And as I wondered what he was up to, his stick fingers made their way up to his pajama shirt, fumbling with his buttons.

Her shadow once, fumbling the chain on her door, then the door slamming fearfully shut, only the barking and the music jazz filtering as it does, day and night into the hall.

The defeat of the military revolt was the first time that the republican authority of Paris had been asserted over the pieds noirs who had helped to bring down the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle s firmness and rhetoric aided, it must be said, by the fumbling of the rebels established the primacy of the state.

From Scotland and Catalonia to the borders of Ukraine, the politics of nationality flared, while Europe s economy stagnated hostage to a German inflation phobia that dates back to 1923. And, as the year unfolded, a new geopolitical tug of war between the continent s two early twentieth century giants, Germany and Russia, became apparent, while Europe s amnesiac political elite seemed to be fumbling on one front after another.