“... fruition in his solar discs and sunflowers. The exhibition demonstrates that while his handiwork may alter, Van Gogh’s will to perorate persists. ‘Starry Night’ (1888) It persists, but only rarely after that first drawing is the scope of the homily panoramic. We are not shown the wild bid at cosmic allegory that is the Starry Night now held in New ...”

“... Robert Mugabe’s Operation Murambatsvina (‘driving out trash’) began on 19 May. Heavily armed militia, backed by helicopters and fighter planes, swooped down on a helpless civilian population. Mugabe’s forces have bulldozed and burned his political opponents’ shacks and makeshift shops in Zimbabwe’s cities, rounding up terrified men, women and children, and piling them onto open lorries ...”

“... stealthy in her originalism. When she – it will surely be a she – makes it to the court, she may well convince Roberts and Alito to join a solid majority bloc of five judges who will embark on a crusade against 20th-century constitutionalism. If 2005 turns out to be the decline before the fall, and American politics takes a more centrist turn, I suspect ...”

“... to persuade, easily persuadable. There’s no embarrassment about faddishness; in fact, there may be a shortage of embarrassment all round. This is the face of Austin painted by Richard Linklater, director of chatty warm-weather existentialist movies such as Slacker and Dazed and Confused. A short walk from my old home is a café-bar called the Spider ...”

“... Still, Roud’s is a book worth having, if only to argue with. Its opinions, however wayward, may serve as a time-capsule from the cultural world of the late Seventies in parts of Paris, London and New York. Even scholastic critics, in fact, have some insights to offer. As Richard Roud puts it, ‘the Marxist/materialist point of view, with its awareness ...”

“... documented as a mere hangover. (Waugh’s letters, announced for publication in the autumn, may further muddy the water for any future autobiographers among his enemies.) The Paris visit provides several more agreeable recollections, like that of seeing Lady Diana’s Chinese chiropodist ‘move reverentially towards the bottom of the bed’ at her ...”

“... have been living on their nerves, reading French encyclopedias and meditating greatness. Mulready may have painted privies, but he had more than an inkling of such matters. He shows the variety of the old guard of the Royal Academy. Burlington House was more flexible and welcoming than the myths would have it, as the rapid success of Pre-Raphaelitism ...”

“... are most vigorous and consistent, is by far the best of the London novels. In the end, it may not ‘explain’ that much about London life, but it communicates something just as interesting in its naughty, amoral fantasy (and it has the power of a dream) of BBC editors and civil servants being turned on to sex, drink and brawling by black ...”

“... was not a stimulus for imagination. Indeed, he said to Osbert Sitwell that ‘any talent I may have was due to a long illness as a boy, which afforded me time to think, and to subsequent ill-health, because I was not allowed to play games and so had to teach myself, for my enjoyment, to use my eyes instead of my feet. My brothers hadn’t the same ...”

“... of a noble mayoralty, or the coming of age of a scion of the family, any genuine feeling that may have existed? Nor is the periodisation of the popular image of the urban aristocrat offered here altogether convincing, if indeed a periodisation that would hold good for all or most towns ever existed. But the discussion of the role of the large ...”

“... who, as Boime points out, had many friends in common with Couture. Unconventional the mural may be, but in a sense that is humanitiarian, pious and consoling, as was appropriate for the biggest church in one of the poorest quartiers of Paris. Boime’s conclusion, therefore, that Couture succeeded in finishing this one commission because its negative ...”

“... presumably, and therefore incomers, are referred to as ‘aboriginal’ settlers, but that may be just part of the general inexactitude in the use of words. Connoisseurs of phoney history will find a rich selection of different types here. There are some statements well-known to be false, such as the assertion that the Scots at the time of Bannockburn ...”

“... this point, and has decided to present his opinion in the form of puns, thus: ‘The Havana night may be dark and full of Zorro’s but Joyce cometh in the morning.’ Or: ‘Despite the myriad influences, Cabrera Infante certainly paddles his own Queneau.’ Also necessary is a list of Subjects Impossible to Discuss in this Notice for Reasons of Space. These ...”

“... for substantial sociological theorising. The trivial activities of often evanescent groups may not merit serious analysis, even when exhaustive observation is possible (which is not the case with the NF): with such an insubstantial group, the background of its members and the rivalries among its élite are likely to tell us relatively little of general ...”

“... and light. In the current scene a few of the bad boys – long since turned grand old men – may be Germans (Kiefer, Richter, Baselitz), but, further back, isn’t there something displeasing about older German samplings? Something freakish, astringent, minoritarian, inturned? Say, Dürer, Dix, Liebermann and Nolde. Their canvases have a way of appearing ...”