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“... their audiences with tales of the devastation being brought by advances in copying technology. Jack Valenti, the impressively lifelike head of the Motion Picture Association of America – one-time former fixer in the LBJ White House, recently chair of the Hollywood summit to discuss ways of supporting the war against terrorism – curdled our blood twenty ...”

“... Hadley, the Thatcherite singer in an otherwise left-leaning band, was holding a glass of Jack Daniels. He seemed in touch with his audience and every bit as drunk. I’m not sure whether the audience knew his politics, but they heard the totemic sound of the 1980s in his voice, and a thousand facets of contemporary Britain seemed to sparkle in his ...”

“... Hyland enjoyed marvellous success with his ‘dramatick piece’ The Ship-Wreck of 1746, in which Jack Lookout and Tom Plunder prey on the ship of Captain Bluff, entangling Farmer Careful with the bureaucrats Mr Search’em and Mr Pick’em. There is as much hauling-to-mainsail, Huzzah!-ing, and whoring as you would hope, with a dash of political commentary ...”

“... state of near-mystical terror about the invasion and pillaging of her brain, ‘her treasure whose price he, not more than the nurses, could estimate’. In some way Stafford felt herself not only damaged but violated. Yet she fought against understanding her own anger, diverting it as much into meanness and booze as into art; indeed, she would have been ...”

“... one important difference, however. Sutcliffe’s case acted itself out as a reprise of the case of Jack the Ripper, which has lodged itself so tenaciously in the English folk memory: it was a kind of flashback to Victorian England, set in a similar milieu of urban blight, urban deprivation, prostitution, hypocrisy and misogyny. A substantial part of the ...”

“... Object lessons included plum pudding, Saint George and the Dragon, posting a letter and the Union Jack. The school calendar was shaped by its special occasions: not just the annual tea provided by the Bonds up at Tyneham House, but the duly observed days of church, nation and state. On Empire Day the school was addressed by a visiting speaker, who ‘tried to ...”

“... all its beliefs were crumbling: Jill was in a good position to know how shaky was the house that Jack built. It was a frequent theme of later writings that ‘God had chosen a woman to save France.’ Part Two of the book is called ‘The Afterlife of Joan of Arc’, a story as remarkable in its way as her real life on earth. It was an excellent idea to ...”

“... thought them to be. Iago, however, protects himself more radically. He refuses (at a terrible price) ever to commit himself to another person, to admit any capacity for suffering, or an openness to feelings which cannot be controlled by the will. Although Othello as Tragedy occasionally seems rather long-winded and repetitive, Ms Adamson’s detailed ...”

“... and sisters were IRA activists, many of them high up in the organisation; Eileen’s brother Jack Lynch was the commanding officer who orchestrated the bombing campaign in England in 1939 which killed six civilians and seriously injured 55. Cheated of his farm inheritance by a series of blunders and family quarrels, Jim O’Neill earned a living as a ...”

“... all it owes to the freedom fighters that came from the United States of America and everywhere’. Jack Straw took up the theme, declaring: ‘Britain is also a very old country. It was founded in 1066 – by the French.’ Colin Powell had to concede that ‘America is a relatively new country,’ before going on to remind his audience that ‘it is the ...”

“... imaginary titles such as Near is my King, but nearer is my Skin (‘to be sold at the Sign of the Jack-Pudding’); A Dissertation of the No Power of a No Parliament, making a No King, that will always be doing us No Good; and A New-invented Mathematical Instrument, by the help of which one may discover, that, the higher a Jackanapes climbs, the more he shews ...”

“... Depp prancing around wearing earrings. Mind you, even in the butch 1940s Mickey Rooney, Vincent Price, Clifton Webb and William Powell played nearer to the other end of the man’s men spectrum, to appreciative audiences. To say nothing of pretty-boys Cary Grant and Leslie Howard. Kanfer doesn’t by any means dismiss the argument, but he isn’t sure that ...”

“... is to Dennis Hopper. Very few actors specialised as Hopper did in convincing malice. Vincent Price was too camp to be really alarming, even as the witchfinder general. Peter Lorre was heartbreaking as a child murderer. James Gandolfini, playing an incorrigibly mean-minded godfather for seven years, strangely held on to the affection of most of his mass ...”

“... got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs. We’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it.’ When Stalin mounted the Berlin Blockade in 1948, Washington dithered but Bevin was adamant: the US must send B-29s to Europe immediately. This dramatically raised the potential cost of Soviet misbehaviour: the B-29 had the range to fly to ...”

“... as Mullin is reminded by the astoundingly mercenary Cherie Booth after leaving office. The price of accepting is to swell the payroll vote, and spout stultifying drivel. In 1999, Blair calls to offer Mullin a post as a bottom-ranking minister. First he accepts. Next day he resigns. Blair gets back on the phone. He dangles the prospect of promotion to ...”