“... the biggest takings in their history.’ My indecision is final is a perfect title, taking us straight into the language of Sam Goldwyn (‘Include me out’). It also conveys very neatly the flavour of much movie talk, at once emphatic and illusory. The book is (innocently) full of cherishable ...”

“... speculation on speed and stillness in the modern city. Here Prendergast makes clear and gets straight what has been bothering him throughout the book, a sort of tug of war between innocence and sophistication, or between confidence and scepticism, all seen as disabling. If we say we know the city, we say too much; if we say we don’t, we appear to have ...”

“... one of the surprising triumphs of the book is a pair of parody rustics who seem to have stepped straight out of Cold Comfort Farm – until we realise that that is the effect they are after, that the parody is theirs, not the author’s. ‘He don’t know no secrets,’ one of them says, provoking a London woman to a mock complaint about rural double ...”

“... their fishing spot, find the body before they have even started to fish; decide not to hike back straight away and report their find; leave the body where it is; put in a weekend’s fishing, then report the discovery. The husband comes home, makes love to his wife. It’s more or less the only happy bit of sex we see in the film: ‘this is healthy and ...”

“... a little glum, but she is surprised into the warmest of smiles, seems entirely open, vulnerable, straight. The evidence of Modotti’s art is clear. She wanted to ask a certain question of life, and she asked it incomparably. We have her question; it is in almost every photograph she took. But the life leaves us wondering not only how this ...”

“... himself (‘Is it their fault?’) ‘with a haughty Ciceronian irony that sounded like it came straight from the law court’. In a different context he tries ‘attacking via irony’. Another character, Mme Dambreuse, a widow whom Frédéric almost marries, has a ‘meaningful smile, both polite and ironic at once’ and utters sentences that ‘could ...”

“... related feature of our European tradition. It may be that realism doesn’t have to be either straight or magical; and that play doesn’t preclude pain or historical sense. Realism could be allusive and self-constructing; we might believe in it because it was made up. When Saramago speaks, in The Stone Raft, of the ‘persistent indifference’ which ...”

“... How could one do a geometry without points? A simple analogy: in school geometry we learn about straight lines and points, and probably think of lines as made up of points. But suppose we think of lines as fundamental entities in their own right. We could then define a point as specified by a pair of intersecting lines (if the lines are parallel their point ...”

“... in their self-importance, have tried to take on the great themes and dramatic consistency of ‘straight’ drama, whereas drama has shown little interest in taking on the more fluid structure of the musical. The gay content and gay participation in musicals is a barrier to their popular acceptance as an expression of American identity, as Knapp notes, but ...”

“... the almost invisible teleprompter that enables Bush to deliver flawless speeches while looking straight through it at his audience is celebrated as a technological achievement. Technological superiority is a central theme of the one author we can be sure the President has read. In Tom Clancy’s most recent novel, The Bear and the Dragon, technology ...”

“... the baker’s wife, Rosina Zoft, allows Katharina to use her bread oven from time to time; Michael Stahl, who owns a shed, lets her store her grain there; when she needs fresh milk, neighbours supply it. She, in turn, dispenses homemade herbal remedies, lends money and makes gifts of food and wine. Resentments arise when too little or too much is ...”

“... There is also one Michael Agnolo from Caravaggio who is doing marvellous things in Rome ... He thinks little of the works of other masters ... All works of art he believes to be ‘Bagatelli’, child’s play, whoever by, and whatever of, unless they are made from life, and that there is no better course than to follow Nature ...”

“... of a masculine ideology. Presented thus, the conflict of attitudes towards the family may seem a straight fight between right and left, a political battle in the narrowest sense. Or it may seem a conflict between the self-interested conservatism of men, and the imaginative radicalism of women, who, if they are feminists, tend now to present themselves as ...”

“... days: in doing so, they also throw a good deal of unintentional light on the reasons for its fall. Michael Stewart and Douglas Jay were both awarded Firsts at Oxford in the Twenties, entered Labour politics in the Thirties, held junior office in the Attlee Government in the Forties, supported Gaitskell in the battles of the Fifties and were appointed to ...”

“... perspectives and responsibilities. If there were any doubt about that, the publication of Keane (Michael Joseph, £17.99), the autobiography of the Manchester United player, ghost-written by the footballer-turned-journalist Eamon Dunphy, would clear it up. The book has already been all over the newspapers, for a passage concerning Keane’s feud with ...”