“... mainly plants, without which the modern world as we know it would not be conceivable. You may say that this has nothing to do with culture. But what we cultivate and eat, especially if it is a new kind of foodstuff quite unfamiliar to our way of life, or even an entirely new form of consumption, must influence, and ...”

“... of the first movement of what would have been Beethoven’s sixth such concerto), sketch material may even represent a more definitive state of the music than the ‘autograph’: compositional problems that have arisen during the ‘copying-out’ process may be dealt with by a return to the sketchbook. Having usefully ...”

“... a famous article by Konstantin Aksakov that contains this image, and one wonders to what extent it may have inspired Bakhtin to develop his own version of a deeply-rooted Russian ideal. Caryl Emerson informs us, however, that Dostoevsky is now very far from being the central preoccupation of Russian Bakhtinians. At the Bakhtin Centennial Conference, for ...”

“... vision of a senseless universe just as readily as an idyllic escape into pure play (at its best it may do both at once: The Goon Show was both a shattered, deranged response to the aftermath of World War Two and a hilarious antidote to it), and it is particularly surprising that Malcolm should fail to point out the presence and seriousness of nonsense in some ...”

“... There was something unsettling about the serried ranks of New Labour women elected on 1 May last year. All those structured smiles and cheerful jackets gathered round our leader made me feel like a bad-tempered Daily Mail reader or one of those glorious man-hating feminists of myth who live in Hackney and refuse to shave their legs ...”

“... books about Winston Churchill, but this is the first about his cook, Georgina Landemare. Since it may well also be the last, it’s fortunate that she has fallen into the sympathetic hands of Annie Gray. Gray is a food historian and she sets Landemare’s long life in the context of changes in diet and eating habits over nearly a century. The story that ...”

“... in 1939 the idea of Greece receded further, but what Collins calls Craxton’s ‘private war’ may have been the making of him. He went to the Central School and learned to draw, and through another of the floating population at his parents’ home met Peter Watson. In Watson, the heir to the Maypole Dairy Company fortune, and founder with Cyril Connolly ...”

“... that the most recent scandal will not be repeated, so that the exclamation ‘this is not us’ may actually possess some truth.Fourteen years on from the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, the legacies of that moment of commemoration in 2007 have become clear. Engagement with the history of British slavery and the British slave trade has ...”

“... argument for the inalienable right of the British ‘to go to and fro on the earth seeking whom we may devour, under the guise of apostles of civilisation’. Vernon Haggard, a former head of the submarine service and Fourth Sea Lord of the Admiralty who took part in the destruction of Benin, wrote: ‘What I saw of looting on this expedition has made me set ...”

“... dare tamper with the diplomatic correspondence of foreign princes, as ‘the king’s sister, I may claim as much or more respect from them’. When Charles continued to follow his father’s preference for diplomatic negotiations over military deployments, Elizabeth relayed to the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, that she had ‘never … read in ...”

“... are willing to take an interdisciplinary approach, and realise that what is under investigation may not fit existing paradigms. They apply Occam’s razor, and try to test claims using existing methodology. They put the burden of proof on the claimant. A third category, ‘mystery-mongers’, are ‘fundamentally unscientific’. They don’t really want ...”

“... archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation, nor from having of May-games, Whitsun-ales, and Morris-dances; and the setting up of May-poles and other sports therewith used: so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of divine service.In 1628, colonists ...”

“... With an increasing number of Chinese entering South Africa, or staying on illegally, the total may now be more than 500,000. French’s anecdotal evidence adds precious insights. After working as a translator for a state-owned Chinese company in Madagascar, Zhang Yun, a member of the lower middle class back home, stayed on selling goods on a margin as a ...”

“... A blatantly rigged electoral mechanism is not a cause for celebration; whatever else it may be, this is clearly not a representative democracy. Ed Miliband resigned immediately as leader following his defeat and the caretaker leader, Harriet Harman, decided not to oppose the Tories on the basic tenets of their austerity policies: she knew that a ...”

“... expressed disdain for those without Gemüt ‘who go their own way’ and cannot integrate. He may not technically have been a Nazi – he never joined the party, which saved him after the war when, like so many others, he claimed not to have been a sympathiser – but he internalised Nazi ideals of social conformity and social spirit. In short, Asperger ...”