The letter to Razin contained another thought that preoccupied Stalin in the first months after the war: the need to avoid “kowtowing to the West,” including showing “unwarranted respect” for the “military authorities of Germany.”

It was a commission from a man who did not own thoroughbreds, so Stubbs was able to arrange a group of idealized horses in a friezelike composition.

Is your mother out of hospital?

Me ould one gave out to me for failing my Leaving Cert.