To many of their compatriots, politicians seem an innately frivolous breed. […] When they have to retire backstage, they spend their time playing number games, plotting new combinations, making and unmaking coalitions.

Smirnoff's popularity has waned since its high point in the 1980s, but the Russian reversal enjoys a vibrant second act as an internet meme, and it has shaped an image of late Soviet life as harsh and impoverished […]

[…] and instead of the Amazonian Trull, or the weather-beaten Admiral which frowns from under the bowsprit of a British man-of-war, they carve on their prows the fair image of some bucculent Cherub, or some semi-anatomized Saint.

There is no likelihood between pure light and black darkness, […]or between righteousness and reprobation.