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“... or falsely ascribed to mysterious white people by racists such as Ian Smith. Hugh Seton-Watson, an anti-communist historian of Eastern Europe, claimed that decolonisation was not ‘a glorious extension of democracy, but a tragic decay of civilisation, similar to the decline of the Roman Empire, and followed by the same result, reversion to ...”

“... considered view of a serious scholar on the sense of a difficult text. This is certainly true of George Goold’s Aeneid, which I am careful to consult often and thoughtfully. Loebs are sometimes useful, too, as providing a text (of sorts) for authors not otherwise easily available, and as giving rapidly the context in, say, some long, sticky passage of ...”

“... on one side, Unitarian on the other. All three Trevelyan brothers were unbelievers, but with George it was much more than mere absence of belief, it was a creed in its own right. ‘Two terrible things have happened this week,’ he was heard to say, ‘my son has bought a motorbike and my daughter has become a Christian.’ As a young don, he was turned ...”

“... all with strong ties to entrepreneurial companies; the Democratic Senate majority leader, George Mitchell; the two heads of the Senate budget committee, James Sasser and Paul Sarbanes; and, as an apparent afterthought, one of Bourke’s summer neighbours, David Rockefeller. Getting wind of the commercial initiative, the NIH offered Venter more ...”

“... Other writers proposed include Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd and, most recently, Thomas Watson. According to a contemporary account of his death in 1593, Marlowe himself was knifed while playing backgammon. I have sometimes wondered if this detail, not found in the coroner’s report, was an embroidery inspired by Arden – or, more sinister, was ...”

“... that passing aircraft could interfere with radio reception. Less than a year later, Robert Watson-Watt demonstrated by a simple experiment in a field outside Daventry that aircraft could be detected by radio. Radar was born. Remarkably, it was only two years after this that Lindemann demonstrated to Churchill that tinfoil strips cut to a certain length ...”

“... creatures but from scientific curiosity. It is a little like the historic first meeting of Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes: Holmes, horrifically, had just been beating the corpses in the hospital dissecting-room in order to verify how far bruises might be produced after death. Democritus anatomised the animals in order to find the seat of ‘black ...”

“... the first forty years of the last century; or in the pages of Smart Set, which he edited with George Jean Nathan during the 1910s and early 1920s; or its successor, the American Mercury, which he founded with Alfred Knopf’s backing in 1923. In that mode, and on that scale, he became one of the most influential writers in America, hated by some readers ...”

“... in 1953, when, with the help of X-ray photographs taken by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick elucidated the three-dimensional structure of DNA. The DNA-based paradigm of heredity with its accompanying ‘genespeak’ was strengthened by experimental studies employing a wide range of techniques enabling DNA to be ...”

“... of the best sources for Bacon’s thinking in these years is the diary of his cousin Diana Watson, who saw him regularly in London. ‘At tea,’ she wrote, Bacon ‘said he could not get away from the Crucifixion idea – that he never really wanted to do anything else’. She referred to it as his ‘frightful Crucifixion complex’. His only ...”

“... names in the frame include Alan Beith, Vince Cable, Frank Field, Alan Haselhurst, Ann Widdecombe, George Young and, most remarkable of all, John Bercow, who many on our side favour as a way of getting back at the Tories. I should also report that one other wildly improbable name has been mentioned: moi. ‘Mr Speaker Mullin,’ Nick Robinson called as I was ...”

“... the reader wants it to be), and that the falling cherry is Grace descending. He had, I expect, George Barker’s True Confession in mind: Let Grace, like lace, descend upon me And dignify my wingless shoulder ... Come to me, Grace, and I will take You close into my wicked hands, And when you come, make no mistake, I’ll disgrace you at both ends. ‘The ...”

“... her for money and influence, and to have gone in fear of her female will. According to J. Steven Watson’s Preface – one of two excellent introductory pieces, the other being by the editor of the volume – Townshend’s customs duties led to the loss of America, and his death in 1767 concluded a train of dazzling Parliamentary feats and turns. ‘Those ...”

“... Norwood was charting the decline and fall of Carlyle’s reputation, an American enthusiast, Isaac Watson Dyer, was completing his comprehensive Bibliography of Thomas Carlyle’s Writings. The multi-volume Duke-Edinburgh edition of the Collected Letters owes a great deal to the American Carlyle scholar and founding editor C.R. Sanders. The new Strouse Carlyle ...”

“... 1929 the Dial ceased publication. Of the two owners, one was mad and the other, James Sibley Watson, a rich philanthropist, had new interests. Marianne, who wasn’t pleased, chose to describe the decision as ‘largely chivalry’ on their part: ‘I didn’t have time for work of my own,’ she told ...”