“... of our century. Perhaps, too, there is a suspicion – unworthy? – that bound up with Hans’s self-denying ordinance was a distinct cultural bias. Gallic music, Gallic culture generally, was not his scene. I have referred earlier to his conservatism, and surely part of the abstention from Debussy had its roots in an Austro-German tradition which found it ...”

“... to such a level that even the Tories themselves are interspersing their frenzies of patronage and self-aggrandisement with calls for moderation and integrity in public office, rather as the inveterate drunk forswears all alcohol during a hangover. The corruption of this long era of Conservative rule extends beyond personal venality. Though loudly committed to ...”

“... mean totally different things). I don’t want to imply either that this awareness constitutes a self-evident argument in our favour or that we set out to find a compromise between two opposed extremes. Admittedly, I would have been as worried if all our recommendations had been unreservedly welcomed by the Police Federation as if they had all been ...”

“... of Internal Affairs. Alhaji Lateef Jakande, a minister in the last civilian government and a self-proclaimed democrat, became Minister of Works and Housing. Dr Olu Onagoruwa, a constitutional lawyer of otherwise impeccable credentials, became Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. Onagoruwa’s participation was the most perplexing since he had made ...”

“... only by jiggering about with the ‘his’ in its title; a sometimes obsessional liking for self-administered enemas; above all, that curious cartoon-like balloon that seems to hover above the heads of the Gurney family bearing the words, ‘Ah, what we could tell you should we but choose!’ Ronald preceded his opinion about Iron Discipline with the ...”

“... and a ‘dowdy trollop’. Hazlitt can, and did, look after himself. He was a spiky, awkward, self-absorbed man: total frankness was his forte – ‘I say what I think; I think what I feel.’ Though he was, in the opinion of his friends, ‘substantially insane’ during his three-year infatuation with Sarah, he picked himself off the floor, got married ...”

“... the social pleasures except conversation … inflexible, unforgiving … secretive … obsessively self-regarding’. It’s as well to have it over in the first paragraph. As Baudrillard puts it, ‘There are those who let the dead bury the dead, and there are those who are forever digging them up to finish them off.’The editors’ introduction highlights ...”

“... dominant rhetoric, Grossman presents us with a nation that appears – from its violent, stubborn, self-defeating behaviour – to be hell-bent on destroying itself. No nation, no democracy can live without illusions. If Grossman is right in the link he makes between the state’s ills and those of its children, it is to Israel’s youth – its pride – that ...”

“... gesture even, and the honour of the Italian male impugned. The wound I have received is virtually self-inflicted, an entirely proper response to an insult to Italian manhood for which a blow on the skull with a length of steel scaffolding is perfectly appropriate. We had been cruising; it was our own fault. That there was no truth in this assumption I ...”

“... Map Two follows the sequence of Israeli transfers of West Bank territory to Palestinian self-rule between 1994 and 1999. Map Three gives a detailed picture of the West Bank after the second Israeli redeployment earlier this year. The current demographic status of annexed East Jerusalem can be seen on Map Four. A breakdown of land expropriations in ...”

“... review of her dancing partner’s character – ‘not respected … resented … rude and too self-regarding’. Nureyev’s sister, Rosa, and best friend, Tamara Zakrzhevskaya, tried to see what was going on through a slightly open door, until someone saw them and ‘kicked’ the door closed. Rosa had already provided a statement about Rudolf’s ...”

“... with big romantic gestures, an undivided attention that can’t sustain itself, a bigger sense of self than of any coupledom. I didn’t need a quiz to know that. And yet, I had some hope. This second time was my favourite time with him. We did Midwestern things: picked corn at my grandfather’s plot, bowled at a place between our houses. In the ‘family ...”

“... city of Oran, but it wasn’t going well and Camus was struggling, as he often did, with punishing self-doubt. His wife, Francine Faure, who had spent the war in Algiers, had rejoined him in Paris and given birth to twins, but their reunion had cost him his greatest love, the Spanish actress María Casares. He and Casares, the daughter of left-wing Spanish ...”

“... Rap Guide to Evolution, featuring the ‘African-American Atheist Rapper Greydon Square’, the ‘self-styled “Walking Stephen Hawking”’. In Manhattan, the Ensemble Theater produced Darwin’s Challenge (‘On his trip aboard the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin wanders into a cave on Galapagos and finds himself on the set of a 21st-century reality TV show ...”

“... losers, interchangeable and predictable, was cumulatively dispiriting: the timeless dance of the self-deceived that takes place whenever bookmakers and punters meet. Go into any bookies today and not much has changed. And yet, compared to the shiny new betting shops that have been popping up on so many high streets recently, the one I worked in belonged to ...”