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“... second debating club, the Edmund Burke Society, whose set-piece occasions were meant to be more light-hearted. She presided with a meat tenderiser in place of a gavel; the motions she chose for debate included ‘That this House thanks Heaven for little girls’. Her boyfriend, Philip May, who was two years below her, succeeded her as president of the ...”

“... interesting word here is the one that hardly ever appears in Auden: ‘specially’. Given the light drum roll of ‘reverently, passionately’, one might have expected ‘especially’ to complete the triad, but ‘specially’ is more like a word a child might use – just a little more offhand, too taken up with play to coddle any distinction the aged ...”

“... Hobsbawm did not, concluding that the Soviet invasion, however agonising, was a necessary step in light of the danger of counter-revolution: ‘If we had been in the position of the Soviet government, we should have intervened.’ Hobsbawm was asked, over and over, to explain that decision – especially after the Cold War ended, when it really didn’t ...”

“... arriving train was heavily congested and the unaccustomed Tory – who may or may not have been Alan Clark – recoiled from the throng revealed by the opening doors, suggesting that they might do better to walk along the platform to the restaurant car. Jeffrey Archer may have dreamed of routes as straight as an executive jet’s runway, but McKie knows ...”

“... a hint of condescension here. There are open seams in the plotting. Katherine’s besotted editor, Alan, works on her new novel, Consequences, till the last possible moment: ‘It had been a terrible wrench when he handed the typescript to his assistant to get it biked over to the Elysian people on that final afternoon.’ So the prize isn’t for published ...”

“... the whole city, as the impact ripples through the system. It is chaos theory, LA style: A long red light in Santa Monica triggers a backup in Watts … Some three hundred municipal engineers, on a sick-out, are picketing on the same streets on which the limos are trying to get to the Oscars … Some of the calls Patel receives are from engineers wondering ...”

“... mind hard work. She was helpful. When the two men who ran the press, Roy Trevelion and Tenebris Light, went on holiday to Gran Canaria, she willingly redecorated their flat. Editorial routines didn’t need to be solemn: on one occasion she and Roy sifted poetry submissions by reading them aloud in a Barnsley accent. Anything that didn’t produce ...”

“... of the mind and the body might be anatomised and manipulated. But Goodbye to All That also casts light on the curious later history of Graves himself. It is not hard to see why someone who had lived through the Western Front might wish to break free from its mechanical and homosocial regimens and imagine a White Goddess who could turn suffering into a ...”

“... as the curtains were drawn back. But there was no chink of curtain-rings. Out of the dim green light Mary’s voice came – breathless, hysterical. ‘Oh ma’am, oh, ma’am, there’s a body in the library.’ And then with a hysterical burst of sobs she rushed out of the room again. It’s plain to see that there is a lot more writing going on in ...”

“... faith.’ Whether Harold Nicolson, inviting Osbert Sitwell, Raymond Mortimer, Peter Quennell and Alan Pryce-Jones to contribute to its pages, saw the ‘new faith’ in the same light as Mosley isn’t quite clear. ‘Week by week,’ Mosley exclaimed on the front page, ‘we shall put before you new vistas into the ...”

“... left two days before the Revolution and was promptly laid low by tuberculosis. He wrote two light comedies while recuperating in a Scottish sanatorium. After the war, Maugham travelled with Haxton in China, Malaya, Borneo, Hawaii, Australia, Siam, Burma, Guatemala. Of Human Bondage found a readership in Britain and the US; The Moon and Sixpence ...”

“... palazzo, strident with towers, Ionic columns, allegorical figures and upbeat sloganeering: ‘More Light, More Power’. The scale of this structure, its link with Shoreditch Church broken by the railway bridge, distracts the restless knot of citizens who hang about on the opposite pavement, in expectation of the phantom bus that will carry them east down ...”

“... E (whom Cass refers to as well thought of with potential for high rank, so must be Inspector Alan Murray, the only officer of any rank in the carrier), H (who is said to have left the vehicle with Murray and therefore must be PC Greville Bint, who admitted to this at the inquest), G (PC James Scottow), I (PC Anthony Richardson), J (PC Michael ...”

“... these to the Soviet people is seen as a major barrier to reform. At the same time, the merciless light which glasnost has encouraged Soviet commentators to shine on their own society has given rise to a vast literature of horrors: descriptions of social and medical care which, at best, reaches the standard of pre-war provision in the West – with the added ...”

“... as its Parliamentary consultant, Midlands Electricity has Andrew Hargreaves and National Power has Alan Hasel-hurst. Sir Malcolm Thornton is Parliamentary consultant to North West Water. British Aerospace and Cable and Wireless are both clients of Sir Michael Marshall. Sir Giles Shaw is a director of British Steel. It is not surprising that the privatised ...”