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The bench became a symbol of a certain sturdy, durable idea of England and of Britain
Soul is not the monopoly of concert halls and art galleries. Even an airport can have soul
Technological thinking gives us a narcissistic mindset, cut off from ‘the mystery of things’
While the Mahler unfolded and reached its radiant conclusion, time stood still
From sweltering Seville to cool windy Bishop Auckland, it might as well be a million miles
The director of the Beckett festival is passionate about art’s power to knit together divided communities
Because our lives in lucky parts of the world go so smoothly, we have room for distant news
It is ‘very challenging to hate someone sitting next to you playing a Beethoven symphony’
There is potential for eco-tourism in a former wasteland that blooms with wild flowers
Making life more difficult for mentally distressed people, in tough economic times, strikes me as both cruel and stupid
Scotland contrasted so absolutely with the smug, green blandness of southern England
Schools and hospitals moved underground; an opera was held in the Louis Roederer cellars
Unlike today’s teenagers, the young Alexander Pope turned his unusual looks to his advantage
London’s blue tablets are inspirational in recalling people who changed the world
I used to see the rivalry between Federer and Nadal as one between nerve and muscle
‘Sitting in a square, human curiosity about other people can be satisfied in the most natural way’
‘The ancient Greeks were not primitive at all – they knew exactly what they were doing’
‘To what extent should climate scientists speak out in the debate on global warming?’
‘Spirituality, at its noblest, is not narrow, tribal and defensive but quite the opposite’
‘The virtues of the BBC still seem to me to outshine its admittedly glaring faults’
‘The musical instrument has come to be seen as bourgeois and genteel, at home in a million polite parlours’
‘Great poetry needs to be sprung with tension, not to sag into familiar comfort like an old sofa’
‘Rather than Paris, I ended up in Bath, exchanging bohemian liberty for cosy politeness’
‘Those ‘aha!’ moments come more rarely but with special pleasure to the middle-aged’
‘Secular society underestimates the power of religion, which has great positive energy’
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