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“... of sexual impulses, and repressive in its recommendations about how they should be handled in young people, his Emile enjoys a thoroughly undeserved reputation as a liberal educational tract. Emancipated sexual belief gets a better showing when we downgrade a notch, to the realm of the popular and the practically reformist. The awkward case of William ...”

“... of using time. The first image we see is that of a car coming to a halt. A rather sulky-looking young man gets out of the back seat, stands by the car for a moment, then walks off without saying anything. Later we recognise him as one of two basketball players we follow throughout the film. The next shot is of a girl’s lap as she tresses her hair, with ...”

“... Rehearsing his part in a production of The Birthday Party at Scarborough, the young Alan Ayckbourn asked Harold Pinter for a little more information about the fictional character. Pinter said: ‘Mind your own fucking business. Concentrate on what’s there.’ It’s a good answer, and Ayckbourn no doubt took it kindly and got the point ...”

“... The story begins quietly, as should all stories that ultimately shriek. We are in the present. A young girl, Ellie, is dancing in her room, trying poses, making faces, approving of herself in the mirror. The music is all oldies – Peter and Gordon’s ‘A World without Love’, for example, from 1964 – and the record player makes an even larger gesture ...”

“... escaped the attack.’ And since their narrative structure calls for so many flashbacks – a young woman’s memories of her parents and her grandfather, our hero’s memories of being stuck in a well, an assassin’s memories of killing his father, and much else – perhaps they just got carried away, wandered from the personal to the collective ...”

“... was sung to open the games. Only Americans – Dennis Mitchell after winning a 100-metres heat and Michael Johnson after taking the 200-metre gold – puffed out their chests and pulled their jerseys to display the national emblem. Only Americans accused an Irish swimmer of using drugs when she won the Olympic gold. Only an eliminated American boxer, Fernando ...”

“... of Scotland’s rulers, led an army of unusual size and quality into northern England. The young Henry VIII had embarked on a military expedition in northern France, and Scotland responded to French calls for aid by invading England. James IV’s army was equipped with an impressive number of modern cannon cast in bronze and was accompanied by ...”

“... At the beginning of her short story ‘Jakarta’, Alice Munro describes two young women who choose a spot on a beach because it’s sheltered and because ‘they want to be out of sight of a group of women who use the beach every day. They call these women the Monicas.’ The Monicas have two or three or four children apiece; they build a temporary domestic encampment on the beach (‘diaper bags, picnic hampers, inflatable rafts and whales, toys, lotions’); and their conversation revolves around the cheapest place to buy meat, the uses of zinc ointment, soda’s superiority to baking powder ...”

“... Since being acquitted of child molestation charges last summer, Michael Jackson has been hanging out in Bahrain, enjoying the hospitality of the ruler’s poptastic son Sheikh Abdullah. Jackson is said to have become a Muslim (which is sure to please his critics on Good Morning America), but evidence would suggest he has yet to get the hang of Islamic custom ...”

“... characteristically abrupt: ‘When I was 15, I got hepatitis.’ That was in 1958. The narrator is Michael Berg, the son of a professor of philosophy. One day on his way home from school he throws up and nearly faints. A woman takes him into the courtyard of her apartment block, sluices him down at the pump, then sluices down the pavement. He is crying, so she ...”

“... from the bog. Baucis and Philemon, a kindly Old couple, had been married there when they were young And, growing old together there, found peace of mind By owning up to their poverty and making light of it. Pointless to look for masters or servants here because Wife and husband served and ruled the household equally. So, when these sky-dwellers appeared ...”

“... glances, silences. Each character in the movie has a movie running in his or her head, and when a young woman called Wong Chia-chi (played by Tang Wei), about to become a temptress setting up a collaborationist Chinese official for assassination, sits in a cinema and weeps copious tears, we know she will never be able to cry in this way outside the movie ...”

“... Lucien – his real surname is Chardon, but he soon puffs himself up into de Rubempré – is a young poet who has caught the eye of Mme de Bargeton (Cécile de France), a local aristocrat bored with her ancient, indifferent husband. After a scene or two showing Lucien lying in a field and writing a bit, then at work in a printer’s shop, he takes off for ...”

“... up until later. Eventually, the cryptic priest decides to tell the boy what he wants to know. Two young lovers wanted to marry, but the girl’s father, the marquis, explained to the suitor why this wouldn’t work. He could marry his daughter only to someone as well-born as she and immensely rich. The suitor met the first criterion, but failed the ...”

“... Paris cinema, taking down the letters describing last week’s films from the marquee. An amiable young German soldier shows up, who turns out to be a war hero – he killed 350 Americans single-handedly – and the star of a movie about his exploits. Here the plot distinctly thickens. Goebbels is in town for the movie’s premiere, and so, we learn, will be ...”