“... gives notice that it has taken up occupation. But, powerful a motive though greed at the top may be, the journalism they represent is too pervasive to be explained simply by this. A deeper focus can be found in Serge Halimi’s exposure of the interlocking complicities – across the spectrum – of establishment commentary on public affairs, in Les ...”

“... unscrupulous who go into politics, hence the present futile government.’ When the awakening of 4 May 1919 came, with the student protests that marked the birth of modern politics in China, his response was enthusiastic. ‘All China is on strike! It is most impressive,’ he reported, ‘all business is at a standstill and the students, who are running the ...”

“... quite dead at last in spite of all. Perhaps next month. Then it will be the month of April or of May. For the year is still young, a thousand little signs tell me so … Later, I watched him in the pub and noticed his beautiful wife, but I did not want to go too close to him. He was dead within three years. More than twenty years later in Paris, the French ...”

“... the Middle Ages, when Grimsby first began sending members to Parliament, it has sent men. After May, it’s as close to a racing certainty as you can get that Grimsby’s MP will be a woman.To​ talk about politics and abdication in Grimsby is, for most people, to assume you’re talking about Austin Mitchell, the 80-year-old Labour MP who will step down ...”

“... of secret are not so distinct. Rational and consciously kept secrets – a hidden nightdress – may coexist with murkier riddles: jealousy for one sibling, love for another. Sane, clear and restrained, Summerscale, like Ariadne, hands us a ball of red thread and leaves us to make of it what we ...”

“... that the extension of US power is a good thing – which few Democrats openly question. Obama may want to withdraw from Iraq, but it isn’t at all clear that he’ll be able to if he becomes president. This is not to suggest that there are no differences between Republicans and Democrats. The Age of Bush has made this contention difficult for even the ...”

“... warmer climates rise up to engulf them. And Steve Jones and J.E.N. Veron warn that climate change may well bring about the end of coral reefs – if overfishing, disease, invading species and pollution don’t get them first. The surface waters of the open tropical ocean are poor in nutrients and almost lifeless because the warm upper layer does not mix with ...”

“... he has work to catch up on in the evening while she entertains the handsome youth. Whatever Marisa may think of this, Felix sees himself and his wife as sexual adventurers. His obsession is ‘eroticised fidelity’, while she, reciprocally, is a married libertine: ‘She followed her fancy, drank hard, declined motherhood with fervour, doted on no man, and ...”

“... supplies by ordering the purchase of kangaroo meat ‘at 6d per pound from any person who may deliver such at the Public stores’. This profitable trade was briefly monopolised by officers hunting vicariously through their convict ‘gamekeepers’, but within the year there was a thriving illicit trade in hunting dogs, as ‘with what seemed ...”

“... was responsible for keeping Montaigne’s name alive in the minds of a whole generation. She may have been obsessive and in many respects quite limited, but in this case at least her critical instinct was undeniably sharp. What to make of her? As it turns out, Diski makes a great deal of de Gournay’s idiosyncrasies. Apology for the Woman Writing ...”

“... that conceit, although her Evangelists have cameo parts in later novels. Then came Seeking Whom He May Devour (1999), which brought back her original cop, Adamsberg (not seen since 1996, when he appeared in a sweet but slight mystery now translated as The Chalk Circle Man), in a story that addresses what has become Vargas’s major theme: the persistence of ...”

“... have ended their IPL deals. By the end of this year, it’s being said, the Bollywood brigade may well pull out from the field, taking their sponsors with them. Meanwhile the Chinese government has decided that its youngsters should learn how to play cricket, just in case the shorter version becomes an Olympic event. Former test players from South ...”

“... many of the ladies she serves. She works very long hours for very small wages, but her customer may not be well off either: as they perform their different roles, they share a fantasy of the beautiful shop and the grand life in which they are taking part. When it comes to the supermarket, the mystique of the selling encounter has seemingly gone, and so has ...”

“... procedures, the ill-defined aims, the simple lack of conscientiousness and common sense – we may in child protection be up against something ancient and ineradicable in human nature: the belief that, if I have suffered, someone else must suffer, that two wrongs make a right. ‘I was in there six months, and my mam never came to see me.’ Ruby’s ...”

“... all-British uprightness and exemplarity. The English denizens of what Harvie calls ‘Broonland’ may not be deceived, but so far they have found no alternative voice – and are unlikely to discover one in the approaching general election. True, there is the notion of voting Britain out of the European Union, but the appeal of such a ‘liberation’ is ...”