“... the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Donald Trump’s (then) chief of staff, John Kelly, went on Fox News and delivered a history lesson. ‘The lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War,’ he said. ‘Men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.’ Kelly’s ...”

“... its nature always mutable. There was no crisis from which it did not emerge invigorated. John Nash designed Piccadilly Circus as a rond-point for his great picturesque town plan leading up Regent Street to the Regent’s Park. The view south was to culminate in the Prince Regent’s Palace at Carlton House. Long before the work was ...”

“... and its marks, positing emptiness as more interesting than presence. Twombly was best friends with John Cage, the composer of 4’33” and other ego-emptying artworks. As Cage put it, ‘something has to be done to get us free of our memories and choices.’ What Cage did was to introduce chance operations into his work. What Twombly did was to find his way ...”

“... a dentist might set up his stall at a country fair or travelling circus. I’m also reminded of John Henry Small of Devizes, who put his fist in his mouth but couldn’t spit it out, and the hand was removed, forthwith, along with his canines and incisors. Returning to myself, the consultant says I should wait at least another week before saying something ...”

“... how it all comes out.’ Thomas Edison’s first words were ‘It is very beautiful over there.’ John Ford’s first words were ‘May I please have a cigar?’ Ulysses S. Grant’s first word was ‘Water.’ Prince Henry’s first words were ‘I would say something but I cannot utter.’ Washington Irving’s first words were ‘When will this ...”

“... bush knives whispered Like settling locusts or long- Promised waterfalls. One sticky morning John Hanning Speke awoke on a spur above Lake Tanganyika with a ferocious headache, Blind as an earthworm. The clear lake waters rippled And sighed, then flared like a peacock’s tail beneath the whitening ...”

“... She rose from the not-so-bonny Bank of Clyde (Bombed to a pit for its pains in ’41). Meanwhile, John Masefield wrote a handsome poem (‘Shredding a trackway like a mile of snow . . .’) And Harry Lauder roamed the yard with pride. She ploughed across the Atlantic in four days, Loud with the ‘rich and famous’, only the seasick Inlaid pianos suffering ...”

“... events yield up their secrets easily, reproduces the attitude of one of his principal witnesses, John of Salisbury. John knew Thomas, was exiled with him and was in Canterbury when the Archbishop was struck down. Thomas’s posthumous miracles took John by surprise: but he accepted them ...”

“... in common, including ‘They flee from me’, ‘And wilt thou leave me thus?’ and ‘Mine own John Poyntz’. Where they differ in choice, it might be ventured that Jones’s, though still plangent, is more various in subject. He also includes Surrey’s fine epitaph: ‘Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest.’ While both editors give generous ...”

“... All her life, she seemed curiously fixed in childhood. In December 1957, Marianne met Lt Col John Kelly while working as an interpreter for the US Army, and they were married exactly a year later. On 25 May 1959, Petra’s half-sister was born and named Grace Patricia after the Princess of Monaco. Soon afterwards, ...”

“... well have learned the basics of the art from the recycled works of that universal publisher, Dr John Trusler (d. 1820): ‘Be not dark or mysterious; Affect not absence of mind; Punch no one in conversation; Hold no one by the button; Spit not on the carpet; Dare to be prudish; Avoid mauvaise honte.’ (‘What’s mauvaise honte, Mamma?’ – ‘Oh, ask ...”

“... because of his opposition to the despatch of the Falklands task force. Much of the anger in John Silkin’s posthumously published book is directed against Anthony Wedgwood Benn. Labour’s internal wars of the late Seventies are refought here, culminating in the 1981 election for the Party’s deputy leadership, in which Silkin stood as standard-bearer ...”

“... called Robert Nairac gave Holroyd a Polaroid photograph of the dead body of an IRA leader called John Green. Nairac, later to be shot himself, told Holroyd he had taken the picture after personally shooting Green. Nairac said that he and two Protestant terrorists had crossed the border in order to shoot Green. Much more horrific (since the victims had ...”

“... albeit one with greater relish for his wit than respect for his political judgment. So much for John Vincent, the brilliant author of The Formation of the Liberal Party who became the populist professor of the Thatcherite tabloid press. Whatever else he has lost in the process, it is not his ironic sense of humour, and in appraising one of Disraeli’s ...”

“... development. Where Harewood seems a born professional musician, self-bred as an amateur, the late John Culshaw was the born musical amateur, whose eventual breeding was to become ever more professional. In 1967, his last year as a gramophonist and the projected last of his unfinished memoirs, he was even appointed Head of the BBC’s television music, beating ...”