“... Grace Academy in Brixton. The programme was launched in 2000 by the then education secretary, David Blunkett, who explained that if sponsors put up £2 million, or 20 per cent of the capital costs, such ‘businesses, individuals, churches or voluntary bodies’ would get ‘considerable freedom over management structures and processes’, and of course a ...”

“... when workers in their CS Wind boiler suits, some green, some blue, some orange, stream from the gates on bicycles and scooters. Buses are laid on for those with far to go. The workers, about half of them migrants from the poor province of Nghe An in what used to be North Vietnam, have complex attitudes towards their jobs. By the standards of Phu My, CS Wind ...”

“... More Cecil Beaton?’ Norman showed her the book he was looking at, this time something on David Hockney. She leafed through it, gazing unperturbed at young men’s bottoms hauled out of Californian swimming-pools or lying together on unmade beds. ‘Some of them,’ she said, ‘some of them don’t seem altogether finished. This one is quite ...”

“... the other Fenian leaders, at 4.30, but it took two more hours for the coffin itself to enter the gates of the cemetery.There are many accounts of the day in the Bureau of Military History in Dublin. They emphasise the significance of the occasion, ‘the extraordinary perfection of the organisation’ and the fact that the Irish Volunteers – unlike the ...”