“... purposeful ones. What to us are featureless alcoves of scrofulous masonry (and with no evidence of gold) presumably echoed to the orgies and barbarities which are even now being detailed on the cassettes to which everyone else is listening intently. 4 February. Condoleezza Rice announces that the US has no plans to attack Iran at the present moment, the ...”

“... after Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb, and just eight years after he revealed the gold funerary mask. These were global events. Audiences in both Cairo and London were enthralled by the excavation. The Times managed to secure an exclusive deal for press access. Carter’s imperious handling of the tomb, his preferment of a British newspaper ...”

“... calls himself ‘a grumpy old Marxist’, in a Paul Mertonish, estuarine boot-boy-wiv-a-heart-of-gold way. What was stylish and dynamic about LM must have been largely his work – I can’t imagine it being Furedi’s. Which means that the magazine’s downfall was largely Hume’s responsibility as well. Glancing over Hume’s ‘journalism of ...”

“... Groucho was an affectionate and dutiful father to both of his children by this marriage: Arthur, whose memoir of Groucho is perceptive and has some human depth, and Miriam, known in Hollywood as a girl of charm and intelligence whom her father doted on past anyone’s good. In the divorce settlement, he would give Ruth half of everything. Miserly in ...”

“... and one of the last, occurred at Salem in Massachusetts Bay Colony – it was the subject of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. It began when the minister’s nine-year-old daughter, Betty Parris, and her cousin, Abigail Williams, complained that they were being tormented by invisible beings. Three local women, convicted of bewitching them, named other ...”

“... has insisted on stopping here for sandwiches. He is quite like a narcissus – so white and gold. I will come either Wednesday or Thursday night to your rooms. Send me a line. Bosie is so tired: he lies like a hyacinth on the sofa, and I worship him.’ The following January, he was writing to Douglas: ‘My Own Boy, Your sonnet is quite lovely, and it ...”