“... dating the Flood and measuring its extent. Where did the waters come from, and where did they go? As the English theologian Thomas Burnet observed in the 17th century, ‘the excessive quantity of water is the great difficulty, and the removal of it afterwards.’The version of Noah’s story that appears in the Hebrew Bible (which dates from around 500 ...”

“... and she started crying – and, och, her little face. I remember she was saying “I want to go home,” and he said, “Get yourself home, then,” and I did say to her: “I will follow you down.”‘I remember, when I knew she was missing, looking round the verandas to see if I could see any kids’ heads bobbing up. It was so quiet. All I could hear ...”

“... who didn’t – the usual crew of Betjeman, Waugh, Lancaster, a Mitford or two and even Kenneth Clark – were regarded as frivolous self-advertisers playing at perversity. What had been a far from straightforward face-off between propagandists for diverse forms of classicism and, on the other side, god’s own warrior-goths, was exhumed as a multipartite ...”

“... meals proceeded from kitchen to dining room by miniature railway, they owned a London house in St James’s Square, a Highland estate on the island of Jura, and a 16-bedroom seaside ‘cottage’ at Sandwich in Kent. Waldorf and Nancy Astor and their five children somehow found the time to live in all four; worried about the safety of Jura milk, Nancy had her ...”

“... that they wanted him as actor, or director, or, eventually, anything that might persuade him to go west. His contract with RKO was signed in July 1939. He was 24. The terrible child had already established radical political credentials, for which he had suffered, and for which he would continue to suffer throughout his life. Involving himself with the New ...”

“... in the Abbey which has been going on, on and off, since last September. As the crew packs up I go and have another look at the tomb of Henry III’s children in the south ambulatory which I’ve just read incorporates one of the medieval relics of the Abbey, the stone supposedly with the imprint of Christ’s foot when he took off for the Ascension. I’m ...”

“... They Don’t: Anglo-American Poetic Relations since the War’, organised by Mark Ford and Steve Clark under the aegis of the University of London. Few 20th-century events, even in literary history alone, were at once important and relatively harmless. One was the rise and fall of Anglo-American literature. I use the term, in what may be too subjective a ...”

“... couldn’t speak, do the voices, for fear of spitting them out on the plate. Why had they let him go so soon? After ‘only’ seven years of a potential 25-year exemplary sentence. Craig Lovato of the DEA, an authentically ugly American, and ex-LA goon squad wetback chaser, had made it his business to nail this Narco Polo; to introduce Marks to the ...”

“... indelibly rude and aggressive. He did whatever he liked, whenever he liked, and expected others to go along with it. His driving made Mr Toad look like a nervous learner. He would assault people without warning or, often, excuse. As a refugee child he would hit his English schoolfellows because he didn’t understand their language; as an octogenarian he was ...”

“... rather aged Dick Van Dyke at half past one in the afternoon.15 February. Not having a book on the go I take up again Larkin’s Letters to Monica which I’d tried to read when it first came out but given up. It’s more interesting than I’d thought then but not much more, with too many post-mortems on previous meetings, what he had said to her, what she ...”

“... wait a minute! I gotta feed mah man! He’s hungry, jack!’ You know. ‘Come on, baby, I gotta go first. Mah man’s hungry. He needs some blood!’You can see some of the tattoos in the super-grotty ex-felon pic of him – a cadaverous Nan Goldin-style mug shot – on the cover of Art Pepper: Living Legend (1975).The story has the teensiest little glimmer ...”

“... A particular target was André Gide. In Maintenant 2 (July 1913), Cravan announced: ‘I have to go and visit Gide, he’s a millionaire: no kidding, I’m going to fleece that old scribbler.’ The next issue duly featured an interview full of taunts and abuse. Part of the reason was Gide’s equivocal comments about Wilde, and the two are compared ...”

“... with a sweet, rounded face and kiss curls singing ‘You Made Me Love You’ as a fan letter to Clark Gable, with a scrapbook of his pictures propped in front of her. The recording comes from a film called Broadway Melody of 1938 in which Garland stars with Robert Taylor and Eleanor Powell. It was her first feature-length film for MGM. She had performed the ...”

“... the allotted Uncle Tom role. This is why a young black woman identified with Marilyn Monroe. James Baldwin identified with her too, as he told Weatherby when he was introduced to him by Tennessee Williams. Not that Weatherby was the only writer on Monroe to spot these moments of what might seem like odd affinity. Lee Strasberg’s ...”

“... like America. The most conspicuous instance was Eliot’s hero (and Boston’s own) Henry James, followed by Pound himself, Gertrude Stein, and just recently, that robustly American figure Robert Frost who, with his wife and children, had in 1913 taken up residence outside London, and from there, with Pound’s assistance and to considerable public ...”