It is not for naught that employees of the radiobroadcaster are saying among themselves that the current status at Czech Radio is the result of the hard struggle between the sixty-eighters and those who are younger, […]

by degrees my little pickle (who, as I told you at the beginning of the story, was the most troublesome child I ever came across) turned into a very well-behaved young gentleman.

Dr. Beeching's obvious intent is that if Scottish—and similarly unprofitable English and Welsh—railways are to be maintained, it must be done by an unconcealed subsidy; he is determined that the railways shall no longer be preoccupied with—and derided for—immense deficits which include the burden of social services the State must openly underwrite, if it wants them.

All events became omens; I lost the ability to take anything literally.