a finger-wagger

Virgil apart, however, and dull weather apart, I have never been made so fully aware, as during our brief survey of the environs of Rome, how marvellously our northern imaginations are bedazzled and becheated by the poets, and painters, and romancers of Italy; […]

2007, Phylloxera and Grape Industry Board of South Australia, South Australian Winegrape Utilisation and Pricing Survey.

The counterfactual 1982 of the novel plays variations on our historical record and contains clear allusions to the present.