“... In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Francis Fukuyama signed an open letter arguing that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was essential to ‘the eradication of terrorism’, even if Saddam were revealed to have had no connection to al-Qaida and no hand in the attack. At that time, in other words, and alongside neo-con celebrities such as Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol, Fukuyama was beating the drum for a ‘shift in focus from al-Qaida to Iraq ...”

“... in Kent, with loss of life. Dickens went to some lengths to conceal the identity of his young companion and to recover jewellery she had lost. She was injured, and thereafter he referred to her in letters by the code name ‘the Patient’. In 1867 the diary reveals that Dickens was spending about a third of his free time with Nelly, and lying about ...”

“... There is a sinister painting by the 18th-century artist Francis Hayman of a couple frolicking on a seesaw. A youth soars triumphantly into the air, but his hold seems precarious. His female companion descends smilingly to the ground, only to tumble back into the lascivious arms of another man. Altogether an appropriately ambivalent emblem, one might think, for the vicissitudes that James Boswell would experience throughout his life, and the turbulence of his reputation since his death ...”

“... According to Pavel Tchelitchev, ‘she liked to take a chair and sit in a person’s life.’ Young painters and writers flocked to see her. Some, of course, were not as charmed as Tchelitchev, and Stein herself was not entranced with every young man who used her hospitality for professional advancement. Her feud with ...”

“... not genuine. Unfortunately for this theory, Cecil was not a brilliant linguist. He informed Sir Francis Walsingham several years later that he was ‘unable to speak any other than my mother taught me’ and was so unsure of his French that he negotiated with French ambassadors in Latin so he would not be tripped up. There is no positive evidence to suggest ...”

“... arduous about the latest of the Walter Neurath Memorial Lectures, except, perhaps, its title. Francis Haskell’s subject is the painful or rather protracted development of the art book, those large volumes built on superior illustrations of painting and sculpture. In tracing its origins, he returns to the field which he exploited so successfully in his ...”

“... in humble circumstances, but with strong theatrical connections. Her parents, Grace Phillips and Francis Bland, were unmarried and her mother was herself an actress. When Dora was 13, her father disappeared, and not long after, she made her first appearance on the stage in Dublin. She was soon taken up by Richard Daly, an unscrupulous theatre-manager, who ...”

“... which many of her advisers favoured. ‘Her majesty deals so coldly in these causes,’ wrote Sir Francis Walsingham, who did not believe in the likelihood of peace in his time. In August 1578, frustrated in foreign policy, these Protestant politicians, including Walsingham and the Queen’s favourite of favourites, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, pulled ...”

“... Tale has become. On page 97 it is revealed that these initials refer to Carl Linnaeus, Francis Galton and Henrik Ibsen, three historical figures woven into this tissue of intensely cross-referenced truths, halftruths and lies. As he stumbles around on the trail of Destry-Scholes, Phineas G. – short, spotty and socially inept – improbably ...”

“... Fourteen years earlier, in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War, Henner’s picture of a young woman in black peasant costume, L’Alsace, Elle attend, had become a patriotic icon. Both it and Fabiola were much reproduced. A ‘Fabiola’ bought in Lille for 180 francs In the early 1990s the Belgian architect-turned-artist ...”

“... a table scattered with fruit. She flails before the camera until she’s an inhuman blur, invoking Francis Bacon, aiming, in her words, to make ‘something soft wriggle and snake around a hard architectural outline’. She crawls half-naked into cupboards in homage to the odd dandyish self-portraits of Claude Cahun. When she plays dead on the floor, crams ...”

“... The opening rooms at Tate Britain reflect his early exposure to the London art scene. Francis Bacon, especially, was an important influence. When, in 1962, students at the RCA were asked to make works on the theme of ‘birthdays’, Bowling translated the memory of a neighbour giving birth into a picture of a grimacing woman slumped against a ...”

“... what else she is – principally an uninformed child in an adult body. This is not a metaphor. The young woman we saw committing suicide in the opening frames of the film is Bella. She died but was not beyond resurrection once Dr Baxter took up the body. He discovered that Bella was pregnant and decided to go beyond ordinary rescue of one or the other of the ...”

“... 1966, the most recent from 1999. Among them is an air-brush-smooth picture of a photograph of a young woman which, being lens-based, has some of the decorum and impersonality of surface cherished in Vermeer’s paintings. There is a group of panels called Eighteen Colours, each lacquered in a different shade, all as perfectly bright and glossy as new ...”

“... becoming possible through the advances in the physical and chemical techniques of the 1930s. The young scientist was John Kendrew, one of many inspired by such conversations to win the Nobel Prize, which escaped his travel companion. But it might have been anyone, male or female, who ever came within earshot of that stumpy, bohemian visionary genius with the ...”