“... this: In 1818, a different diary was published: Memoirs Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, trumpeted as an eyewitness account of life at the court of Charles II. It was often less than thrilling – ‘21 June, 1653. My Lady Gerrard, and one Esquire Knight, a very rich gentleman, living in Northamptonshire, visited me’; ‘23 ...”

“... was 450 feet long on completion in 1909. When its planks came under stress in heavy seas it took on water, and in 1924 it sank, drowning the entire crew. The designers of the Ark Encounter claim that, with multiple layers of ‘structural planking’, including two additional layers below the waterline, their design could withstand similar pressure.When ...”

“... a memorial service is held in the plaza in the Tlatelolco area of Mexico City where the massacre took place. This is where the students attacked in Iguala planned to go, and this was why they commandeered the buses, boarding with their faces covered and forcing the drivers to take them where they asked. The practice is known as ‘kidnapping’ buses, and ...”

“... quite got off.’ A few months later Skelton married her next husband, George Weidenfeld. Connolly took to his bed, where his ex-wife, according to Wilson, sometimes brought him a bowl of soup. It was very like Connolly to make an ado of his wife once he had lost her and very like his ex-wife to keep a bloke in hand when the one she wanted was still in the ...”

“... processes compel it to change its stance (as in the case of the legislative amendment proposed by John McCain and adopted by the US Senate, which caused the Bush administration to change its actions and commit more clearly to international obligations placing limits on the interrogation of detainees). Goldsmith and Posner do not discuss any of this. Their ...”

“... withering criticism from Fergusson. Gradually he turned to chemistry and then physics, and also took a seminar (only one other student enrolled) with Alfred North Whitehead on the Principia Mathematica, which Whitehead had written with Bertrand Russell twenty years earlier. However, once Oppenheimer had decided on physics he was champing at the bit to be ...”

“... in the subject itself. A poet’s earliest efforts are usually marred by self-consciousness and John Berryman’s are no exception to the rule. For most poets, however, finding a distinct and convincing voice is, at least in part, a process of shedding unwanted affectations and exaggerated self-importance. For Berryman the process was reversed. He learnt to ...”

“... grasp, leaving him clutching the chestnut wig.’The same scene is described in the prologue of John Guy’s My Heart Is My Own, the latest biography of Mary Queen of Scots:And then the final twist. As the executioner lifted up the head, Mary’s auburn curls and white cap became detached from her skull. The illusion of monarchy was dissolved as the ...”

“... he left his second wife and children in 2000, and he has made several public appearances in drag.) John McCain has shown himself to be unreliable on terror with his liberal-sounding objections to torture at Guantánamo and is too friendly to illegal immigrants. With Mitt Romney, it’s hard to know which is the more off-putting: that he served as governor of ...”

“... outside world was awake and the government got its bill, which was always going to happen anyway. John Bercow, Speaker of the Commons since 2009, has proved robust in promoting the rights of Parliament at the expense of the executive, grown overmighty in the last half-century. Up to March this year he had granted a staggering 439 urgent questions, each ...”

“... noting how many literary journals had recently closed and fearing for the future of the Lit Supp, John Middleton Murry, a frequent contributor, declared ‘the decline in the amount and quality of reviewing has been catastrophic since 1914,’ adding that ‘book reviewing is a vanished profession.’ That obituary turned out to be premature, as have been its ...”

“... grandfather Julius. Pa was a music teacher, worshipper of Ruskin, read the Bible to the family. Ma took the children to the village Methodist chapel, something Stanley in the end found unsatisfying. ‘I have listened to a thousand sermons, and would like something to counterbalance this. I would like to read about St Francis and St Thomas Aquinas,’ he wrote ...”

“... to hated courtiers, who would then promptly ruin themselves on its costly maintenance.) Yet John Goode notes in Women Writing that Lawrence is here unwittingly acute about something central to sexist ideology: that ‘woman is an image to be uttered’ – uttered, that is, by other people. One feature of these four books allows them to be discussed ...”

“... less grave than the anachronistic and sentimental idea, entertained by the supposedly tough-minded John Berger in his television series, that Frans Hals intended his late group portraits to expose the true horror of bourgeois society. Civilisation certainly extends our sympathies; it may deepen our understanding of European history; but it avoids challenging ...”