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“... in its hand. Adie’s story runs in parallel with the account of a half-Iranian American held captive in – where else – an empty white room in Beirut. Lacking digital crayons or toolkit, he fills his blank space with imagination. Why, one wonders, did Powers settle on 1989 as his historical setting? It was, of course, the year he got his ...”

“... Brigaders, Trotskyites, Communists, pacifists failed by their tribunals. The playwright David Hare declared recently that working-class conscripts now met ‘the officer class’ for the first time and rebelled; but plenty had met the people issuing orders, at least since Peterloo. Moreover, an Army largely unemployed except in training or retreat ...”

“... in Odessa is split down the middle. Since the Maidan protests began, the Ukrainian supporters have held nightly meetings at the monument to the Duc de Richelieu, the first governor of Odessa, at the top of the Potemkin steps. The anti-Maidan, as they call themselves, the pro-Russian activists, meet at a fairground near the railway station. The pro-Russian ...”

“... who was lord chancellor at the time, sought to reduce the length of sentences for serious crimes; David Cameron publicly overruled him. So, despite representing less than half the legal aid budget, civil claims – which are usually claims individuals make to remedy breaches of their rights – bore the brunt of the cuts. The strategy was to remove various ...”

“... at the University of Manchester, but has since roved through several scientific fields. He briefly held an academic post at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, and has had other spells in large institutions, but for most of his career he has worked as an independent scientist and consultant. Early on he designed several instruments for analysing ...”

“... were getting more serious. In 1974 another Clermont habitué and founder of the SAS, Colonel David Stirling, formed GB75, a vigilante group to be mobilised in the event of civil unrest.Veronica Lucan was not only unhappy, she was mentally fragile and her relationship with her sister and brother-in-law volatile. After a spectacularly unhappy Christmas in ...”

“... of a scullery maid accustomed to hardship. And yet he sensed, beneath that image, glints of pride held firmly in check. She was anaemic. Her flat chest was not formed to rouse desire. Nevertheless she was strangely appealing, perhaps because she seemed troubled, despondent, sickly. ‘What did you do before you came to work here?’ ‘I’m an ...”

“... lost brother, Benedikt (who was in the Soviet army), notices at night that the books are ‘each held in place by an iron nail hammered through it. A spike driven through the pages of history, a spike through the pages of love, a spike through the sacred.’ That second sentence appears to place the narrative and its imagery and intent squarely in the line ...”

“... of Being’. ‘I was a hidden treasure and desired to be known,’ as God says to the prophet David according to the Islamic hadith. Stitched in with these themes is a difficult doctrine of the nature of presence that is bound up with Johnston’s striking views on the nature of perception. One thing that may weigh with Johnston, when he rejects Spinozan ...”

“... overwhelming desire to re-establish sovereignty over the peninsula, demilitarised since the Camp David Accords. The extent of the Islamists’ deference to the military was made plain when the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood was forced to retract derogatory remarks he had made about the military’s willingness to bend to the wishes of ...”

“... top woman at a string of second-rank ministries a few years earlier. Like Williams, Castle never held the great offices of state, but she wrung headlines and achievements from the most thankless of posts: seat belts and the breathalyser (as minister of transport), the Equal Pay Act (as minister for employment), and increased child benefit and wage-indexed ...”

“... said that, for all our uncertainty, we have a pretty good fix on the basic nature of the physical. David Lewis once claimed that ‘the physical nature of ordinary matter under mild conditions is very well understood.’ But this isn’t true. It isn’t true even when we put aside the point that the known phenomena of experience are wholly a matter of the ...”

“... British soldiers, French veterans from Algeria and Belgian mercenaries were recruited by Colonel David Stirling’s company, Watchguard International Ltd, for operations behind enemy lines. In the South too the nationalists were divided, with Cairo backing the Front for the Liberation of South Yemen (FLOSY) and more radical groups congregating under the ...”

“... no intention of allowing negotiations about these matters (with the exception of the abortive Camp David-Taba episode, they haven’t been allowed at any time in the past 15 years). Sharon’s plans are predicated on no negotiations with the Palestinians, because any Palestinian negotiators, however feeble, would object to Sharon’s stated aim of establishing ...”

“... join us in Jerusalem.’ The older soldier ordered the demonstrators to disperse, but they held their ground. Over the next ten minutes, they pushed the soldiers back about a hundred feet to the concrete barriers through which cars must twist and turn to clear the checkpoint. There they stopped. Some of them sat in the road and chanted: ‘No ...”