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“... excavators to turn the Macedonian military chief into a Hellenic philosopher-king. Among those who have studied Andronikos’s finds there is widespread agreement on only two points. One is that the site at Vergina represents the ancient city of Aegae, the original capital and ceremonial centre of the Macedonian state, making the huge earthen mound at the ...”

“... that married a knobby knot in the planking. How long I’d been down and out was anybody’s guess; I’d guess an hour or more by the state of my suit, a foul rag-bag, by the state of my hair, a patty-cake, of my own ripe keck, unless it was the keck of Sandy Traill or Blind Harry, my friends in drink that night, that ...”

“... but its primary function to a man like Rutherford was to confirm what his powerful intuition could guess by analogy. With quantum mechanics and its immediate offshoot of quantum field theory an entirely new outlook was demanded: electrons and protons ceased being real in the sense they were before. They must surely represent something which exists out there ...”

“... The scent of jasmine fills the air. It has been filling the air every night for the last month, I guess. Which is how you know the season is changing in this country. In this country the bougainvillaea blooms against our walls and windows all the year round. The lizards dart out from under the stones and back in again ...”

“... we’re long past that. What happens when the BBC’s charter comes up for renewal is anybody’s guess. I would place no reliance on the word of the fragrant Tessa Jowell, who keeps rattling the charter, then pretending she hasn’t. She needs to be watched: she may be a weasel in talcum powder. One person ...”

“... looks American. But these are ancient faces, and if we haven’t looked at the script, we wonder who they are. Just locals, perhaps, toothless villagers there to fill out the neo-realist setting. Well, some of them are, but three of them are the Magi, as we learn when they start to talk. Soon they trot off to the semi-cave where Joseph and Mary live, deposit ...”

“... will be with you shortly.’Mr Damien has excellent posture and he reminds me very much of Tim, who doesn’t work here.I had pangs.When Mr Damien arrived, we talked for more than a quarter of an hour about my new stint to check in freight shipments.The good thing is that my new job is nine to five, since I slow down at five.The sight of Mr Damien parting ...”

“... localisation by neural imaging for which the Times is especially enthusiastic; and I’d guess that as the Times goes, so go the grants. It particularly likes those polychrome maps that show a place in the brain that’s red when you’re thinking about one thing and green when you’re thinking about something else. (Disappointingly, I gather it’s ...”

“... as The Little House Books: the first Tea Party favourites to join its ranks. Rose Wilder Lane, who wrote the books with her mother, intended them to be a defence of ‘the self-reliant, the independent, the courageous man’ whom she saw ‘penalised from every direction’, but especially by the New Deal, which was ‘killing what, to me, is the American ...”

“... and as a ‘real’ journalist, and even for a time appeared as a reporter for TV’s Panorama. I guess that over the years he must have published more than a quarter of a million words. Enough for a book? That remains to be seen. So far, the message seems to be that five one-thousand-word pieces on five separate novels by Saul Bellow don’t actually add up ...”

“... dark cave where they get close to actors they can recognise. Back in Room One, this was the man who grasped the table and boggled with the shock. Which of them is Caravaggio? He and his friends are pulling all the faces. If I had seen his wife and child before I saw his happiness, his face would not have struck me so. A truth to content you. In the shape of ...”

“... The second is the surprisingly numerous group of foreign nationals, mainly in Eastern Europe, who have mortgages denominated in the Swissie rather than in their own currencies. Fun fact: 37 per cent of all Polish household debt is held in Swiss francs. If zloty interest rates are highish and volatile, and Swiss interest rates are crazy-low and famously ...”

“... could do that. Besides, we were in a state called New York, where only bees made sense. Those who were with us were not with us and deserved a spanking. Others, looking out over the bay’s mild waters could barely distinguish a message made of logs: ‘Return to the frontier or all is lost, though in time some may reap the benefit and glory of a frozen ...”

“... I think it was P.G. Wodehouse who observed that the English strike Americans as funny when they are just being English. Similarly, philosophers strike the laity as funny when they are just being philosophers, and that makes it hard to be as funny about them as they are when they’re left to their own devices. But Michael Frayn is among the honoured few who have succeeded ...”

“... The secret policeman​ who met me off the plane was charming, black and experienced. His declared name was Carlos. ‘We are so glad that you are giving your son to the Revolution, Dr Sinclair.’ ‘If it is a son.’ ‘He will be. And he will fight for the Revolution.’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘For the Revolution ...”