“... or just left alone. Whenever they happen, he just has to answer back. Thus we’ll get, re Dr Johnson: ‘that doesn’t mean I can forgive him for resselarse christ what’s the matter with this fcuker?’ This ‘fcuker’ is his typewriter, or ‘wordprinter’, as he calls it. Some of the book’s most endearing moments involve Amis in conflict with ...”

“... spluttered. Not that you needed to be a Romantic to entertain such patriotic feelings. Dr Johnson felt obliged to take on Voltaire in the preface to his edition of Shakespeare’s works, contrasting the ‘garden accurately formed and diligently planted’ with the rich Shakespearean ‘forest’, in which ‘oaks extend their branches, and pines ...”

“... led him in the eyes of many to betray his left-wing views altogether. Such, no doubt, is how Christopher Hitchens will be remembered. The resemblances to George Orwell, on whom Hitchens has written so admiringly,* are obvious enough, though so are some key differences. Orwell was a kind of literary proletarian who lived in dire straits for most of his ...”

“... he called at his house, he said: ‘Guys, what about launching a paper?’ We decided we would and Christopher Logue was deputed to go to what’s now the British Library to look into possible names. I’d said: ‘I’m totally opposed to traditional left names – “Workers’ this”, or “Socialist that”. The people who are coming into politics are not ...”

“... that that is what they are. Ideology means Marxism (and especially that ‘erring colleague’, Christopher Hill), but Elton reserves some of his ammunition for the alternative, liberal determinists, Arnold Toynbee, Sir John Plumb, J.H. Hexter, while not forgetting that morally admirable but woefully misled and misleading Christian Socialist ...”

“... like Frank Kermode and Tony Tanner, or Francophiles like Stephen Heath and Stephen Bann. Samuel Johnson had moral principles, but nothing like a theory of literature: he didn’t need one. The force of English common sense is that it leaves you free to deal with the things that matter. Till recently, Johnsonian sentiments have prevailed: supported, if ...”

“... enticement and resistance, openness and enclosure ... a mesmerising presence’, according to Christopher Woodward (writing in John Soane, Architect, the lavish catalogue of the recent Royal Academy exhibition of Soane’s work). More mundanely, it is regularly identified as the source of one of the most familiar (and also much vandalised) symbols of ...”

“... Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin. Schiaparelli’s sporty, dress-yourself look suited women of action. Amy Johnson, who flew solo to Australia, was one, and, in a rather different vein, Mae West in Every Day’s a Holiday. West – whose billowing curves billowed a little more at each fitting, causing the somewhat snappish couturière considerable annoyance – was in ...”

“... Union’. It was in his Telegraph column, for which he was paid £275,000 a year, that Boris Johnson came out in favour of Brexit in March 2016. (According to Dominic Cummings, Johnson referred to the Telegraph as his ‘real boss’.) A couple of days before the referendum the Telegraph published an editorial ...”

“... world of words’ that Hector complains about in The History Boys.25 May. About the only lie Boris Johnson hasn’t (yet) told is that if we leave the EU the weather will be better.27 May, Yorkshire. The garden is at its best, just plumping out, with plenty of bluebells still, alliums and a huge bush of borage behind me as I write. My favourite water avens is ...”

“... by J.C. Bach. Frugal in his own habits, he was generous to others. He bestowed pensions on Samuel Johnson, Hume and Rousseau (he eventually gave one to Rousseau’s widow, the much despised Thérèse Levasseur). He built up an unparalleled collection of scientific instruments, now in the Science Museum. He founded the Royal Academy and supported it through ...”

“... his fictional version of the neighbourhood too closely resembled Black Marseille. James Weldon Johnson, who had spent the 1920s as executive secretary of the NAACP, went further, suggesting that McKay needed to return to America. ‘I feel very strongly that you ought to come and stay. New York is your market, and the United States is your field.’ So ...”

“... were prone to seek revenge. Arthur Dobbs deliberately set out to ruin the career and reputation of Christopher Middleton, who came back from Hudson Bay with news that there was no passage to the west. Dalrymple’s exasperation found an outlet in two public letters he wrote against John Hawkesworth, Cook’s editor; and of Cook himself, he observed: ‘I ...”

“... Ever since Samuel Johnson’s icy comment of 1775 – ‘How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?’ – British observers have felt a little sour about the American Revolution. For Tories like Johnson, the colonists were ungrateful wretches who had squandered the precious gift of British liberty ...”

“... other contributions to the Oxford History. The chapter on Southern Africa in the 19th century by Christopher Saunders and Iain Smith benignly suggests that ‘British troops repeatedly intervened to play a crucial role in supporting settlers who were unable on their own to displace African farmers.’ No attempt is made to describe what ‘intervention’ or ...”