“... on the dominance of the big seven private housebuilding companies – in descending order of size, Taylor Wimpey, Barratt Homes, Persimmon, Bellway, Redrow, Bovis and Crest Nicholson – who between them have almost 40 per cent of the market in new homes. But the most striking thing in the document is a chart displaying the history of Britain, in housebuilding ...”

“... and the first person in Tewkesbury to die as a result of the floods, 19-year-old Mitchell Taylor, had drowned while taking a short cut past the abbey on his way home from the pub. Passers-by heard him yelling for help – he couldn’t swim – and tried in vain, via mobile phone and the 999 centre, to guide a helicopter to him. His body was found a ...”

“... had a heart attack.)In the US, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary, the governor of New York, George Pataki, signed a Bill which would legally require high school students to study the Great Famine. ‘History teaches us,’ he said, ‘that the Great Hunger was not the result of a massive Irish crop failure, but rather a deliberate campaign by the ...”

“... reduced me to sudden tears.) I began absorbing ever more specialised fare: Macdonald’s books, Taylor and Tuchman on the political background, battle histories of Gallipoli, Verdun and Passchendaele, books about Haig and Kitchener, VAD nurses, brave dead subalterns and monocled mutineers. I read Michael Hurd’s desolating biography – The Ordeal of Ivor ...”

“... But they know their days are numbered. Edna Bonhomme‘Trust women.’ These were the words of Dr George Tiller, an abortion provider in Kansas, who was murdered while at church by an anti-choice militant. This was in 2009, a year after I moved to New York City and just as my friends and I were forming light-hearted relations grounded on newly found sexual ...”

“... appointed to work on Grenfell Tower, sent an email to Feilding-Mellen attaching a link to the George House flats in Kilburn which showed the cladding they wished to use. ‘It uses the same brushed aluminium material and finish proposed for Grenfell Tower, but folded into cladding cassettes which conceal almost all fixings.’ Feilding-Mellen replied to ...”