The only discourtesies I have met with have been from Prussians

The only discourtesies I have met with have been from Prussians. The Bavarians I know have all been delightful, and as for the Tyrolese, I cannot say how much I like them. But the Prussuans see to be filled with a hatred as bitter and venomous as vitriol.

E.M. Brent-Dyer, The school at the chalet (1925), 95

The colour of old brown sherry

Madge Bettany was good to look at. She was slight to the verge of thinness, with a well-poised head covered by a mop of curly dark brown hair.  Her eyes were dark brown too - the colour of old brown sherry - and were shaded by long, upcurling, black lashes.

E.M. Brent-Dyer, The school at the chalet (1925), 5

Amazingly, this description is on the very first page of the entire sequence of chalet school stories. I am heartened to think that teenage girls of the 1920s would have been expected to know what old sherry looked like.

Labyrinthine tales of faction-fighting and off-the-record press briefings that reminded me of nothing so much as the British Labour Party

Azhar, they told me, was not the meek and inoffensive character he seemed, a point they illustrated by recounting labyrinthine tales of faction-fighting and off-the-record press briefings that reminded me of nothing so much as the British Labour Party. Eventually we turned to English cricket, and I was asked, why weren't Ramprakash and Hussain given the same number of chances as Hick? Before I could answer I was told, 'It's about this'. My colleague was touching the brown skin on his forearm.

M. Marqusee, War minus the shooting (1996), 121

If men's standing in the world could be toppled by an ill-advised choice of hat, English literature would be dramatically changed

There is true art in it, this command of tea and dinner tables; this animating correctness. Men may congratulate themselves for writing truly and passionately about the movements of nations; they may consider war and the search for God to be great literature's only subjects; but if men's standing in the world could be toppled by an ill-advised choice of hat, English literature would be dramatically changed

M. Cunningham, The Hours (1998), 83-84

Pussy Galore ... can scarcely be taken for standing for 'the eternal feminine'

In every  story it is, of course, a different woman, each given a flip, thowaway, double-entendre-type name such as Pussy Galore, Honeychile Rider, Tiffany Case. Such disposable images of womanhood, viewed only as fantasy objects of male erotic desire, can scarcely be taken for standing for 'the eternal feminine'. We may also then note that there is no sign of Bond having attained rule over any kind of a 'kingdom'.

C. Brooker, The seven basic plots (2004), 380-1

The whole of the last two thirds of the book is full of guff like this. Should you read it, I suggest you stop at page 230.

To be fair, Joseph isn't stupid; he's barmy.

The Government seems to be in mess. The country is full of intelligent Jews. Why, therefore, must Mrs Thatcher employ three really stupid ones in Lawson, Britton and Joseph? To be fair,  Joseph isn't stupid; he's barmy.

[15th January 1986]

R. Mortimer & C. Mortimer, Dear Lupin: letters to a wayward son (2012), 167

Constantinople is the great capital, the city, the attraction and the hope of all the Hellenes

In 1844, the Prime Minister Collettis in a speech to the constituent assembly revealed the place of Constantinople in Greek hearts and minds: 'There are two great centres of Hellenism, Athens and Constantinople. Athens is only the capital of the kingdom; Constantinople is the great capital, the city, the attraction and the hope of all the Hellenes.' Pictures of the Oecuminical Patriarch hung on   Greek walls beside the king and Queen of the Hellenes - and Aya Sofya, without minarets.


P. Mansel, Constantinople: city of the world's desire (1995), 280