“... and familiar. Felski quotes Judith Butler as denigrating the familiar in contrast to the other or unknown, a standard postmodern move; but one continues to hope in one’s churlish, outmoded way that the species will remain unfamiliar with global nuclear war, while recalling that the familiar for some people involves teaching disabled children and organising ...”

“... of the Rakhine State Peace, Stability and Development Committee. Its purpose and powers are unknown, but it’s unlikely that the ANP will agree to any proposal to ameliorate the Muslims’ position, given that, according to its secretary, U Tun Aung Kyaw, it ‘cannot accept the name “Rohingya”’. The reaction was the same after Suu Kyi asked the ...”

“... illustrates how far our political standards have evolved since the 1970s.) Violence isn’t unknown in American political history. The 19th century saw fistfights in Congress and riots at election time in major American cities. Until well into the 20th century, Southern blacks who wanted to exercise the right to vote faced violent retribution from the ...”

“... industry, and have always proved to be unfounded. High prices drive drillers to unlock previously unknown or inaccessible reservoirs. The shale revolution – with its Promethean new technologies such as fracking and horizontal drilling – was a textbook example, and less has been heard about peak oil since prices fell and the US became, for the first time ...”

“... marriage with a dedication to a call-in radio show; and in the previously unpublished ‘The Unknown Soldier’, a father mourns the death of his infant daughter, who had been celebrated as the first child born in the new millennium. ‘She was our first child,’ it ends, flatly and brutally. ‘Ah me.’ Though it’s hard to argue against the ...”

“... dining with Ivan the Terrible, drinking from a cup he valued at £400. Jenkinson’s itch for the unknown – his maps of Russia teem with curiosities – meant he was keen to extend the company’s operations into Persia. The court magus John Dee supplied him with ingenious clocks and compasses – Dee was credited with being the first to use the term ...”

“... and also from the strange, large painting called The Paston Treasure. Its date and artist are unknown but it was almost certainly painted around the time of William’s death in 1663 and commissioned either by him or his son Robert. Having existed in obscurity for centuries (on its donation to Norwich Castle Museum, the last owner warned: ‘the painting ...”

“... Moth’s face is ‘lit by a gas fire while I asked question after question, trying to force an unknown door ajar’. There are middle-class mavericks too, weaving in and out of the children’s lives, always appearing to know more than they let on, never quite telling their whole story. Gangly, schoolboyish, clever Arthur McCash hands Nathaniel a ...”

“... This hue, which works on the colour receptor in my brain, is impervious to simulation. It is unknown both to Pantone (though it isn’t that far from 18-4537) and to the British Colour Council’s 1951 chart, which included ‘Nigger Brown’. An RGB toy on my computer fails to conjure a plausible likeness: all it can manage is an approximation ...”

“... offered a part as a dancer in the Teatro di San Carlo’s production of Aida but declined it for unknown reasons. She had her first mental collapse shortly afterwards, which her doctor attributed in part to her dancing. He had her teacher refuse to give her any more lessons. Alabama loves Naples, in part because she can afford to live there on her own. Her ...”

“... Yekatit 12 massacre. An estimated 30,000 people were killed during these brutal reprisals. Unknown numbers of innocent people were imprisoned, tortured and executed in Akaki or sent from there to concentration camps.The details we have from that period come from personal recollections and family stories, but these accounts were largely set aside in ...”

“... of those who navvied at Eng. Lit. in the first half of the 20th century here, names now largely unknown even to their successors. But, quite suddenly, as I was looking for something else in the back pages of the impeccably learned (read: dry as dust) Review of English Studies for July 1949, there he was: ‘Frank Kermode’. Not, I was interested to ...”

“... Not long after the video appeared, Bilash’s wife, Leila Adilzhan, received a phone call from an unknown number. It was Bilash. He wasn’t dead or in China, but 600 miles away, in Astana. Mysterious authorities – almost certainly members of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, the branch of state intelligence formed after the KGB was disbanded in ...”

“... and arson in dockyards or arsenals. Whatever its object, the 1823 Act must have resulted in an unknown number of accused persons who had been convicted of capital offences, treason among them, being discharged instead of hanged. Maurice Healy’s classic volume of gossip, The Old Munster Circuit, contains what may have been a residual misapplication of the ...”

“... that Frieda, while on honeymoon with Lawrence, swam naked across an Austrian river, Hero to an unknown Leander, to offer herself to a dazed but compliant woodcutter on the further bank. A good story, but without the ring of truth undoubtedly to be heard in the words Lawrence hissed at Witter Bynner, who had suggested the Lawrences stripped and took a swim ...”