When Pakistan was carved out of India's rib in 1947, it was assumed by some that Bollywood's Muslim stars would defect to the new state and thus boost the Lahore film industry. But Lollywood did not happen.

It is as difficult to define or classify Islamic cinema as it would be a Christian, Jewish or Buddhist one.

I am not insulted by billions of Christians, Muslims and Jews believing there is a God and praying to this nonexistent deity on a regular basis.

I am an atheist and do not know the meaning of the 'religious pain' that is felt by believers of every cast when what they believe in is insulted.

Socially, the Cuban revolution created an education system and health service that remain the envy of much of the neo-liberal world.

In 1962, President Kennedy expanded an earlier trade embargo put in place by a predecessor, President Eisenhower, to a total economic blockade, which pushed the Cubans further in Moscow's direction.

In January 1961, the United States severed diplomatic relations in response to Cuban nationalisation of U.S.-owned sugar plantations, banks and businesses.

The genealogy of fictional characters can become an obsession, like train-spotting, and should be firmly resisted.

Anthony Powell was the most European of 20th-century British novelists.

In some ways, the '60s were a reaction to the '50s and the intensity of the Cold War.