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“... way of talking about aliveness has changed. In the late 1970s, with the electronic toys Merlin, Simon and Speak and Spell, children began to classify computational objects as alive if they could think on their own. Faced with a computer toy that could play noughts and crosses, what counted to a child was not the object’s physical but its psychological ...”

“... furious bewilderment and confusion, an effect which, like a mad scene in an opera, demands strong powers of control. On stage, the poise vanishes, raw pain taking its place. Several lacerating exchanges between Medea and Jason are taken directly from Aftermath, and the feelings Cusk’s heroine expresses pick up from her own uncomprehending sense of ...”

“... of friendship with Michael’s widow, Rachel, with whom he would have ‘late afternoon cups of strong tea at her flat in Flood Street, Chelsea’, incline him to say such things as ‘it is no exaggeration to assert that the Redgraves defined and extended the possibilities for actors in every medium for over a century’ or that ‘the most commonly used ...”

“... Iraq. A third British firm, ArmorGroup, was reported by the Washington Post in June to have a 1200-strong force in Iraq, with 240 armoured trucks. ArmorGroup is engaged in constant warfare as it goes about its main business of escorting supply convoys; it was attacked 293 times in the first four months of 2007, the Post reports. The narrow focus on a single US ...”

“... and led to the arrest of Mark Thatcher in South Africa and the jailing of the British mercenary Simon Mann in Zimbabwe. Shaxson toys with the idea that the US (and possibly Spain and Britain) encouraged the attempted coup. The US would have had good reason to welcome a change of regime. Obiang’s son, Teodoro Nguema, owns an airline, a large timber ...”

“... brought trouble for humans as well – or for us ‘muggles’, as J.K. Rowling has it. In 1610 Simon Forman, watching Macbeth, was quite sure that the ‘witches’ (as we would label them) were ‘feiries or Nimphes’ and perhaps others thought so too. In Henry V Mistress Quickly of the Boar’s Head Tavern, lamenting the death of Falstaff, cries that ...”

“... manages to associate all that was best and simplest in Russia with that class – which was under strong attack at the time he was writing War and Peace – and with its achievement. He suggests that ‘good’ Russia is, and always has been, classless. Such a claim is never uncommon among those at the top of the tree in any country, but Tolstoy makes it with ...”

“... Although Israel soon aligned itself with the US, many Israelis in and out of government retained strong affections for the Soviet Union. Predictably, Jews in America who weren’t on the Left preferred to keep Israel at arm’s length.From the start of the Cold War, the mainstream Jewish organisations were eager for the fray. Faced with a stereotype of Jews ...”

“... from the ‘grouch bag’ carried by travelling showmen. His parents were Jewish immigrants: Simon Marrix, of a family of tailors from Alsace-Lorraine, and Minna Schoenberg, the daughter of a Dutch magician who emigrated when his work in Germany ran out in the 1870s. All of the Marxes appear to have been clever with words – ...”

“... but Japan, the US and Hong Kong fit into the same frame. In all these countries the gangs have strong links to the power structure, but they live largely in a separate world; and while they may contaminate the workings of the state, they don’t threaten the state itself. The Russian state has broken down – it hasn’t disappeared – and at present, as ...”

“... only Cambridge poet (two slim volumes from Ferry Press, plus the mimeo’d Ouch from The Curiously Strong) to put enough of a dent in multinational budgets to command serious media attention was Peter Ackroyd, a meticulously re-invented Man of Letters. The others, until Ben Watson elbowed his way onto the scene, have had to settle for a succès ...”

“... a convert to Evangelicalism. Gladstone’s ‘rescue work’ was undoubtedly the product of a very strong sexual drive. But it was sublimated. One can be as sure as one can be of anything that he was never guilty of what he described as ‘the act which is known as infidelity of the marriage bed’. He made a solemn declaration to that effect shortly before he ...”

“... who bankrupted himself with riotous living and, unhinged by fantasies and ‘frantic from strong liquors’, killed two of his children. The King’s Men put on two productions based on this story: The Miseries of Enforced Marriage by the hack author and brothel-keeper George Wilkins, published in 1607; and A Yorkshire Tragedy, published in 1608. The ...”

“... of what he thought were like-minded professional historians to advise him. Niall Ferguson was one; Simon Schama was hired to convene a committee to produce a draft. But Gove wasn’t satisfied. Ferguson wanted the curriculum to have a global dimension, which wasn’t what Gove wanted at all; the proposals put forward by Schama’s committee also deviated too ...”

“... on purchasing the house. Ross has a tougher take on what it was that made the will to conform so strong. The public silence of the townspeople about the disasters of Celebration – the jerry-built houses, the school, and the intense pressure on dissenting individuals to stop complaining or leave – was much more, for Ross, to do with keeping up the ...”