“... not by scientists, who don’t talk about such things) the ‘scientific temper’ then you will read this book with a sense of blessed relief. By the ‘scientific temper’, I mean the taking for granted of those methods which natural scientists have used to such good effect, and the assumption that they can be applied to the study of human societies. Thus ...”

“... which seems to be holding (although they may well drop him if his forthcoming legal problem – read on – turns ugly). These, presumably, pay his overheads. Like Ralph Nader, Matt Drudge’s hermit lifestyle validates his bona fides. Romantically he likes to pose for publicity photographs in battered fedora and trenchcoat, like a Thirties city desk news ...”

“... The other great refuge of liberal optimism, in 1914 as in 1867, was education. It is hard to read Russell On Education without seeing that the subject was carrying a misplaced faith: education is a fine means of intellectual development, but he might more often have remembered when working on education his own Humean belief that ‘reason is and ever ...”

“... an underlying story, they have no narrative as such and work as separate units. At worst, they read like a cross between R.D. Laing’s case-notes and Richard Aldington’s Imagism. At best, they have a force and integrity which none of the other poets associated with the Review, and few poets since, have come close to ...”

“... and only occasionally – one finds a little reality in this space-age world. Major-General Richard Secord (retd) came face to face with it. ‘In Beirut,’ he told Bradlee, it always mystified me why we couldn’t pin down the location of the hostages. It’s a small place. I told Ollie many times: ‘If I were the director [of the CIA], I would ...”

“... the pages to find further references. Try ‘Cary Grant’ and see if you can manage not to read about Hawks, Hitchcock, Hepburn, Mae West, Capra; except that having got to the Hawks entry, you are deflected on to Elisha Cook, Montgomery Clift, Boris Karloff, and each of those will send you off on another mystery tour … I have spent whole days leafing ...”

“... in 1678 and became the first Englishman to make the journey to Mecca and return, long before Richard Burton’s celebrated voyage in 1853. Pitts converted to Islam, as so many in his situation did, and although he remained a slave until 1693, when he managed to escape, he seems to have been treated well and to have formed a largely favourable view of his ...”

“... the Dutch school, starting with Tom Ocker, one of the quickest players ever, who was followed by Richard Krajicek, the 1997 Wimbledon winner. And then we need a survey of the many Americans who emerged from Florida and California, beginning with Gardnar Mulloy through to Chris Evert, who is handsomely profiled in the book’s last and best section, ‘The ...”

“... Quote me some. Oh I see. You can’t.     No answer: only the extreme hooded-eye treatment. Richard Avedon would need a studio’s worth of lights and reflectors to rig up this expression on an unsuspecting Salman. At the moment, though, a passing waiter with an Instamatic could have easily bettered it. Nobody spoke. Not even Christopher Hitchens. And I ...”

“... It’s hardly surprising that Sandy Arbuthnot falls for this sex goddess of espionage; even Richard Hannay is tempted: ‘I hated her instinctively, hated her intensely, but longed to arouse her interest.’ The idea of the vamp extracting secrets from hapless men is old, but took on a ” new life during the First World War, when spy fever raged. Tammy ...”

“... the category we have come to know, and take for granted, as ‘public opinion’. In the 1970s, Richard Sennett’s The Fall of Public Man made Habermas’s argument more concrete and detailed: late 17th and 18th-century coffee houses ‘naturally were places where speech flourished’. When a man went into one, he paid an entrance fee of a penny, was told ...”

“... yet somehow distinctive, relatively easy to identify (Norman Foster, along with his former partner Richard Rogers, is English for Architecture). No wonder corporate and political leaders hire this stylish practice: there is a mirroring of self-images here, at once technocratic and innovative, that suits client and firm alike. ‘Foster’ offers an ...”

“... well with his autobiography. Bill Clinton’s My Life (2004) is full of references to books he has read, and to writers and intellectuals who have influenced him. Hillary by contrast often practises the art of sinking in prose. Gerth and Van Natta accurately describe It Takes a Village (1996) as ‘designed to be hypoallergenic in every way’, while her ...”

“... jacket and white foustanella, hand on hip, legs apart, a scimitar at his side. This is Major Richard Church of the British-funded 1st Regiment Greek Light Infantry, as painted in 1813 by Denis Dighton. At the time, he was commanding Greek soldiers he had recruited to fight against Napoleon. He subsequently left the British army and, after a stint as the ...”

“... who came from a well-to-do family with social pretensions, went to a finishing school in Belgium. Richard Bainbridge was a successful businessman when Winnie married him; but Bainbridge & Co failed before Beryl was born. This was not what Winnie had expected. Her disappointment, and her attempts to maintain her position on a diminished income, defined ...”