“... that ‘even with the ill-balanced terms of the marriage she was a bargain.’ That verdict seems self-contradictory and the whole picture misleading. Byron had heard that Sir Ralph Milbanke was ruined, a notion derided by Habakkuk, though in fact Sir Ralph’s reckless expenditure on electioneering had seriously encumbered his estates. Annabella was indeed ...”

“... a Muslim’, shouts Chad. ‘We are people who say one important thing – that pleasure and self-absorption isn’t everything.’ In ‘Eight Arms to Hold You’, a piece published with the screenplay of Kureishi’s film, London Kills Me, the power of pop music is asserted by contrasting the voice of John Lennon (‘It is aggressive and combative but ...”

“... is here, by costume and cuisine and clientèle: the calorific content of democracy, peace and self-confidence translated into avoirdupois, a Caesar-like contempt as vision, an audible sigh for risk! Energy turns to mass, ‘webs’ to ‘padded’ to ‘stuffed’, minceur to Bonn femme. At the same time, though, there is a sinister military rumble under ...”

“... seen as exemplary rather than as reason for Bartók’s relegation, always given that his music is self-evidently imaginative, beautiful, modern. By dint of extraordinary tact and inspiration, by means to be ascertained, indeed, by the Companion, Bartók created masterpieces in a troublesome century that are masterpieces of music alone. And the critics ...”

“... screwed up as his brother Ward, the titular ‘paperboy’, star reporter on the Miami Times. Jack self-destructs in his first year at the University of Florida, returning in shame to the narcotic routines of his father’s home in North Florida, driving a delivery truck for the Moat County Tribune, his father’s newspaper. Ward, too, disappears into his ...”

“... while it had divided the country, also provided a context in which a modern movement of national self-assertion could emerge. In the decades leading up to World War Two various factions had competed for influence: the established monarchy in Hue, based on an adapted mandarin system, was challenged by nationalist forces, in which the Communists and various ...”

“... bed of public and private patronage has cushioned him against disaster, and he doesn’t have the self-knowledge to realise that the impostor is ...”

“... because he is the more modern figure as because he is the more Post-Modern, adept at the art of self-invention and reinvention. He was a better political actor than most of his rivals in Parliament because, while they thought they were in a glorified gentleman’s club or a glorified philanthropic meeting, he realised that they were on a stage. And he ...”

“... that Afrocentrists are purely concerned with the ‘feel-good’ factor and with boosting the low self-esteem of African-Americans. Although she has some respect for this motive, she denies it has any place in the writing and teaching of history, which she maintains must always remain objective. Thus, she has felt obliged to stand up and be counted against ...”

“... stems from sanitary inspectors, settlement workers, lady visitors and other philanthropists whose self-appointed mission to darkest London was to help the poor to become clean and decent, regular and respectable, and who, for that reason, saw them as unkempt, ungodly and unwashed, recklessly filling the world with screaming brats destined to turn into ...”

“... could write like angels. Norman Lewis writes like an angel too, but one who has substituted self-effacement for the appearance of innocence. The World, the World is a travelling autobiography which begins with an encounter in an Italian railway carriage almost worthy of Buchan himself. ‘A breathless young Englishman’ flops into the dining-car seat ...”

“... wonderful teacher (which he was not: in the classroom as elsewhere he was discursive, reckless and self-obsessed) and a reformer (which he wasn’t either). He was sycophantic enough to his superiors to survive for a long time at Eton. Even his increasing dependence on alcohol could have been overlooked in an environment where drunkenness was generally ...”

“... or even the small social niceties which oil everyone’s wheels. He is surprisingly low in self-confidence, which may be one reason he sets so much store by the trappings of authority. He is also genuinely interested in the big issues, and more concerned about them than he is with the usual who’s-up, who’s-down chit-chat which dominates the bars ...”

“... and the great guard-lantern sputters And the horror of our fall is written plain, Every secret, self-revealing on the aching whitewashed ceiling. Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain? Allan Young, in his scholarly study of the ‘invention’ of PTSD, would disagree with the notion that it has always been with us, arguing that ‘the traumatic ...”

“... novel, The Valiant, in 1969. These cousins are ragged, elderly scamps, weirdly dressed, full of self-importance, and addicted to circumlocutions they themselves obviously find hilarious. ‘With the help of the tutelary goddess, I have obtained an electrical coupling of the apparatus which transmits the human voice, with the corresponding apparatus inside ...”