“... ungulates on which the local economy almost entirely depends. But spring brought no relief; by mid-May there was still no sign of the gu rains. The grass never grew and the animals starved. Here and there, outside a cluster of patchwork tents, we passed a field that had been tilled. The earth had been turned and perhaps planted – even meagre rains can be ...”

“... symbol of the vacant crossroads Though Cunard didn’t write the best modernist long poem, she may at least be in with a chance in the ‘Best Modernist Title’ category. The parallax effect is defined by Thomas Browne in the poem’s epigraph: ‘Many things are known as some are seen, that is by Paralaxis, or at some distance from their true and proper ...”

“... birds began to sing./Now wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?’ Far-fetched as it may seem, that singing pie might actually have happened. At the other end of the spectrum, heroic fasting could be equally impressive. Monks and nuns renounced meat, largely because animal foods were believed to awaken lust. But late medieval holy women, the true ...”

“... afford expensive lawyers, but his suit against Dentsu Aegis didn’t go the way he’d hoped. In May the investment bankers Oppenheimer Holdings stepped into the breach, only to discover that the Glen was no longer willing to host. Woodstock Fifty is dead in the water. A rival anniversary event near the original site could yet happen, but Lang set his ...”

“... it has often proved the most useful gift of all.’ Cleaning is an enjoyment, they imply, that may increase the yield of other enjoyments, and, to the post-Victorian ear, there is something sad in the discovery that most of life’s basic enjoyments, for Mrs Beeton, were held by her to bring a solitary duty of care to the objects involved. On satin ...”

“... the Italy v. the North antithesis that Martens stakes out above. The art-historical trope may be hackneyed, it may bristle with point-scoring, but it sparked to life on the gallery walls.Fra​ Angelicos look truly strange when set next to Van Eycks. One 1430s predella panel, Scenes from the Life of St Nicholas of ...”

“... his meat into his room’, although the author, mindful of ‘my mother and father who may come across this book’, tells us that what transpired would be ‘better experienced than heard’. The pair get married but Mabel, having tasted her first man, must taste others because ‘I don’t get what I want out of life by tying myself down.’ By ...”

“... We eat more fast food than any other European country, and we are fatter than any other. That may be a coincidence. It seems unlikely, although British food didn’t exactly sparkle before McDonald’s came along. It would be wrong to portray Schlosser’s book as just another anti-McDonald’s diatribe. It is deeper and broader than that. McDonald’s ...”

“... style of the books has its quirks,’ Summerson complained: ‘an affectation (it may be) of looseness – like notes on the back of an envelope’.Leaving aside the question of how he imagined the books could be written except by means of rapid notes, ‘looseness’ is exactly the wrong word to describe Pevsner’s prose. With the exception ...”

“... French literary culture precipitated by the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria and by the events of May 1968. As Barthes declared in 1977, these upheavals marked the final demise of the sacrosanct nationalist ‘myth’ of the Great Writer as ‘the sacred depository of all higher values’, and the equally powerful, sometimes rival, universalist ‘myth’ of ...”

“... care for (‘in his speeches out of Parliament, he should take a more serious tone and be, if she may say so, less jocular which is hardly befitting a prime minister. Lord Rosebery is so clever that he may be carried away by a sense of humour, which is a little dangerous’) – all this combined to produce an effect which ...”

“... passions of a distinctly non-Redmondite sort still to be found in the party. In a speech of 11 May 1916 he condemned the execution of the rebel leaders and the large number of often indiscriminate arrests carried out under martial law. They were damaging to British interests in Ireland: ‘If Ireland were governed by men out of Bedlam you could not pursue ...”

“... news that questions about belief might be questions about fathers, or that we have art so that we may not perish from the truth, or that perception is manipulated by wishing. What is news – and what makes Lunar Park so powerful and so poignant – is that fathers can destroy their sons’ capacity for belief in anything, that parents can make feeling alive ...”

“... opposite impression. This is partly a matter of unfortunate lapses of style. The result of what may be an attempt to pin down every last detail of the argument is that all too often one cannot see the wood for the twigs. But it is not only style that is at work in hindering the reader. Cavell deploys Wittgensteinian resources in order to show us that such ...”

“... delightful irony and laughter, was apparently to reassure audiences that, whatever the characters may think, ultimately all will be rosy and well. In the tragedies, on the other hand, laughter and even irony are only incidental effects. And while the audience may be granted a knowledge of Iago’s plots, or the true nature ...”