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“... and Nicholas must be the oldest since their mother singles him out for scolding. David and Helen are in the middle, one way or the other – these are the only siblings in human history for whom birth order has no significance. If Garner, an only child himself, hadn’t learned about these cross-currents by observation he could have paid more attention ...”

“... don’t see why not.’ So while​ this is certainly a ‘literature of power’, in the terms of Thomas De Quincey, it is also ‘a literature of knowledge’. You either will or won’t recognise the references to Brueghel’s painting Dulle Griet, say, or Holbein’s Dance of Death, or Brecht’s 1940 radio play The Trial of Lucullus, or John Arthos’s ...”

“... Van and The Clothes They Stood Up In as their this month’s read. It’s actually the choice of Helen Fielding, whom I’d imagined utterly metropolitan but turns out to come from Morley, though now living in Los Angeles presumably on the proceeds of her two bestsellers. After the segment we have tea in the Pierre and talk about Leeds, and I walk down the ...”

“... some of the celebrated critical spats he had been involved in, unyielding about the iniquities of Helen Gardner, generous about Empson though still irritated (‘Later in his life he made a great to-do about “matters of fact” in literature, but he so often got things wrong’). He had the usual nominal aphasia that comes with age, but uncannily sharp ...”

“... to it – literally – was all the harder. I was reminded of the words Henry II uttered about Thomas à Becket: ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest.’ He didn’t order his knights to go and kill Becket, but they believed they had his blessing to do so.Now that sounds like politics. Brown​ has little to say about his attack dogs, Damian ...”

“... and ineffectuality of a defunct class represented by this posthumously lively personality. Helen Mirren’s portrayal of a female police chief in Prime Suspect was a new departure on British television in showing a woman seriously engaged with her profession, and in exhibiting the backlash experienced in the workplace. The message was certainly ...”

“... The Queen smiled back at the unsmiling Sir Kevin. ‘Norman is so cheeky. Now we’ve read Dylan Thomas, haven’t we, and some John Cowper Powys. And Jan Morris we’ve read. But who else is there?’ ‘You could try Kilvert, maam,’ said Norman. ‘Who’s he?’ ‘A vicar, maam. Nineteenth century. Lived on the Welsh borders and wrote a diary. Fond of ...”

“... recently for a recitation of ‘Dover Beach’. Just across the corridor from the El Wahabis, Helen Gebremeskel cooked supper and her daughter, Lulya, watched a movie. Helen was so proud of her all-white flat with its little prayer room and its deep purple cushions. An asylum-seeker from Ethiopia, she sometimes stood ...”