Word: sirs
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...Sir Stephen exhibits no outrage or deep sense of betrayal at having been an unwitting partisan in the cold war. He suggests that the iniquity lay not in CIA sponsorship but in that support's having been kept secret. The reader may wonder whether he is being evasive or naive: it is, after all, the agency's job to be secretive. Late in the journals, Spender traces the devolution of his political thinking, from innocence to idealism to resignation and concludes that "the world is run by a special race of monsters...
...author is not an especially convincing cynic. His sustained interest is in power and reputation in the literary world. He yearns to be "a real great writer," not a "fake great man" like his father, Harold Spender, a journalist, biographer and author of books on government and mountaineering. Sir Stephen addressed the issue in his poem The Public Son of a Public Man: "When a child, my dreams rode on your wishes,/ I was your son, high on your horse,/ My mind a top whipped by the lashes/ Of your rhetoric, windy of course." Auden cut a more attractive father...
Released two days later, the letter stated that Brittan had told British Aerospace's chief executive officer, Sir Raymond Lygo, that his company's involvement in the Euro-consortium "was not in the national interest" and that he "should withdraw." The account seemed to belie Thatcher's claim of neutrality. The government simultaneously released its own description of the Jan. 8 meeting. According to notes taken by Brittan's secretary, the Minister had said only that "it was not in the national interest that the present uncertainty involving Westland should drag...
...York City, 1928. Sir Thomas Beecham, the prickly British baronet and conductorial autodidact, was making his American debut in a concert with the New York Philharmonic. So was Horowitz. Beecham was apparently not about to let some upstart, unknown Russian steal his thunder, even if the piece was Tchaikovsky's thunderous Piano Concerto No. 1. Horowitz was unable to speak English, but it was clear from the rehearsals that even a translator would be no help. "Beecham thought I was of no importance," the pianist remembers. At the concert, the conductor adopted an even more ponderous tempo than during...
...schoolchildren sing "Happy Birthday" and wave some 120,000 daffodils. Then the birthday Queen changed into an evening gown and her favorite diamond tiara for a gala "Fanfare for Elizabeth" at Covent Garden, featuring the likes of Placido Domingo, Gelsey Kirkland and a special ballet, created by Sir Frederick Ashton and based on an incident from the Queen's childhood. A grand start to be sure, considering the "official" bash won't come until June...