“... cards. ‘There is no issue with the currency,’ he said on TV. Greeks’ commitment to the euro may seem perplexing. Around 70 per cent of the population, according to polls around the time of the referendum, wished to stick with the currency, despite the hardship that came with the bailouts. This was a similar level of support for the euro as in ...”

“... the British Crown & the prosperity following in the train of civilisation. The proclamation itself may not have included the bit about ‘being placed on an equality’ or the queen’s frank recognition of the events of 1857-58 as being ‘a bloody civil war’ rather than ‘a mere military mutiny’. But it did enter the Indian consciousness. By 1875, many ...”

“... estate, Augusta wrote to ‘forgive freely, all and everything that has antagonised and I may say almost destroyed me’ it was the last straw. The breach with Annabella lasted a decade, during which time a mare’s nest of entanglements among Augusta’s daughters and the lecherous Trevanion, unwanted pregnancies and more demands for money culminated ...”

“... remained ‘intrinsically … boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that’s what makes it so boring.’The child can also wreak reciprocal havoc on the bewildering world, as happens in one of Gorey’s earliest books, The Doubtful Guest (1957), a story told in monochrome ...”

“... do. The myth persists that decolonisation after 1945 was a dignified, planned process. Its advance may have been jostled by the impatience of half-educated agitators, but the empire’s intention had always been to lead all its territories and races towards ‘responsible self-government’ and – conceivably – to independence.Such nonsense! It’s still ...”

“... in 1999, David Bellos points out that less than three years before he began shooting the film (in May 1947) the Gestapo still had an office on the main square of Sainte-Sévère. And now American movies and military policemen are the problem?Many of the best scenes in Jour de fête are a homage to Buster Keaton, who had developed a technique unfamiliar, for ...”

“... attorney general, talked about running for governor in 2016. He died on the evening of 30 May 2015. His last words were ‘beautiful, beautiful’, which is at least as plausible as Steve Jobs’s last word being ‘Wow!’ At the funeral Obama delivered a speech, Chris Martin of Coldplay sang ‘Til Kingdom Come’, and Beau and Hunter’s ...”

“... buildings vanished and half-finished new ones loomed, with drama and precision. Cock, by contrast, may not have visited Rome, though the title of his first series of Roman prints claimed that they rested on first-hand observation. What matters most, for Stewart, are the preoccupations they shared. Both were fascinated by violence itself, she argues, as well as ...”

“... it is quite another thing to learn to build it practically, in such a way every small peasant may take part in the work of reconstruction.’Like Padmore and James, McKay never truly broke with Lenin. And he didn’t let his anti-Stalinism distort his critique of imperialism or support of anti-colonial liberation movements in Trinidad, Ireland, Ethiopia ...”

“... woman is an eternal problem that has no solution … She’s an imperfect project.’ This may be so, but imperfection does not imply a complete lack of progress. In the choice between the traditions of Mozambican society with its well-ordered but unbalanced polygamy, and the colonisers’ Christianity with its hypocritical monogamy which also ...”

“... Saint-Simonian beliefs about gender complementarity (although rather mystical) and celibacy may have shaped her adult distrust of heterosexual norms. Bonheur was also introduced by her father to the writings of Félicité de Lamennais, nicknamed ‘Robespierre in a surplice’, a radical Catholic democrat who was formally condemned by the ...”

“... the courts as a bulwark protecting democracy and fairness. ‘How this story ends,’ he says, ‘may depend, to an uncomfortable degree, on dumb luck.’What should we make of the fact that the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s efforts to enlist it in nullifying Joe Biden’s election? The big case was Texas v. Pennsylvania, in which the Texas attorney ...”

“... also noted that ‘this objective is not formally stated in public documents.’) In May 2003, Jonathan Eyal, now associate director at RUSI, complained that ‘persuading international public opinion that a military action against Iraq was necessary should have been easy.’ But for some reason, even within the Anglosphere large numbers of ...”

“... responsibility for atrocities. Sentences are decided on the principle of restorative justice and may include house arrest – punishment that many see as too lenient. After all that has happened in Colombia, does getting people up on a stage with podiums and microphone headsets make sense? ‘We know that there are powerful people behind you,’ said the ...”

“... It is not true that the oppressed are always to be feared. The writing of Nabokov or Updike may not be a windowpane, but it is often brilliant. Joyce and Beckett are inimitable. Africa has not returned to bush, though many of its people are badly governed, and exploited by outside interests. Offering someone a second chance is a humane act: Naipaul’s ...”