It was the front phalanx in a culture war against the "Philistines" to save artistic integrity.

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Their French counterparts find it easy to caricature les rosbifs as pink-faced philistines.

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As stiff as his white-collared shirts, a Rocky Mountain version of American Gothic, the Mormon Senator nonetheless makes nice with the Beltway Philistines.

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Time after time, through a combination of histrionics, sarcasm and political astuteness, he outmanoeuvred the philistines to get the work of young colleagues over the hurdles and on to the screen.

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Having lost our taste for grungy youth hostels, we had rented an apartment for our visit, during which we sampled Vienna's pastries (delicious), coffee (tasty) and opera (boring, at least to us philistines).

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Nor will the opera lobby be able to deploy against Mr Smith the charge it used so effectively against his Tory predecessors: that their reluctance to sign its cheques proved they were philistines.

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If it turns out that the Fed has no intention of actually allowing inflation to reach the levels it has led others to expect, Chairman Ben will have slain more traders with his jawbone than Samson ever did Philistines.

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It was puzzling to watch the Israelites and Philistines mingle onstage (the supposedly opposing groups were identifiable through costume designer Gideon Davey's fezzes, black hats and such), and the Philistine villain Joabel seemed to have his own homoerotic reason for making trouble for David.

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