if the Scotch did not (and before anyone writes in to complain about ‘Scotch/Scots’ etc, read the entry under ...”

“... Sometimes the way in which a football team comports itself on the pitch is a question of national self-image. The Brazilian team, which qualified for the second round by winning all its first-round matches, did so amid a storm of protest at what was seen, by Brazilian pundits and spectators, as the team’s un-Brazilian approach – too cautious, too ...”

“... that she is writing poetry: Rouse remembers it too dutifully. Several of her poems are stiff and self-conscious. ‘M3’, for instance, about the motorway (she lives in London) begins: Mean as a length of flex, it snubs the B road, Disliking breakdown and hiker, impedimenta This sounds like everyone else; worse, it announces itself, with comical ...”

“... ideological construct, ‘parents’. In modern Conservative thinking parents are indignant, self-confident, active proponents of a no-nonsense (probably Christian) education; are, in fact, rather like Baroness Blatch. Parents are, therefore, allowed to be elected as school governors and to make decisions. But most parents are not like Baroness ...”

“... has always been a classic Modernist, committed to an exemplary Modernist programme of narrative self-doubting, tricksy uncertainty-mongering, caginess, the unsettling of readers – what Finnegans Wake knows as HeCitEncy, hesitation about citing. And Ghosts keeps up the old Modernist ways. ‘Here they are. There are seven of them. Or better say, hall a ...”

“... gave to Department of Trade investigators who asked him about bribes. When he tried his customary, self-denigrating flannel, an inspector interrupted: That’s no answer.’ Tiny snapped: ‘It’s my business. That is my answer.’ Rowland’s vendetta with established British capitalists cracked open previously impenetrable bunkers of secret ...”

“... themselves, helping each other with the earnest discussion of books and philosophy that marks the self-taught: rather like Leonard Bast. They were pretty and lively and – once they had recovered from Bert – they got married, mostly to teachers, or returned to existing marriages and settled down with apparent content into a station of life only modestly ...”

“... ways of defining our obligations. All trade-union leaderships run the risk of degenerating into self-serving oligarchies, more concerned with defending their empires than with considering the long-term interests of their members. In the present dispute the AUT, like all unions, insists on the sanctity of national bargaining and uniform salary scales. But ...”

“... dined with Mr Heath, one wonders? Francis Pym is criticised for ‘publishing a bitter book of self-justification’ immediately after being sacked as Foreign Secretary. That opinion would not survive even a cursory reading of The Politics of Consent. Yet Mr Horne is generally pretty fair, and he even sides with Macmillan over ‘the little local ...”

“... undecidable. Rudolf, while acknowledging that the story is centrally concerned with doubt and self-doubt, nevertheless feels he has to take sides, and accordingly dismisses the judgment of Porbus and Poussin; where they see nothing (‘there is nothing on his canvas’), he sees avant la lettre the shapes and textures of Giacometti and de Kooning. This ...”

“... and The New Atalantis (1709), with passages of factual commentary, she offered a counterfeit self-portrait of a woman whose true identity might best be represented as a series of fictional impostures. Irene von Treskow’s cover illustration confirmed the sense of life as performance: ‘Manley’, disguised in the black robes of a ...”

“... Libyan adventure of 1912, an essay which combines patriotic fervour with a deep intelligence and self-questioning. Like so many others he died and disappeared, his work now virtually unknown except to a few fellow bibliophiles: had he lived, he would probably have disappeared in any case into middle-aged obscurity, the state of resignation which, as he found ...”

“... today, especially for so conventional a figure as Major. Only Thatcher’s genuine passion for self-made men, together with the acute shortage of loyal Thatcherites of real ability, would have launched him on the fast track of promotion which took him, in little more than a decade, from first election as an MP via two of the great offices of state, to 10 ...”

“... even to the utmost that complete devotedness can possibly devise! ... She is utterly regardless of self, and patient under all the misery she suffers, because they are inflicted by him, yet devoted still. Completely wrapped up in him, she meekly endures any and every torture he inflicts! Except that Fowler was a male confirming expected female behaviour, and ...”

“... to foresee that Israel might characteristically conclude that aggression was the best form of self-defence. This opened up the possibility of a collision between the war plans of the anti-Egyptian powers. But whatever the Hooknoses were up to, how could General Sir Charles Keightley, as Allied Commander-in-Chief, apparently possess privileged knowledge of ...”