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“... one of my Chinese students described a Westerner’s day, he was succinct: his Western businessman rose at six o’clock to take his two snakes for an airing in his chauffeur-driven Mercedes; they stopped at a pub en route, emerged blind-drunk, and crashed the car into a scholartree. Sarah Lubman recently explained in the Washington Post that Chinese students ...”

“... and binding machinery that solved the nagging labour shortage in the Midwest. Grain imports rose from only 2 per cent of Britain’s total supply in the 1830s to 45 per cent in the 1880s (65 per cent for wheat) and went on rising remorselessly. Already by 1900, wheatfields covered only half the acreage of 1872. The First World War and German U-boats ...”

“... a flat-bed printing press employing reusable type (see Charley Seavey’s letter to the LRB, 1 June) – but that doesn’t really matter for the purposes of the novel, the dynamic of which is dependent on the tension between his flawed character and his role as the founding genius of modernity. But the tension isn’t there, regardless of doubts about the ...”

“... As Yiannis Boutaris, the city’s charismatic mayor, approached the podium twenty young people rose from their seats chanting slogans. It was hard to read the black banner they tried to unfurl. The letters ‘YFANET’ meant nothing to me, but ‘No to the State’ provided a clue. Mainstream politics might be in retreat in Greece but anarchism is alive ...”

“... That was in November 2014. At that point there wasn’t much to see – until it rained and steam rose from the edge of the fourth fairway, next to the riverbank. By the end of the year, the fire was visible: smoke plumed from cracks in the earth and tree roots began to catch alight. And when the smoke blew across the fairways towards the terraced houses of ...”

“... other favourite hobby. Guest lists meant something then. The novelist William Styron and his wife, Rose (respected worldwide as a human rights activist), had drawing power as party hosts, the cultural cachet to net composers, playwrights, directors, ratfink fabulists and a former president’s daughter to toast the holidays and air out their egos. Such dos ...”

“... his lectern.The message worked well (some said too well) and Johnson’s own satisfaction ratings rose sharply after he was admitted to hospital with Covid-19. In mid-April, two-thirds of respondents said they were confident the government would provide accurate information about the pandemic. But public trust soon declined. By the start of ...”

“... The last time was in Paris when we were having supper at Brasserie Bofinger. Bacon and his party rose to leave, whereupon all the waiters gathered in the window to watch the great man depart – something I could never imagine happening in London.14 February. Watch the beginning of A Matter of Life and Death on BBC2, where David Niven, having survived his ...”

“... of bells, and the village smoke ascends like incense of immemorial tranquillity. And at the rose-grown porch of some discreet little house a girl in a print-dress is waiting, waiting for the returning footsteps along the twilight lane, while the last blackbird warbles from the may-tree. Two years previously Ernest Rhys had put out an anthology for ...”

“... de Grouchy’s classic error of engaging the Prussian rearguard at Wavre on the critical day, 18 June 1815, although he and his 33,000 French soldiers could have reached Waterloo in good time: he heard the gunfire, yet persisted in his own separate fight, thus violating Napoleon’s very first rule of concentrating all available forces at all costs for the ...”

“... VIII announced his intention to honour the marriage treaty and marry his brother’s widow. On 11 June 1509, in a quiet wedding ceremony at Greenwich, Catherine became queen of England. Despite the difference in their ages – Henry had been a mischievous page at Catherine’s first wedding – the auguries for the marriage were good. The royal couple from ...”

“... In Venezuela at the end of June, Evo Morales, Hugo Chávez and Diego Maradona, three heroes of the people in Latin America, kicked off the Copa América. Morales, pleased with his dribbling, kept possession for rather longer than might have been thought polite. When he passed, Chávez, instinctive politician that he is, at once flicked the ball on to the feet of the Hand of God ...”

“... clamoured for action as indicators pointed to imminent famine. But it was only when excess deaths rose sharply, and the UN officially declared a famine, that the Obama administration exempted emergency aid workers from prosecution. Around 200,000 people had already died. Afterwards, aid workers quietly adopted a principle they call ‘no ...”

“... a brilliant certainty and roguery about it, as when he delivers his famous attack on the Symbolist rose: The rose is a likeness of the sun, the sun is a likeness of the rose, a dove – of a girl, and a girl – of a dove. Images are gutted like scarecrows and packed with foreign ...”

“... facts which hitherto it has been the fashion to ignore ... How often have I been vituperated by rose-water critics because I have written of fighting and tried to inculcate elementary lessons, such as that it is a man’s duty to defend his country, and that only those who are prepared for war can protect themselves and such as are dear to ...”