1. soi-disant: Self-styled; ‘so-called’.

1. early June … recourse to force: The Burmese army shot and killed around a hundred people in June 1974, ending a nationwide strike which had brought government offices and factories to a standstill.

1. Calderon-like cry ‘since … dreams are dreams?’: Life is a Dream, by the Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681). ‘What is life? An illusion, / A shadow, a fiction, / … / For all of life is a dream, / And dreams, are nothing but dreams.’

1. despite steel: The EC–US steel dispute was a bitter trade war. In 1982 US steel producers filed more than one hundred anti-dumping complaints against their competitors in Europe.

2. pipeline: At the height of the Cold War, the participation of European companies in the construction of a massive gas pipeline across the USSR provoked a major transatlantic tiff. A 1980 US embargo on exported materials designed to halt the 2,800-mile Trans-Siberian project was dismissed by Lord Cockfield, the UK’s Secretary of State for Trade, as ‘repugnant in international law’. Realizing he was beaten, Reagan told his cabinet ‘they can have their damned pipeline’.

1. UDI: Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

1. André Malraux: French author and statesman. ‘Cité de l’espoir’ means ‘city of hope’.

2. Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa: Architects. Costa designed Brasilia’s urban plan, while Niemeyer was responsible for many of its buildings. Both were great believers in the aesthetic appeal of concrete.

3. Dom Pedro II: Emperor of Brazil, 1831–89.

4. Boudin’s Trouville: Eugène Boudin was a major influence on the Impressionists who followed him; his 1864 beach scene is much admired for its use of colour.

5. Homburg under King Edward VII: In the nineteenth century Homburg, near Frankfurt, was a fashionable spa and gambling resort. The half-German King Edward VII visited no fewer than thirty-two times.

6. Colonel Fawcett: The inspiration for the Indiana Jones stories, in 1925 Percy Fawcett disappeared in the Brazilian jungle while searching for a lost city known only as ‘Z’. Over the years 100 people from thirteen separate expeditions are said to have perished trying to retrace Fawcett’s steps and discover his fate.

7. Martin Bormann: Around the time Russell wrote this despatch, the Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal believed Bormann was hiding in the South American jungle. A Lord Lucan figure, Bormann was Hitler’s top lieutenant at the end of the Second World War. Having disappeared, he was tried in absentia at Nuremberg. The mystery was solved in 1972 when human remains found in a Berlin railway yard were identified as Bormann’s.

8. Che Guevara: Russell was getting carried away here; Che had little to do with Brazil. He died in the Bolivian jungle, and his famous motorcycle journey took in almost everywhere in the South American continent but Brazil.

1. Treaty: Under the terms of a 1904 Treaty, the United States paid Panama $10 million to purchase six miles of land along each bank of the Panama Canal. Later treaties reversed the arrangement, with Panama regaining the Canal Zone land in 1979, and the waterway itself on 31 December 1999.

1. 35-hour week: A novel labour law introduced by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin in 2000. Limiting the working week to thirty-five hours was supposed to reduce unemployment by forcing firms to hire more workers to make up for the lost hours, while improving the work–life balance of existing employees. The French parliament has twice since watered it down, allowing more overtime.

1. ‘Feig ist es … widerstandlos’: An Austrian friend suggests the following as helpful approximations: feig ist es, ‘it’s cowardly’; schlaff, ‘flaccid’; schrottig, ‘trashy’; waschlappig, ‘loserish’ (as in useless, idiot, worthless person); mattherzig, literally, ‘matte of heart’ (i.e., dull-spirited); schwachmütig and kraftlos, ‘weak’; nervlos, ‘corwardly’; energielos, ‘lacks energy/spirit’; and widerstandlos, ‘unable to fight’.

2. Königgrätz: The Battle of Königgrätz in 1866 was the decisive battle in the Austro-Prussian War. Prussia won.

3. Clemenceau: Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France 1906–9 and 1917–20. Nicknamed ‘Le Tigre’ for his harsh line against the defeated powers after the First World War, Clemenceau was a major influence on the Treaty of Versailles, which saw the Austro-Hungarian Empire dismantled.

4. the settlement of 1955: After the Second World War, Austria, like Germany, was divided into British, French, American and Soviet zones. In 1955 the country was given back its independence on condition of ‘permanent neutrality’.

5. Hofmannsthal: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, 1874–1929, Austrian novelist and essayist.