“... Martin Chuzzlewit, in the Dickens novel, crosses the Atlantic in a packet boat. When it reaches New York, newsboys come aboard shouting out the latest in their papers: the New York Sewer, the Stabber, the Plunderer and so on. ‘Here’s the Sewer’s exposure of the Washington gang,’ one cries, ‘and the Sewer’s exclusive account of a flagrant act of dishonesty committed by the Secretary of State when he was eight years old, now communicated, at a great expense, by his own nurse ...”

“... founding families, are fairly heavy on Kerry’s mother’s side and his kinsman Robert Charles Winthrop was a senator for Massachusetts in 1850. Lowell’s portrait of that society, ‘91 Revere Street’, creaks with patrician relatives and Edwardian furniture, people with large trust funds and profound neuroses, ‘an unspoiled faith in the ...”

“... instead a continuing struggle is variously played out between politicians such as Jack Lynch and Charles Haughey, the conservative Church and the women’s movement, or (less convincingly) the ‘big, mad children’ on both sides in the North and the grown-ups. The opposition is clearest in the contrast between Haughey and Garret FitzGerald. FitzGerald ...”

“... projects, this excessively long biography offers both ugly revelations and moving insights. Born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, the son of Swiss parents, a father who enamelled watchcases and a piano teacher mother, Le Corbusier was a man of apparently absolute precision in everything he did, from his obsessive timekeeping to the organisation of his own ...”

“... the name ‘David Copperfield’; underneath, in slightly smaller letters, is another name, ‘Charles Dickens’. I open the book, and find the same combination repeated on the title page. I have heard of Dickens, and conclude that what I am holding is a novel written by Dickens about a character he has invented and named David Copperfield. I go on to ...”

“... life. Young Bess had Jean Simmons in the lead. Hemmed in by Stewart Granger as Thomas Seymour and Charles Laughton reprising his prewar role as Henry VIII, there isn’t much Simmons can do beyond tossing her hair and striking a curious hands-on-hips Holbeinesque pose to suggest that there is more to her defiance than teenage sulks. Her girlish wiles win her ...”

“... when we were in support. The Hun put over some shrapnel-registering shells, I think. Willie Martin and I were in command of Support trench with 3 platoons (Willie is our second captain – a ripping fellow, a regular officer) we got the men in dugouts and were returning to the telephone dugout. We heard the usual whizz and I dropped down and Willie ...”

“... it throughout my pregnancy and after the birth of my son. On the strength of this painting, which Charles Saatchi bought, my first dealer had started to represent me. I was due to have a solo exhibition at the Bernard Jacobson Gallery the year after I met William Feaver.Here is his description of me on first sight:We went off to dinner. I drove. He, in his ...”

“... expanded significantly during the 1660s, under the enthusiastic leadership of the new king, Charles II, and his brother, the future James II. In 1665, it was James’s eagerness to capture Dutch slave-trading forts on the West African coast that set off the second Anglo-Dutch war. In the last quarter of the century, English ships carried almost 300,000 ...”

“... trade still runs. From a policy point of view, the last word on this should probably be left with Martin Lee, leader of the democratic forces in Hong Kong’s Legislative Council. As he has stressed (I am summarising a conversation in Sydney last year), the British are not going to have to put up with the consequences of their decisions. Most of the present ...”

“... Metamagical Themas – an anagram of the formula ‘Mathematical Games’ used by his predecessor Martin Gardner, but also referring to the ‘metamathematics’ rooted in Gödel’s discovery. These columns are now collected together in this new book. But there is more to it than this, not only because of its new postscripts, but also because it embraces ...”

“... with the transformation of Louis-Philippe into a pear (poire – also French slang, fathead) by Charles Philipon, shortly to become the founder of Le Charivari. His fellow caricaturists joyfully took up the image, and the pear, in innumerable forms, became the emblem not only of the king but of his courtiers and ministers and all the avaricious speculators ...”

“... Calvin was buried long ago – in the great revivals of the early 19th century when preachers like Charles Grandison Finney taught that it was possible for people to redeem themselves by their own efforts. The followers of Mother Anne Lee, Joseph Smith and John Humphrey Noyes were all, in different ways, antinomian perfectionists who considered themselves free ...”

“... proposed digging trenches in the Sahara, filling them with kerosene and setting them ablaze. Charles Cros, a poet and inventor, petitioned the French government to fund the construction of a huge mirror capable of burning messages onto the Martian and Venusian deserts, while the will of Anne Goguet, a French socialite, left 100,000 francs to the ...”

“... rather than £24 million (the previous week’s total) or £10 million (the week before that)? As Martin Amis has pointed out in another context, though it is hard to say what difference would be made by having £40 million rather than £20 million at one’s disposal, it is easy enough to see that the difference is a cool £20 million. When the total reached ...”