“... the possibility that we are not merely double but multiple? The possibility is explored that we may tune into different selves much as we tune into a radio station. What seems to be a much less problematic aspect of our functioning is brought into focus by Mary Warnock in her book on memory. Her aim is to find an answer to the elusive question of why we ...”

“... and village squires and evening parties. James’s view of the materials available to the writer may strike us today as somewhat old-fashioned and unenterprising, but there is a basic shrewdness in what he says. Without the ‘density of felt life’ which the artist almost involuntarily was vouchsafed in these materials he is thrown back on his own ...”

“... of international law, it seems to me difficult to maintain that the commission of such high crimes may amount to acts performed in the exercise of the functions of a Head of State. The judgment was of fundamental importance, signalling that the most basic human rights are enforceable against anyone, regardless of rules of international law that might otherwise ...”

“... field for comedy. Naipaul’s assessment of his own books as he writes them (‘Major. Major’) may or may not be shared by posterity, but as in the mid to late 18th century (pre-Lyrical Ballads) we live in a literary age when the Lives of the Poets are more interesting than the poetry. Theroux might not be a ...”

“... The place has not yet been ‘spoilt’. It remains pungently itself. For the average Harari this may be less of a good thing: a sense of stagnation and lassitude are the reverse of this coin. It is a fairly general rule that the picturesque is based on someone else’s inconvenience. Harar is a walled city, self-contained. Though you are no longer required ...”

“... Max Hastings and Paul Dacre and John Witherow and Alan Rusbridger behave like this. Dominic Lawson may well have said to Charles Moore in some gentleman’s outfitters what Sharon says to Georgina: ‘Well, we can’t both buy this, can we, babe? And I know who looks best in it.’ Both women, you see, are competing for the attention of Douglas Holloway, the ...”

“... whose fate reflects ... the problem of evil’. The facts of the case are clearly set out: On 28 May 1995 ... Sinedu Tadesse, a 20-year-old junior from Ethiopia, murdered her room-mate, Trang Phuong Ho, an immigrant from Vietnam. The girls had lived together for two years, but during the spring of their junior year Trang had decided not to live with Sinedu ...”

“... logo of the Pebble Beach Company. As such, the use of the tree’s image is regulated by law. It may not be photographed or reproduced for any commercial purpose.” ’ This dismaying parable epitomises Coates’s chief contention, that nature itself is something we rarely encounter now. What we pass through, and plough or chop down, and photograph or paint ...”

“... candour, at least on so illustrious a level, it has lost none of its force. The application may be more subtle but the game’s the same. The disappearance of old cronies, even older brandies and cigars, has in no sense limited the scope for prime ministerial wiles. Indeed, the advent of television has led those set in authority over us to ever fresh ...”

“... as to where they went and what they saw or heard. By the time the Webbs returned to London in May 1912 things had greatly changed. Balfour had resigned the leadership of the Tory Party, Ireland was thought to be drifting into civil war, and the suffragettes had embarked on their campaign of violence; the outbreak of the First World War was just round the ...”

“... powers of observation. In English country society, ‘the men talk together; the lady of the house may be addressed once in a way as a duty – but they had rather talk together ... they have no notion that a lady’s conversation is better than a man’s.’ She was not used to such attitudes: ‘For some sixty years she was the centre of a circle – or ...”

“... The pompousness of his sermons and the cold violence of his quarrelling are equally depressing. It may be thought that Middleton Murry deserved all he got, but it wasn’t for his highminded meddling and fornicating that Lawrence called him ‘a dirty little worm’ three times over in the same letter: it was because Murry had turned down some articles of ...”

“... strings and their memories of her, live there in cordial mutual hatred: deaf April, mutilated May, retarded June, and brother Jasper, whose ruling passions are cooking (in a filthy kitchen) and spiting his sisters. It is the same world as that of Molly Keane’s last novel Good Behaviour (a brilliant come-back after 26 years’ silence), a world of ...”

“... Children’s Hour, which deals with a similar libel suit in 1930s America. This is surprising, but may be correct. In both cases, the suit is brought against a grand old grandmother; in both a hammy actress aunt causes trouble; both feature evidence obtained by a peep through a keyhole – in a door which turns out to have no keyhole. Hellman could have read ...”

“... Hemingway and Lardner. The faux naif pose with its short, simple sentences and dumb-ass narrators may appear a direct route to the real world beyond literature – but it has never actually been that (unless one goes back to Huck Finn). Hemingway’s vision was distorted by romanticism and Lardner’s by misanthropy. Their legacy is a short story tradition ...”