“... but satisfying joke, inserting the word ‘bum’ into an otherwise pompous phrase (‘The Tories may lose the election owing to Mrs Thatcher’s bum,’ ‘Professor of Poetry in the University of bum’ etc). This time, either too embarrassed or too tired to ask his secretary to type it, he ended instead: ‘You will excuse the absence of the usual ...”

“... off FOI’ campaign backed by, among others, the Daily Mail on its front page, may have helped.)Rather than enact headline-grabbing restrictions on access to information, government has used – and abused – the FOI process to frustrate disclosure. The Cabinet Office, the department that has the most to do with FOI policy, runs a ...”

“... picture itself is a kind of window, that the view comes ready framed, is part of it. The yellow may be wild mustard; the yellow is lemons. The olive trees make a pattern; the tiles do too. These are now two of the commonest kinds of picture – landscape and still life. There was a time when people would have expected them to be about something ...”

“... at the end of the novel decides to become a writer: ‘Why is literature so beautiful? Because she may be gravid with truth like none other … You can pack everything into her enigmatic womb, every false start, every deviation, every error, even the truth.’In 1988, Goetz – who has two doctoral degrees (one in history and one in medicine) and who worked as ...”

“... wrote that the film’s climactic sequence, ‘A Brand New Day’, written by Luther Vandross, ‘may be the first musical number by Friedrich Engels’. Despite The Wiz’s political messaging, what’s striking now is its focus on feeling. In ‘Can I Go On?’ Dorothy is afraid of feeling too much, saying it’s ‘more than I can deal with’. In ‘What ...”

“... right. All posts and other privileges pass through the baroni. Without a barone on your side, you may as well pack it in. University posts are generally filled by means of a public competition – a concorso – which is open to anyone with the right qualifications. In practice, concorsi are usually fixed. They are designed for one person, usually an internal ...”

“... conscious of itself and its market, with such a managed sense of mission. The Great American Novel may be either a rumour or an expression (like the Great White Whale), but the Great East German Novel was definitely a Project. Something that would square honesty and hope, ideology and life. A top-down product that contrived to appear bottom-up. Aesthetics was ...”

“... even know their building is going to be demolished, or they just hear rumours.’ A new metro may solve the transport problem, but the new buildings will not add significantly to the housing stock. Some of the most moving parts of the exhibition are those that recognise the Chêne Pointu as a place with its own identity. ‘It had a village ...”

“... a cultural history of intellectual practices.’ Those who have worked on the subject for decades may welcome this development, but it’s worth thinking about what has been left behind. The big questions don’t go away simply because scholars lose interest. One reason to care about the second and third-tier intellectuals in Knowledge Lost is their ...”

“... West, Rosamond Lehmann, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Comyns and Antonia White. White’s Frost in May, another study of the horrors of convent life, was one of Virago’s first notable successes when it was reissued in 1978. Other writers she championed had truly been forgotten: on Desert Island Discs, she chose Henry Handel Richardson’s Maurice Guest as ...”

“... here that Nettel’s taut plot takes off. There have already been clues that Alina’s pregnancy may prove complicated. Laura, who used to dabble in tarot and astrology, has glimpsed tragedy in her friend’s fate. There is also the book’s suggestive title. During Alina’s third trimester, it is confirmed: her baby, a girl she has already named ...”

“... regularly take questions at the bar of the House (a white line on the floor beyond which visitors may not pass while the House is in session). The most recent precedent for a member of the Lords appearing at the bar is not a close one. The Duke of Wellington appeared there in 1814 to give MPs an account of his campaign in the Peninsular War. Wellington was ...”

“... their legs spinning faster, like the Road Runner out over the canyon drop. I think they knew.In May I listen to someone from Man Investments tell me that bankers don’t read novels (‘Really? How interesting’). I ask him what is coming ‘down the pipes’, because this is how business people describe the future, these days, and he says, ‘What is the ...”

“... agent, a communist spy among the counter-revolutionaries. He knows the movie business, which may be the most pitiless of them all. He’s a liar by necessity and a thief at his pleasure. He’s a serial betrayer but the most loyal of friends. He’s a half-breed and a bastard. Part Vietnamese and part French, he speaks English with an American ...”

“... not just by presidents and coups, but also by ordinary interactions: ‘The professional historian may prefer . . . large-scale conflicts between nations and classes, wars, revolutions . . . but what is really much more significant are the innumerable daily contacts between individuals . . . which are the true substance of social life.’ Gregorio also finds ...”