“... with the rest of the community? It is just not possible.’ Heath believed in a Europe that was self-contained, tightly integrated and able to assert itself against American triumphalism in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In that sense, he remained Britain’s one true Gaullist and his case against expansion echoed the one that de Gaulle ...”

“... the Delius Cello Concerto it premiered). She thinks playing on bad cellos has made her a more self-sufficient musician. As Kennedy says, and as every player knows, the relation of every cello to its player is reciprocal. When I play my teacher’s high-school cello it sounds like a trombone in a shower; I am convinced that his subtle and sophisticated bow ...”

“... liabilities of which their bosses were aware. She’d been unsure whether the garb was a matter of self-regard or cowardice or a recherché form of etiquette, since more often than not it seemed to go beyond the call of common sense. She was aghast when reporters trussed up in protective clothing were mixing with endangered civilians. ‘I could never have ...”

“... and of women as family-bound. But with all that can be said on the ABC’s stubbornly Reithian self-concepts, they’re not the whole story, for the Thirties or since. For country listeners especially, the national stations opened worlds which were otherwise closed: and it was in 1938 that its independent news service began to break the strict limits set ...”

“... part in importing far more than it can export. The Bundesbank of a newly unified, far more self-confident Germany naturally did nothing and it may even have dumped some of its own stock of depreciating sterling. The British response was a cascade of press and Parliamentary insults of which ‘Nazi bastards’ is only the most printable – an episode ...”

“... control. They wanted the state to cease censoring their output and the industry to become self-financing. Their demands drew the perfect response – the first was granted, as the censorship retreated then withdrew; the second was ignored, as subsidies continued and, until 1990, were even increased. This liberating state of affairs seemed to inhibit ...”

“... in which misleading Parliament would be (to use a Scottism) ‘not inappropriate’. There were self-satisfied references to the need to be ‘economical with the truth’ in wartime or during a devaluation crisis, as though these extreme situations justified a general policy of deceit. Dogged lawyer that he was, Scott merely referred his witnesses back to ...”

“... or with her resemblance to a doll. Leslie Fiedler, in Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self (1978), identified what he called ‘scale freaks’ as the most enduring; Crachami’s main strength as an exhibit was certainly her ability to befuddle her viewers’ sense of scale. (A decade or so later, Dickens wrote about a dwarf exhibited at Greenwich ...”

“... design team glanced back and saw ‘the minister crouched over his desk, his face wreathed in a self-satisfied smirk.’ That same evening Hughes called a hasty conference to announce Utzon’s ‘resignation’, adding that he saw no problem in finishing the Opera House without him. There was one obvious problem. Utzon had won the contest and he was ...”

“... pushed up above his forehead. He is like a wonderfully exotic rhinoceros, but with a grace and self-assurance that wouldn’t be out of place on the catwalk.24 August. Our GNER train from Leeds stops at Retford, where passengers are bussed down the A1 to Grantham, the line between being under repair. It’s around seven and the clouds are beginning to ...”

“... allowed ex-soldiers to call openly and repeatedly for the reconstitution of the army. You allowed self-appointed leaders of ‘civil society’ to do everything in their power to disrupt your government. You allowed radio stations to sustain a relentless campaign of disinformation. You allowed demonstrations to go on day after day, calling for you to be ...”

“... couldn’t win on the battlefield. On wealth-sharing and compensation, Majzoub’s position seemed self-defeating: having conceded $700 million in fiscal payments for Darfur’s state governments, he refused to raise the down payment into the fund for war victims above $30 million. On such relatively minor points, the acceptability of the deal, and Darfur’s ...”

“... as he tends to call them. At the same time, his novels refuse to fasten down positions – self and other, Arab and Jew, victim and transgressor – or assign virtues and vices according to which side a character is on. If enmity were that straightforward then nothing would need to be asked about it. Khoury has always asked questions about stories. In ...”

“... on anyone who ‘ever bothers you’. JFK told her she had a beautiful voice. Glenn Gould was a self-proclaimed ‘Streisand freak’. Streisand shrugged off the accolades: ‘I just thought it was bashert, as they say in Yiddish, which means “meant to be”. It felt as if I were simply fulfilling the vision that I had as a child.’In 1962, Barbra the ...”

“... Bukele wore a black tunic with pharaonic gold embroidery and a sash in the national colours, a self-conscious caricature of el presidente. ‘Bukele now is like a messianic figure,’ Picardo said. ‘Every event must have a red carpet. Ministers must stand when he enters a room. In their speeches, they always say “as President Bukele said”, or ...”