“... a legitimate grievance, and the sinking was widely construed as, like the Libya strike, an act of self-defence. But neither of these decisions should have been made. And if the consequences of the Falklands engagement are no longer thought by British experts to threaten British interests, if for these experts the Belgrano has now at last been sunk for ...”

“... them with discretion to check his other carefully-researched material. He shows Alison Uttley as a self-deluding romantic, a shrewd, quarrelsome businesswoman and a compulsive housekeeper, patching and jam-making to the end in a heroically untidy kitchen. But it is impossible not to think of her as a sorceress, a storyteller whose tales were produced only at a ...”

“... Trots themselves. Tony Mulhearn, who ended up trying to get Kilroy’s seat, was designated by the self-appointed Left caucus (a collection of sanctimonious bores) as their candidate for Birkenhead. Faced with the prospect of the reselection battles escalating into an actual confrontation with the electorate, however, Mulhearn scuttled back over the river to ...”

“... portrait, drawn by a master impressionist, replaces the braggadocio and lies of a virtuoso ...”

“... a stylist, and the mannerisms eventually took over, and carried him at times beyond the bounds of self-parody. The most exaggerated example here is probably the first piece, in which he writes, for instance: If Le Penseur is trying to compose a melody, then he is very likely to be humming notes and sequences of notes, aloud, under his breath or in his head ...”

“... by Amundsen about bad weather conditions passes without comment; any complaint by Scott becomes ‘self-pity’. When the Norwegians take chances, Huntford discusses their ‘flamboyant fatalism’ and ‘audacity’; when Scott takes chances, he is called ‘reckless’. Fridjof Nansen’s supporters are given no epithet; Clements Markham’s are labelled ...”

“... from mere building and decorating. He can do so, because the artist is concerned not just with self-expression, but with the mastery of the problems of his craft. This kind of mastery, like excellence in cricket, is something that the interested and experienced spectator can recognise and evaluate. But a mere observer, without the involvement of the ...”

“... entire Nixon family, inherited and acquired, is characterised by nothing so much as sheer bloody self-protective obstinacy? My Nixon, right or wrong? And did it not permeate every moment of the final days in the Oval bunker? I leap forward a few years, and a few pages, to a Longford sentence calculated (though not by him) to make thy knotted and combined ...”

“... anti-erection, pro-lesbian – inventing yourself. The last chapter of the book, called ‘Self-Criticism’, is appropriately short. In it, White acknowledges only a ‘peculiar alternation between socialism and snobbism’ as a fault, which he tries to explain. I found this not at all annoying or even noticeable. The annoying thing about the book is ...”

“... is, of course, to reconcile formal diversity with a decorous aesthetic harmony, to create a self-sufficient whole. Appropriately enough, one of his paintings from this period, ‘Fifteen’, was selected by the Gobelins factory as the design for a rug. Kandinsky’s introspective patterns exclude the encroachment of a world outside themselves which ...”

“... background to this book. Over it all, hangs a question-mark about the behaviour of the Jews’ own self-appointed leaders. A heroic figure in the Jewish resistance, Ringelblum, who led the Poale Zion movement, and who made it his business to find out what was happening and to report it as widely as possible, said in despair as he witnessed the peaceful ...”

“... familiar scenes. Among the professionals must be included Robert and Monica Beckinsale; among the self-confessed amateurs, Richard Muir. The Beckinsales – one native to the north Cots-wolds and the other to the Vale of the White Horse – present what is for them the English heartland. Richard Muir, nostalgic for the Nidderdale hamlet of Birtwhistle, offers ...”

“... of experience. Auden was catalytically inspiring, but embodied forces dangerous to Britten’s self-protective habits. The catalysis made Britten into the finest setter of English there has yet been, but with these skills and sensibilities enriched he had to return to the private place of creativity in which he could have complete control. Perhaps Auden in ...”

“... structure perception, and perception than appears to confirm the schemata. Such a theory of self-perpetuation is at its best in accounting for the persistence over long periods of a schema like that of the Plinian races. The problem is that the theory accounts for persistence so successfully as to make change difficult to explain. Yet, as Friedman ...”

“... Czech word litost – ‘a state of torment caused by a sudden insight into one’s own miserable self’. The idea isn’t put to much use in the story ‘Litost’, which might suggest that, stripped of its pretensions, it’s not much of an idea. It certainly has an air of the morbus fraudulentus that Chekhov detected in his admirers when they talked to ...”