“... Philip Larkin​ ’s ‘Church Going’, when I read it first, came as a relief. For once, someone had said something true, or almost true, about religion and its shadowy aftermath. The poem seemed to have a lovely assuredness and finality. The self-deprecating voice – resigned and a bit sad – was having an argument with no one ...”

“... were clear: Said was arguing that intentional acts of language, especially speech, could short-circuit systems of power and become a form of resistance.In November 1974, Said’s argument was given a live demonstration before the world, when Arafat addressed the United Nations for the first time. Said helped draft the speech and added the closing ...”

“... to die in Indochina before 1975), failing which, as their one-year tours ended, they became ‘short timers’, considered the unluckiest stage, before boarding the Freedom Bird for The World and home. Charlie, in contrast, was in for the duration. That same afternoon I booked at the military section of Tan Son Nhut airport, Aerial Port Nine, for the ...”

“... is branded as having a tradition of “honour” that can lead to murder.’ It is only a short step from here to branding the whole community a bunch of criminals. For the same reason, Fadime’s sisters and mother worried that too much emphasis on the family’s rejection of her Swedish boyfriend (in fact he was Swedish-Iranian) would confirm the ...”

“... north of London, and being anxious to get to a railway station, took what he thought would be a short cut, lost his way, and found himself in a network of mean, evil-looking streets.’ These streets belonged to Wilde’s imagination in a number of ways. They filled some of the books he read as much as they lingered in his uneasy dreams. In the writing of ...”

“... to fight terrorism. Powell opposed the package, but the Lobby backed it and Powell lost. In short, Sharon and the Lobby took on the president of the United States and triumphed. Hemi Shalev, a journalist on the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, reported that Sharon’s aides ‘could not hide their satisfaction in view of Powell’s failure. Sharon saw the ...”

“... slight Northern accent. He was one of a large family: Abe; then Bec, the one girl; then my father, Philip, called Phil but Phishel at home, from his Hebrew name, Feisal; then Jack, Harry, Sid, Dave and Louis. Their father was a tailor, one who earned too little, with all those mouths to feed, to be able to buy shoes for his children to wear to school. At 13 or ...”

“... the second biggest UK bank after HSBC. Fred Goodwin was something of a hero in the banking world. Philip Delves Broughton, a former Telegraph journalist who went to Harvard to do an MBA and wrote a funny, depressing book about it, What They Teach You at Harvard Business School, reports that in 2003 the school made RBS the subject of one of its famous case ...”

“... team, led by the late Sir Michael Havers; the juniors were Michael Hill, Paul Purnell and Philip Havers (Sir Michael’s son). The three juniors at a later point signed a note listing, among others, Conlon’s alibi witnesses. They included Burke’s name on the list. However, a separate list later made available to the defence unaccountably omitted ...”

“... working on reforms. The public has a sense of safety being eroded in the NHS by underfunding, short-staffing and crumbling infrastructure, but the (related) number of errors is not common knowledge. Medics are familiar with other problems that lead to failures in treatment: silo working and poor communication; toxic cultures in hospitals; gaps in ...”

“... England’s, breathing English air,Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.Yet it’s only a short step from Brooke’s patriotic composting to fantasies of an even more atavistic sort. Almost as soon as the first Great War cemeteries were opened to the public, sentimental grave-visitors sought to absorb the magical rigour of the dead. In The Unending ...”