“... asking a question, or giving an order, or making a correction overlooked in recent conversation, may do so, and the charge is twopence halfpenny.’ The directors of the London Telephone Company were hoping to provide a similar service. The term ‘kiosk’ drew at once on a faint association with the Turkish pavilion or summerhouse, and more palpably on the ...”

“... at around Libor (that is, after all, what Libor means); if you are particularly well regarded, it may be possible to borrow at a rate a tiny bit lower than Libor. So you could borrow at Libor or below, buy a tranche that seemed safer than safe, and from it earn a slender spread over Libor. It looked like free money. It was especially tempting to traders whose ...”

“... 1989, ‘is clearly compatible with inequality in both wealth and income, and, in some measure, it may be dependent on such inequality.’ By the time the Berlin Wall came down that November, almost every Latin American country had returned to some form of constitutional rule. Manuel Noriega held out in Panama, but he was dispatched a month later by US troops ...”

“... citizens then, or silver surfers. If you had a bus pass or a pension, you were old. Younger people may not now hear the echo of ‘old age’ when the pension is mentioned, and I’ve noticed sales assistants flinching when I announce I have an ‘old person’s’ rather than a ‘senior citizen’s’ railcard. The state retirement age is going to change in ...”

“... associated with aquatic animals come with a chill.) ‘To the extent that culture and language may actually affect perception, thought and cognition,’ Horacio Fabrega and Stephen Tyma wrote in 1976, ‘then to that extent they may also affect the actual experience of pain.’ In the West, when the humoral theory of ...”

“... at last!” said Alice in a tone of delight, which changed into alarm in another moment.’ She may well be privy to a secret Carroll confided to his diary in 1855: ‘There is, I verily believe, a sensation of pain in the realisation of our highest pleasures, knowing that now they must soon be over; we had rather prolong anticipation by postponing ...”

“... when in reality he was just a biddable grafter like the rest. Is it possible that such critiques may rest on not having actually read much of Burke? Certainly Berlin, in his generous way, conceded in a correspondence with O’Brien that ‘I really should not argue with you about Burke. I know virtually nothing about him except what most people know – the ...”

“... properties to the government. What’s more, no information regarding property titles may be disclosed, so claimants can’t even begin to avail themselves of the nominal restoration of 1986. Such seemingly technical administrative measures have sufficed to prevent the opening of any new church (Armenian or otherwise), synagogue or non-Muslim ...”

“... isn’t reassuring, quite apart from the ‘unfortunate erotic crisis’, undergone recently, that may account for the exemplary snugness of his leather trousers. ‘“Deke used to be an art critic,” Darleen said. He waved one hand dismissively. “Just for the prison newsletter.”’ Deke criticises everything in the house – no steaks or ice cream in ...”

“... Minimum of 1645-1715, both linked to global cooling. Changing ocean currents and temperatures may also have contributed. Then there is human activity. Hubert Lamb argued not only that our ancestors probably experienced climate change but that they may, in part, have caused it. The palaeoclimatologist William Ruddiman ...”

“... and this has required them to emphasise the uniqueness of its misdoings. Even so, history may supply some useful parallels.The shock of the pandemic has exposed some uncomfortable truths about the modern British state: its vast emergency powers, but also its unpreparedness for the unexpected, its scope for inefficiency under lax leadership, and its ...”

“... our MPs merely put in for duck-houses, moat-clearance and jumbo TV sets). And as anti-Zionism may often disguise anti-Semitism, so Europhobia proves a handy disguise for wider xenophobia. But of course it wasn’t just the press. Few prime ministers in the years since Edward Heath signed us into the EEC have found it either natural or politically ...”

“... saying that though current restrictions make mounting any TV programmes difficult, he thinks it may be possible to do a new version of the Talking Heads monologues from 1988. Nick is ringing me (needlessly) for my permission. He comes round later and we thrash out some of the details in a conversation with him standing on the other side of the street.10 ...”

“... but the person you are writing to, but which yet you do not want to be destroyed, but perhaps hope may be preserved for complete strangers to read, is ineradicable. We want to confess ourselves in writing to a few friends, and we do not always want to feel that no one but those friends will ever read what we have written.Desire for privacy, hope for ...”

“... the army, but between them is all the difference there is between an NCO and an officer – which may remind us of Gottfried Benn’s remark that during the Nazizeit joining the army was the only elegant form of ‘inner emigration’. So it was that long after the war an aristocratic Wehrmacht clung to the self-serving myth that the crimes and excesses of ...”