They're never going to come to me for breeches.' Given his ongoing polemical relationship with the press, Nesbitt was also intrigued about playing a journalist.
Last month, one of Britain's favourite public intellectuals, Melvyn Bragg, invited three Western al-Ghazali scholars, including Ms Hillenbrand, to a gloriously cerebral radio debate in which they teased out al-Ghazali's polemical relationship with the philosophers of ancient Greece.
This materialism, though not belonging any more to Hegelianism, was destined nonetheless to remain linked to it by continuing polemical relationships and overlapping problem areas throughout the subsequent history of the movement (see also dialectical materialism).
As Mr Stourton points out, in the 1980s his certainties and his polemical brilliance succeeded in turning the relationship between Catholicism and communism on its head, so that Catholicism seemed revolutionary and communism reactionary.
We have the chance now to acknowledge and let go of Christianity's polemical reactions against Islam, and to seek a collaborative relationship with Muslims.
As in previous works, she discusses concrete issues such as childcare and relationships with servants, but unlike her more polemical books such as Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) or the Rights of Woman, this text emphasizes her emotional reactions to nature and maternity.
Polemical, always controversial and frequently baffling, "this exhibition speaks about the uniqueness of our relationship with objects and our fascination with them," says its website – which could mean anything.
Luther continued his polemical attacks on Bucer, but Bucer was unperturbed: "In any case, we must seek unity and love in our relationships with everyone," he wrote, "regardless of how they behave toward us".
He wrote polemical journalism.
Pow! Wonderful, robust, polemical stuff.
The polemical is political, after all.
