“... engineers. A worthy cause attracts causeless entrepreneurs. Instant experts pontificate about ready options for a creeping revolution. Some claim to seek ‘moral clarity’ that derives from the ‘scale of the land and its antagonisms’. Many more, one suspects, secretly enjoy what Gordimer calls ‘the last colonial extravaganza’.It is difficult for ...”

“... on the far side of the fence. Sometimes they get drunk and invade his property. But he’s ready for them. There’s a feathered shamanic wand in the bedroom. There have been rumours of sweat-lodge ceremonies, the casting out of a personal demon – thought of as the unappeased spirit of the dead Joan Vollmer Burroughs, shot through the forehead in ...”

“... blonde hairdos of the presenters might accurately be described as both fair and balanced. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, ‘I have long thought that if you knew a column of advertisements by heart, you could achieve unexpected felicities with them. You can get a happy quotation anywhere if you have the eye.’ But the reverse is also true: quotations are ...”

“... orphanage . . . was barely touched upon. The school was as grim as an institution out of Oliver Twist, but Mehta made friends there, and learned Braille, and how to play chess. He was active and cheerful, and, striking a note of physical risk-taking that characterises much of his life, tells us that he ‘never walked anywhere but always ran, not ...”

“... to cross with an army to the Continent in July 1337; by late August a mere two thousand men were ready in London, waiting for ships; in November the expedition was cancelled. In April 1338, the Earl of Huntingdon was commissioned to lead an army to relieve the hard-pressed English Seneschal of Gascony, Oliver Ingham; by ...”

“... to prostitute themselves by material need. So the wealthy Edmund Waller, who wrote panegyrics to Oliver Cromwell and then praised Charles II, is given faintish praise as a refiner of English verse. During his exile in France, Waller lived ‘with great splendour and hospitality; and from time to time amused himself with poetry, in which he sometimes speaks ...”

“... is a proper thing to stand on; the shadowed, book-lined interiors in which he sits, robed and ready to pass judgment. It is all too easy to see him as the Sydney Greenstreet of literature, holding court in a private room across from Rick’s Bar. In addition, these nostalgic celebrations of Wilson make him out to be one of those figures to whom, when ...”

“... them. It is easy to argue about the uncertain Irishness of certain writers. Was Sterne Irish? Was Oliver Goldsmith Irish? Was Robert Tressell Irish? Is Iris Murdoch Irish? But the argument about who was gay and who was not and how we know is more difficult. How can someone be gay if, as in the case of Gogol, there is no direct evidence? Yet if you trawl ...”

“... only to secure their outward conformity: a position arguably more tolerant than that of his enemy Oliver Cromwell, who, while indifferent to outward conformity, wanted proof of men’s inward orthodoxy. In any case, how Laudian was Laud? Trevor-Roper indicates that the discrediting of Laud’s ecclesiastical policies followed less from his own implementation ...”

“... noisy advertising. In front of them some violent encounters of the sort familiar to Mr Jingle and Oliver Twist are being enacted. The print implies that cultural institutions, especially the new National Gallery, are detached from the sordid realities of urban life. The Royal Academy moved into the east wing of Wilkins’s building in 1837 while the National ...”

“... that must be taken seriously. ‘A second-class intellect but a first-class temperament.’ Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous line, which dates from 1933, was, as Black reminds us, quite possibly a reference to Theodore Roosevelt rather than Franklin. But FDR was certainly no systematic thinker. Asked to define his philosophy, he said: ‘I’m a ...”

“... was quoted as saying. ‘If it comes to a choice between the ultra-left and the ultra-right, I’m ready to form an alliance with the ultra-right.’ Haitians knew, however, that Aristide would win any democratic election, and on 16 December 1990, he got 67 per cent of the vote in a field of 12 candidates. No run-off was required. The United States might not ...”

“... dug up with the help of a friend in 1995. Morley’s discovery was an improbable consequence of Oliver Stone’s 1991 film JFK, which stirred up a public outcry against continued government secrecy. The then director of the CIA, Robert Gates, promptly ordered the release of a large number of files to the National Archives. Later, Congress passed the JFK ...”

“... has been said to him recently. He is always pleasant and happy.’ Ronnie seemed like a person ready for the world outside and he left school as soon as he was allowed to. Someone remembered him on a trip to Wales. ‘Ronnie said he was in the dorm when a little boy came and sat on the end of his bed in the middle of the night, a boy dressed in ...”

“... fifth symphony for orchestra in all but name) flew off the page with improvisational abandon.Oliver Soden​ was born in 1990, and his Life of Tippett is refreshingly free of old prejudices and stale arguments. (The previous standard text, Ian Kemp’s Tippett: The Composer and His Music, was sketchy on biographical detail and appeared in 1984, when ...”