“... and Indian ink), the painter narrows his eyes and lifts his chin and grimaces, like Edgar in King Lear, spotting choughs from the clifftop. Usually we talk for the first hour. Then, after a five-second break, he works in a silence interrupted only by grunts and mutterings and the occasional correction of something said in the preceding stream of comment ...”

“... things, behold, the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. The credits tell us that the screenplay is by Pasolini, and so it is. But not in the same way that the screenplay for John Huston’s The Bible is by ...”

“... parties. The key portfolios in the new government went to the members of Shamir’s Likud Party. David Levy, a populist of Moroccan origins, became Foreign Minister. Mr Levy does not speak English. But since little more than a dialogue of the deaf with the United States was likely on the peace process, this was not considered a severe handicap. Moshe ...”

“... genealogies (still not published). There were references to Dagobert II, the Merovingian king, to Sion, and to treasure said to be Merovingian. The consequences of the discovery were odd. Saunière was sent to Paris with the two documents, and came into contact with some leading figures in the literary and artistic world, all of whom were interested ...”

“... teachings, persistent gender inequality and stumbling economic development. The accession of King Salman in 2015 was cautiously welcomed but what really raised hopes that the PR nightmare could be ended was the appearance in the limelight of his son Mohammed, known as MBS. Was this the serious, young and energetic reformer the kingdom needed? After he ...”

“... Class will recall, not everyone thought the French had made a mistake in doing away with their king. Why were the officers and men at the Nile so ‘determined’? What did Nelson do to help them answer the question ‘What are we at war about?’ Nelson managed to live through an age of unprecedented revolutionary ferment without reflecting too deeply on ...”

“... the obvious refuge is not Pienza but Venice. Two recent studies, by Rona Goffen and Margaret King, reveal some of the distinctive forms of cultural patronage in that city. Goffen’s Piety and Patronage concentrates on three works painted for the Franciscan church of the Frari: Giovanni Bellini’s triptych, Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin and his ...”

“... against the interlopers by inventing evangelistic exploits for ancient saints like Dyfrig or David. Malcolm Lambert is a judicious guide to the shifting opinions of scholars amid these quicksands, casting a sceptical eye even on Bede’s motives for glorifying and sanitising the Roman mission to the Anglo-Saxons. What makes Lambert’s account so ...”

“... orbis’ (‘the world is not enough’). Parker, whose excellent biography of Philip, Imprudent King, was published in 2014, shows how a ‘messianic’ outlook undermined his strategy. Convinced that his actions were in perfect alignment with God’s will, Philip insisted on ‘micromanaging’ the expedition from his relic-stuffed palace in the Spanish ...”

“... and how he keeps coming back. T.S. Eliot said he was guilty of ‘crimes against taste’. David Lodge made him a twee subject of nostalgic research for the English hero of Small World, Philip Swallow, hopelessly outgunned by the vulgar but irresistible American, Morris Zapp. Lodge had got his significant detail wrong – Swallow should be a scholar of ...”

“... a chair made to look like an inverted, near-naked black woman, an image published on Martin Luther King Day. Abramovich, with his dislike of unnecessary publicity, was not amused. In the Branson household, it’s the man himself who can be relied on to do this sort of thing. The photo on the back of Bower’s book shows Branson sitting on the steps of one of ...”

“... Prussia, plump with nostalgia, miss the continuities that link the reign of the last Hohenzollern king, William II, with those of his predecessors. The Kaiser’s court was certainly marked by byzantine intrigue and toadying, but it hardly stood ‘in stark opposition to all traditional Prussian virtues’. Frederick William IV’s court had a notorious ...”

“... didn’t see the real Los Angeles until 1965. But to him the city was a myth as powerful as King Arthur. ‘I rented a car at the airport and drove down the length of Sunset in time to see the sun sink into the Pacific … I spent my time driving aimlessly around the freeways. It was concrete over sand. The anguish of lost souls … The people had lost ...”

“... for Change would not be implemented until the lessons of the war had been analysed. However, Tom King, then the Secretary of State for Defence, had already promised to give the outline to Parliament before it broke up for the summer recess, and we still live with the consequences. The ‘coalition of the willing’ that came together to achieve the removal ...”

“... only the Führer knew,’ ran the refrain, a variation on the idea of the ‘good king’, and Hitler consciously protected his own image by ducking hard or unpopular decisions. Security reports noted that people were still craving newsreel shots of him as wartime losses and privations mounted, until the mood shifted after the disaster of ...”