“... bodies these values don’t fluctuate significantly. Crucially this ‘bio-passport’ system means that, for the anti-doping agencies, a clean sample is as useful as a dirty one, as it establishes the standard against which future fluctuations can be measured. Manipulating the results of individual samples, or hiding an athlete’s drug use by using ...”

“... the practice of law. The system we have is predicated on advocacy – that is, on presentation. David Pannick excavates Plato, Cicero and Quintilian for quotations about the deceptive and illusory characteristics of the art. But, as he would agree, the image of the advocate as conjuror is far too simple. In a process which is not single-mindedly devoted to ...”

“... disguised symbolism (dogs, oysters, wine, pipes and so on), inculcating a system of values by means not altogether dissimilar from those used by the ‘history painting’ practised elsewhere in Europe. Moreover, the importance, even in the Netherlands, of such history painting has recently been brought to attention following a remarkable exhibition of ...”

“... was also a shift in the balance of power where the gas war was concerned. Few of the statistics David Stevenson gives in With Our Backs to the Wall, his book about the conduct of the war in 1918, are as striking as those involving poison gas. The Germans released 52,000 tons of gas on the Western Front, twice as much as the French and three and a half times ...”

“... follows instructions, success isn’t guaranteed. Asked to bring the bat from the closet – Molly means the baseball bat – she returns bearing a soft toy with leathery wings. Molly’s confrontation with the intruder is narrated in short sections that alternate with equally short sections, flashing back a matter of hours to her day at work, where similarly ...”

“... into fire – more, certainly, than the government expected. It is thus an opportune moment for David Miers to publish Regulating Commercial Gambling, a legal history of how we got where we are. Miers and his colleague David Dixon are probably the two leading authorities on the legal history of British gambling, and this ...”

“... next general election will be fought by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Leader of the Opposition David Cameron we do know; but how it will be fought we don’t, in part because the present prime minister will not disclose when he intends to go. Furthermore, both Cameron and Brown are in some senses, but for different reasons, unknown quantities. Cameron ...”

“... worth reading for a justification of his party that rises above ritual partisan point-scoring. If David Willetts was not already the best-known of the three when the books were commissioned, he certainly is now. Allegedly known as ‘Two Brains’ to his friends (or alleged friends, perhaps), Mr Willetts last year found himself in difficulties before a ...”

“... by Robert Merton: ‘If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.’ David Edgerton’s The Shock of the Old, with its ironic echoes of bestsellers by Robert Hughes and Alvin Toffler, is not an attack on innovation as such. Rather, it is a call for a new way of thinking about technological change, not as a sequence of ...”

“... often assumed to be the stooges of their fathers or husbands, painting before an audience was a means of demonstrating autonomy. In May 1664, Cosimo, Grand Prince of Tuscany, joined the visitors who packed into Elisabetta Sirani’s studio in Bologna to watch her paint a breastfeeding scene. Having established the first secular art school for girls after ...”

“... debate and a vote that reflects public opinion may be disappointed. There are several reasons. David Cameron, who is known to be opposed to the measure, has declined to make parliamentary time – i.e. time allocated by the government whips – available for it. This means that Marris will have to run the gauntlet of the ...”

“... date is early 1918, and Trevor’s goal is to end the war that was supposed to end all wars. He means something pragmatic, like saving a certain number of lives. Diana thinks he is at war with war, which is how she sees her mission, and goes with him to England to serve the cause. No one in the movie considers the confusion internal to the idea of fighting ...”

“... the 436 bus, you can hardly see the power station. Viñoly’s plan, filled in on the ground by means of an appallingly cheap, lumbering pair of blocks nominally designed by Frank Gehry, seems to go out of its way to hide the enormous brick building. The same effect is created to the west by a slightly less offensive glass wall designed by Foster’s. The ...”

“... the same, and both are faithful in their way to the Elmore Leonard story where they started, which means the new work also has its share of moral suspense and complexity. I can’t tell the end of the story – not the same in the new movie, though all the ingredients of the old formulation are there – without giving too much away, but the long set-up is ...”

“... ran a tapestry-repair company. The cannibal daughter worked there too. No account of the sculptor David Smith fails to notice his time as a welder on a production line; Bourgeois’s stitching should be thought of in the same way. A skill already learned, waiting to give a flavour of unusual competence to quite different constructions. When, in Seven in a ...”