“... Tom Dudley, and a crew of three named Stephens, Brooks and Parker drifted on a dinghy for 1050 miles in 24 days, until they were rescued by the German barque Moctezuma some nine hundred and ninety miles east of Rio de Janeiro on 29 July. At that moment, Dudley was to say, ‘their hearts were in their mouths’: ‘a ...”

“... praise, is reverentially read by all. Borrow of the mighty stride – he could cover more than 30 miles a day and always counted on doing the last lap to the pub at six miles an hour – Borrow the mysterious, the adventurous, the polyglot, the pugilist, the dodgy lover has been thrown into an unregarded corner. Up in ...”

“... other prisoners he was transported by train to a prisoner-of war camp in Görlitz, about sixty miles east of Dresden. The journey, more than four hundred miles on a slow train in high summer to an unknown destination, must have been more gruelling than anything he had so far experienced in the war. At one point he ...”

“... men were caught breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in June 1972, Richard Helms, then director of the CIA, refused to help with the cover-up. In February 1973, after his re-election, Nixon fired Helms and replaced him with James Schlesinger. In an initiative to regain public trust as the crisis escalated, Schlesinger announced ...”

“... local dominance by various ruses, some of them old-fashioned daredevil exploits devised by Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen. ‘When full deduction is made of the advantageous conditions’ of Allenby’s victory at Megiddo, Liddell Hart concluded, ‘the operations deserve to rank among history’s masterpieces for their breadth of vision and ...”

“... I went a-wooing you shall find so many slashes upon an ash tree at Winter town end, and how many miles I travelled for her sake was 440 and odd.’ The coward in the marriage stakes is William Ashcombe. At the age of 17, he ‘was much importuned to marry my Lady Garrard’s daughter’ – ‘I saw her and no more.’ At 18, he was offered Kate Howard, but ...”

“... closed, Russia was left dependent on Archangel, icebound half the year, and on Vladivostock, 8,000 miles from the battlefront. With the Black Sea closed, her exports dropped by 98 per cent and her imports by 95 per cent. The cutting off of Russia with all its consequences, the vain and sanguinary tragedy of Gallipoli, the diversion of Allied strength in the ...”

“... philistinism of local notables and the formality of the court. A generation later the 25-year-old Richard Strauss was hired, but like others before him felt blocked by petty bureaucrats and insufficiently supported (or recompensed) by his patron. After five years he went back to Munich. The wealthy cosmopolitan Count Harry Kessler moved to Weimar in the ...”

“... dispersed more widely across the United States and the rest of the world. The book – chosen as a Richard and Judy Summer Read, though that shouldn’t be held against it – begins with Teddy and Yvette’s wedding in Santa Barbara during the Second World War, and ends with Yvette’s funeral at the turn of the millennium. A narrative spanning nearly 60 ...”

“... in a friendly but non-committal way. In September he went to visit her for the day, cycling sixty miles each way. Tebbutt continued his pursuit by letter throughout the autumn, but though his interest in the relationship was undiminished, Joan’s replies became less and less frequent. By Christmas he felt frustrated, but wasn’t sure whether or not to break ...”

“... inaugurated on 4 November 1890, connecting King William Street, in the City, to Stockwell, three miles to the south across the river. The engines, powered by electricity from a generator at Stockwell, just about made it up the slope to King William Street, lights flickering. The carriages were known as ‘padded cells’, on account of their slit windows and ...”

“... lectures, was blackballed from the 1924 expedition, while one member of the committee vetoed Richard Graham because he had been a conscientious objector. Mallory, to his credit, condoned neither decision, but once again the party was deprived of three of the finest climbers available, with Frank Smythe also being left off the list. Finch had not only ...”

“... or to atone by serving in the King’s Army, but fatally drawn to highway robbery. The rector, Richard de Folville, was eventually dragged from his church by armed men and beheaded on the spot. ‘The records reveal so many thugs in holy orders,’ Spraggs writes, ‘that it has even been suggested that the astute professional malefactor may well have ...”

“... of the world’s smartphones were designed in Hertfordshire, at Kings Langley just a few miles from St Albans, by a British company called Imagination Technologies. The firm was galvanised in 1992 by the arrival of an Iranian immigrant, Hossein (now Sir Hossein) Yassaie. Imagination became known for its Pure brand of digital radios, but it was its ...”

“... I was in Los Angeles this spring on the day Richard Feynman died. The next morning I saw a banner lowered from the top of the tower block which stands in the middle of the Caltech campus. It read: ‘WE LOVE YOU DICK.’ The obituary of Feynman in the LA Times was awed and affectionate. It listed his achievements – his work in physics, the Nobel Prize it earned him and his work on the nuclear bomb ...”