“... even though in the Iliad Agamemnon swears ‘by the greatest of oaths’ that he never went into her bed or slept with her (no Clintonesque reservations here, please), while Achilles calls Briseïs his darling wife, adding: ‘I loved her with all my heart though I had captured ...”

“... pristine newcomer, just a little fatter and rounder than the six Tunnel Boring Machines that dug her out, prepares for its rendezvous with the admired brickwork of Joseph Bazalgette’s overwhelmed Victorian outflow. Such imaginative solutions were required, at whatever the cost (in the end it was £4.3 billion), to reduce the horror of the raw sewage and ...”

“... a raised terrace, an idea Utzon had first met studying classical Chinese architecture, where the majesty of a ruler was expressed by the height on which his palace stood, and his power by the flights of stairs his subjects had to climb to see him. In Utzon’s thinking, the terrace has another significance: it emphasises the separation of the timeless arts ...”

“... average childhood, it was down to Addie Parker, who toiled hard and made his future the focus of her life. None of the books pries very far under this bright but somewhat inert picture. The near suffocating attention Addie lavished on Charlie feels not entirely healthy: maybe not the full Oedipal, but definitely on the doorstep. Routes around limited ...”

“... called out: ‘Come, O Manat, show the anger of which you are capable!’ Manat began to pull out her hair and beat her breasts in despair, while cursing her tormentors. Sa’d beat her to death. Only then did his 20 companions join him. Together they ...”

“... seemed cruel to the poor little dressmaker outside, it may be believed that it did not strike her as an abode of mercy while she pursued her devious way into the circular shafts of cells … there were walls within walls and galleries on top of galleries; even the daylight lost its colour.’Millbank Prison had played ...”

“... was for a time regarded by Thatcher as the nearest thing to a soulmate she had in Europe. But to her disappointment he domesticated rather than crushed the trade unions, and mindful of the golden rule of consensus, administered only moderate doses of privatisation and welfare reduction. Bolkestein, by contrast, had read his Hayek and was contemptuous of such ...”