“... Among the Jews there was never the confidence to express verbally the depths of hostility they may well have felt. They were, for good or bad, too rational. What hostility they permitted themselves to feel was, paradoxically, directed at themselves. What has preoccupied me, and continues to perturb me, is this anti-semitism directed at oneself, an ancient ...”

“... Rossetti in 1871, it became his sole property and permanent home later. In 1938 his daughter May left it to the University on certain conditions, but her wills were a mess and in the end the University let it furnished on condition that it should be open to members of the University and Morris-students. I had never been there; it is near Lechlade on the ...”

“... in this business, that there’s one name you can keep: one that you feel entitled to, come what may. From somewhere – beyond a door, and another door – there was a burst of male laughter. The door swung shut; the laughter ended in a wheeze, which trailed like another odour on the air. Then a hand reached for my bag. I looked down, and saw a small ...”

“... for an hour and a half: ‘I hope some day to enjoy your offeecial acquaintance. Ad interim, if I may be pardoned that expression, I shall give you this betel-box, which is highly valuable article and cost me two rupees only four years ago.’ Mookerjee delivers his long speech to Kim in ‘volleying drifts of English’ after having had a ‘huge ...”

“... led to serious discussions within the Concertación, raising the hope that hundreds of cases may one day be reopened. What might the tilt towards female empowerment mean? Does it arise from a belief that men are incorrigible watchers of one another’s backs? A desire for human, as well as macroeconomic, progress? It doesn’t seem to reflect a second ...”

“... husband waited and footed the bill. According to Burke, ‘she began planning her escape’ in May 1937 – an escape from the life, though not yet an escape from the man. She wrote home about her fits of what she called ‘the jitters’, while Aziz wrote to her parents that he wanted nothing more than ‘to bring peace to her soul’.She chafed under the ...”

“... needed amending. But there is perceptiveness on another level in the form of the poem. Tennyson may have adapted the metre of ‘Locksley Hall’ from William Jones’s translation of one of the pre-Islamic poems collected in the Mu’allaqāt, about a wandering prince who praises his lovers and his horses, but as Holmes observes, its eight-stress trochaic ...”

“... nation, Alaska, Brazil, Mexico, Liberia, Honduras, Indonesia, even the City of London. (The last may be the most unexpected: a pilot scheme giving cash, no strings attached, to rough sleepers, run by a charity called Broadway. Thirteen of the City’s longest-term rough sleepers, who had been on the streets for more than four years, were asked ‘what they ...”

“... Second World War).Our tendency to hear Beethovenian rhythm and dynamics as argument, as speech, may explain, in part, why we have such a need to make his dramatic music so personally dramatic. When comedians turn to Beethoven they make the mad animation of his work the funny thing: Sid Caesar and Nanette Fabray using the opening of the Fifth Symphony to ...”

“... reasons advanced for Turkish membership in Western capitals. The fall of the Soviet Union may have removed the menace of Communism, but there is now – it is widely believed – a successor danger in Islamism. Rampant in the authoritarian societies of the Middle East, it threatens to stretch into immigrant communities within Western Europe ...”

“... along one social or cultural dimension can produce a given assessment, comparison along others may generate different judgments. None yields an all-purpose standard. The Baltic republics had enjoyed a number of past advantages under tsarism which in different ways had persisted after their reincorporation in the Soviet Union. Protestant and Catholic ...”

“... place. As Art himself might say, my joint is getting big just thinking about it. I realise there may be a few lost souls who’ve never heard of him. Forget the overrated (and vapid-looking) Chet Baker. Art Pepper (1925-82) was an authentic American genius. One of the supreme alto saxophone players of all time – Charlie Parker included. A deliriously ...”

“... County Council were split four for Labour, three Tory, one Lib Dem. After the local elections in May, it was seven Reform, one Conservative (overall, the Tories have the most seats and run a minority administration). Deirdre Campbell was one of those who lost to Reform, beaten by Barry Elliott, a ‘striking individual’, as Vladimir Putin called Donald ...”

“... of Biscay, through the Channel and into the North Sea. It was bound for Hull. By lunchtime on 6 May, more than a month after setting out from Vietnam, it was steaming up the Humber.I wanted to confirm what was on board, so I looked on the internet and found a pub, the Humber Tavern, in the village of Paull, that seemed to have a good view of the water. I ...”

“... in Southwark. Despite the reduction in council housing, Southwark, which changed hands in May’s local elections from Labour to a Green-led coalition with the Liberal Democrats, is the country’s fourth largest municipal landlord, after Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield. Historically a poor and neglected part of South London, its proximity to the City ...”