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“... West End and then call her. Thus my fascination with London. I went with my mum and then came back by myself when I was 15 to see a musical at the Adelphi called Marilyn. I returned at 18 and ate a bowl of grass in a Vietnamese restaurant in Frith Street. Then I moved down for good in 1990 and spent the next decade in the nearby streets.Soho never was what it ...”

“... not giving any – as well as being admirably genial. After all, says Aldiss, the definition may be wrong, but it doesn’t matter: ‘we can modify it as we go along.’ The definition is as follows: ‘Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of knowledge ...”

“... when it’s just going to sit there. She is both concerned for the imprisoned turtle and unmoved by its authenticity. The museum has been advertising these turtles as wonders, curiosities, marvels – among the plastic models, here is the life that Darwin saw. It is Thanksgiving weekend. The queue is long, the crowd frozen in place. I begin to talk with some ...”

“... The first​ academic book I read on Goya was by Fred Licht, for whom Goya distilled the ‘modern temper’ in art. It was thrilling stuff. Goya, it seemed, was a rebel and a nihilist, who profaned the nude, renounced the Enlightenment, mocked the royal family, championed the masses and anticipated war photography ...”

“... machines were already in use in Chicago, and on their way to Detroit. At the parts plant, by contrast, she had eased the oppressive routine of the working week by wearing a gingham dress, ‘And I could bully the foreman and everybody.’ Though she didn’t mention a Saint Monday, her week had a regular high ...”

“... as a shock to read the original story of Pinocchio and discover that the Talking Cricket is killed by Pinocchio at their very first meeting. This unusual creature, who has lived in Geppetto’s house for a hundred years, offers Pinocchio a ‘great truth’, solemnly advising him that he will never come to any good if he doesn’t find a useful ...”

“... freedom, independence, improvisation, cultural survival – that transcend music, values shared by Coleman’s friend John Coltrane, who, just before he died in 1967, requested in his will that Coleman perform at his funeral. With Coleman’s death, an era closes. As the jazz DJ Phil Schaap said, ‘I have the feeling of the conclusion of the age of the ...”

“... the foundations’ of independent local administration. Until then, most prisons had been run by local authorities. Conditions varied hugely: wealthier inmates at Holloway, such as W.T. Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, could pay six shillings to entrepreneurial jailers for a private cell and a ‘first-class’ stay. (‘Never had I a pleasanter ...”

“... Life​ as a feminist in the 21st century can be disorientating. Viewed from one perspective, feminism looks to have reached a high-water mark. By the end of the last century, women in many countries had formally secured the freedom to vote, to hold property, to receive higher education and to enter professions formerly the preserve of men ...”

“... celebrations. The contribution of my former department to the general gaiety was to be a talk by Margaret Drabble, on the topic of young women at university in the 1960s and 1970s. I was dun gone, as we say in the trade, pensioned off, but reeled in for a last duty. ‘Or as warm-up woman,’ I said in the ...”

“... a six-part documentary called The Mighty Micro was broadcast on ITV. Written and presented by the late Christopher Evans of the National Physical Laboratory, and based on his book of the same name, the series looked at the ways the world might be changed by the microcomputer ...”

“... died one day in the back yard. The Church of England then made my Yorkshireness even more shaky by providing a free boarding-school place in Hertfordshire. My accent lasted little more than a month, and when I returned to Dewsbury two years later, it was with the longer, posher vowels of my mother, who was born and brought up in Surrey. Her father, Grandad ...”

“... a new mosque in Manama. Some insight into Jackson’s life in the Middle East was offered recently by a young man who goes by the name DJ Whoo Kid, has a radio show on the New York station Hot 97 and produces work with gangsta-rap outfits with names like G-Unit and Lil Scrappy. According to MTV News, ‘Whoo Kid says he ...”

“... from view, except for a promise to the music press that he would return with a new band who would be ‘anti-music of any kind’. That autumn, Rotten unveiled his new enterprise: Public Image Ltd, or PiL for short. Starting with its name, inspired by Muriel Spark’s novel The Public Image, PiL was intended to ...”

“... mother (whose heart he feared would break at the news) to have the separation allowance that would be her due and half his pay. The experience of trench warfare did not shock Rosenberg into poetry or make him see more clearly. The war may have accelerated his poetic development as much as it cramped its production, but it did not fundamentally change its ...”