Without a divine Heilsgeschichte it would not make sense to speak of Jesus' ‘deity’. He would then simply be one of the heroes of history—nothing more.

Leland would not have been able to ignore the fact of cities even if he had not been living in them. He was, however, a citydweller, and, due to his father's business acumen, an upper-middle-class citydweller.

The row started over who will run for parliament in a wealthy rightwing constituency on the left bank in Paris, a safe seat for Sarkozy's ruling UMP. Dati is already a local mayor in the neighbourhood, a job felt to have been handed to her on a plate when she was a Sarkozy favourite. She has since fallen from grace, and when she left government she took a European parliament seat, considered a consolation prize.

A classic lecture, rich in sentiment, / With scraps of thunderous epic lilted out / By violet-hooded doctors.