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“... That the next general election will be fought by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Leader of the Opposition David Cameron we do know; but how it will be fought we don’t, in part because the present prime minister will not disclose when he intends to go ...”

“... four years in the trenches, Adolf Hitler was in hospital away from the front, temporarily blinded by a gas attack. As he was recovering, he was told of Germany’s surrender and the overthrow of the kaiser. ‘Again,’ he later wrote, ‘everything went black before my eyes.’ And so it had all been in vain. In vain all the sacrifices and privations; in ...”

“... celebrations of 1864: always for Dickens the best way for a writer or any other artist to be remembered was not through biographies, unless they redounded as much to the honour of the art concerned as did Forster’s Goldsmith, nor through celebratory odes … still less through the erection of monuments, but through the continued circulation and ...”

“... floor next to her teddy bear. She had died from an overdose of the medication cocktail prescribed by her psychiatrist, Kayoko Kifuji. At the time of her death, she was taking Seroquel, a powerful antipsychotic drug, Depakote, a no less powerful anticonvulsant and mood-stabilising drug, and Clonidine, a hypotensive drug used as a sedative. Rebecca’s parents ...”

“... of 1276, which codified already longstanding law, obliged coroners to ‘go to the place where any be slain or suddenly dead’ to investigate. But coroners’ inquiries rarely deal with matters of general public concern. The idea of holding an inquiry in response to a public scandal is comparatively recent. Until well into the 20th century, such matters were ...”

“... jostle with (rather weaker) libertarian ones. While there is a conviction that everyone should be fingerprinted, photographed, numbered and generally pushed around, there is also a feeling that people should enjoy themselves without the state interfering. More relaxed pub opening hours are one manifestation of this. The gambling bill recently introduced ...”

“... sideways rhetorical manoeuvre, he began with a disclaimer: What I say now is not to be interpreted as any criticism of the news media. What I say now is simply an observation of the kind of times we live in and how attitudes develop among our young people. Over the last weekend I saw a movie – I don’t see too many movies but I try to see ...”

“... Queen Victoria in 1897. The thumping Unionist electoral triumph of 1895 was confidently ascribed by Sir Robert Ensor (who had been a Winchester schoolboy at the time) to an upsurge of expansionist imperialism, while A.G. Gardiner, the biographer of Sir William Harcourt, spoke of ‘a tidal wave of Jingoism’, as ‘the arrogant nationalism of Mr Kipling and ...”

“... David Hockney’s new study, Secret Knowledge, sets out a thesis with vast implications, both for the way we look at Old Master paintings and the way we think about painting’s relation to photography. The more attention you give the thesis, however, the more Hockney’s presentation starts to frustrate you. What you get is, first, a brisk illustrated lecture explaining how he hit on his ideas, a lecture that involves rushing every which way round the National Gallery, pointing out telling visual evidence and adding speculative asides ...”

“... of a smart ex-preppie caught between the old ‘Townhouse’ of good taste, as vetted by the New Yorker of lore, and the new ‘Megastore’ where culture and marketing are one, as exemplified by the Star Wars industry. Born to the old world (‘taste was my cultural capital, boiled down to a syrup’), John ...”

“... A new golden age of technological hype seems to be dawning. This January, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a small unfurnished booth cost $24,500. Some 2700 companies proved willing to pay the fee, and 140,000 people visited the show. To coincide with it, Steve Jobs, the Apple CEO, launched the iPhone in San Francisco: a mobile phone with a touch-screen and other familiar functions: web browser, camera, MP3 player ...”

“... anxious depositors outside a branch of Northern Rock in September 2007 – the idea that we might be living through our own version of the 1930s has proved irresistible. The run on Northern Rock augured a financial collapse on the scale of 1929, and has been followed by the re-emergence in the West of protectionist ...”

“... birthday party, who wears an elaborate costume in keeping with the undersea theme but may not be on the guest list. The two timeframes, only marginally out of phase, fold smoothly into each other when the narrative of Molly’s work day catches up with her evening panic and its aftermath. At this point Phillips starts to hold back the momentum. It would ...”

“... on seeing his studio on rue Notre-Dame de Lorette being dismantled. ‘My ambition is bounded by these walls,’ he wrote in his journal. ‘I enjoy the last moments available to me to feel myself still in this place which has seen me for so many years and in which was spent the great part of the latter period of my youth.’ He had spent thirteen years ...”

“... famous remark about the impact of the French Revolution, that it was too early to tell, might be said of the impact of the Oslo Accord. Said called his most recent book The End of the Peace Process: that strikes me as premature. What was started at Oslo is still alive, if only just. The peace process has broken down not because the Accord is inherently ...”