“... But there were no beds available and he was seen as an out-patient every day until his trial on 3 May, at which point a bed was found for him in Dulwich North Hospital. He was remanded on bail on condition that he went to hospital – if a bed had not become available he would have gone to prison. There have been several cases recently in which High Court ...”

“... I am afraid this may prove rather a gossipy Inaugural Lecture but I feel it is the main thing I have to offer on this occasion. I could talk, instead, about my theoretical books, which have been mainly about double meanings in literature, and the mechanics of how they have a literary effect: but I haven’t found that that has much to do with teaching literature, in my experience so far, so it is perhaps not very relevant here ...”

“... not uncommon, of that boundary becoming blurred or even disappearing, an experience that may hold a clue to the feeling, also not uncommon, that Wagner’s work is in some sense not altogether good for us.Respecting boundaries was not Wagner’s thing. Transgression he took in his stride – stealing other men’s wives when he needed them, spending ...”

“... who looks not long out of school himself, polishes off the whole sequence in a couple of hours. 10 May. Filling a pot with water to take a huge bunch of peonies L. has sent for my birthday I slip on the wet flags and fall down three or four of the stone steps into the area. It’s a fall long enough for me to think, ‘This is quite serious,’ as it’s going ...”

“... I like white coats. But then I’m a butcher’s son. White coats have no terrors for me. 1 May. Home, and my first outing is to the local community centre to vote against the dreadful Boris. I wear an overcoat over my pyjamas, something I’d never have the face to do if I was well. But I’ve been ill, I think, and now I’m getting better. Home to a ...”

“... start on the question of what a poem, as distinct from any other sort of proposition or utterance, may have to tell us, or show us, about violence.Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye,In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied onesAppear and disappear in the blue depth of the skyWith all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stones,And ...”

“... and issues no passports. This swirling, uplifting work (its oak kept young and vital by varnish) may also realise Brancusi’s sole intention, ‘to bring joy’, and he’s abetted by its accessibility, a vexing issue in regard to Modernism’s afterlife. How often is Ulysses read beyond the classroom? Have you ever noticed how most museum-goers don’t ...”

“... We may be that generation that sees Armageddon.Ronald Reagan, 1980 My brother, my bright twin, Prochorus, I think his bright future’s been wrecked. When we’ve both got our lives before us he’s gone and joined this weird sect. He sits in a cave with his guru, a batty old bugger called John and scribbles on scrolls stuff to scare you while the rabbi goes rabbiting on ...”

“... the knowledge of flowers and herbs, and ritual surgery. The regime is strict. The dance mistress may use shock techniques on novices, waking them in the middle of the night and ordering them to dance, or forcing them to stay awake for two days and nights, dancing all the time. It’s tough, but not as tough as being a Mende child. Mende children have such a ...”

“... to believe that their love was not physical as well as spiritual, but Sox cites evidence that Ned may have cared more for the concept of homosexuality than for its actual practice. He certainly enjoyed talking about it in the abstract, engaging in long-winded discussions about the purity of ‘Uranian love’, to use his favourite term for it. He liked to ...”

“... novice charmer to lead women into loss and loneliness for their spiritual betterment, so that they may surpass Héloïse in their outcries. Although, like the companion piece on Don Juan’s childhood, the poem isn’t altogether uncritical, it remains at best absurd, at worst repulsive. It is a poeticised rendering of the old idea that unhappiness is a more ...”

“... died war-related deaths (by killing, disease, or starvation) during these dreadful years. This may be a bit high (Sir William Petty put the number at between a quarter and a third), but Carlton plausibly argues that even in England a higher percentage of the population died in the civil wars than died in Flanders during the First World War. Carlton’s ...”

“... clothes. So, as the blurb explains, there is ‘a second, subversive message. “Bad” women may get their comeuppance in the final scenes, but the bulk of the film shows them enjoying careers, sex, mink and jewels.’ Basinger points out the amazing importance of fashion in these films: actresses had to wear a different costume for every scene, and in ...”

“... something of a conventional piety among Irish middle-class liberals at home and abroad. The novel may end on a note of nostalgia for the high hopes of a long-buried era, but it found precious little to approve in that epoch when it was examining it a few hundred pages earlier. Rita’s husband is an identikit revolutionary zealot, conveniently two-dimensional ...”

“... be a devastating blow at freedom of speech, a disgraceful manifestation of bigotry and fanaticism. May it never happen. Now some less dramatic thoughts about Mr Rushdie’s predicament. His situation is not unique. It is, sadly, shared by many others. His life has been threatened, he has been ‘sentenced to death’ – although the word ‘sentence’ has ...”