“... not to betray him to his mother’. The vastly successful and productive middle-aged Picasso may be a subject for awe; he does not invite compassion. Richardson’s previous two volumes, taking Picasso to the age of 35, were more naturally engaging. The artist had to rise. He had to put behind him his hopeless father (‘an execrable ...”

“... stone of mathematical understanding – and therefore of science itself – was laid. Thales may have been the first to introduce this notion of proof, but it seems to have been the Pythagoreans who first made important use of it to establish things that were not otherwise obvious. Pythagoras also appeared to have a strong vision of the importance of ...”

“... two disasters: a husband dead from a brain haemorrhage and a daughter dead from an overdose. Mrs A may have taken the altruism route to restore some sense and meaning to her life. That is a story fit for Sharp’s book, even if she does not do living donors. Sensational tales notwithstanding, the day-to-day work of organ procurement is mundane and ...”

“... was a possibility. More straightforwardly, people do crazy things out of sexual frustration and it may be that Asquith was ejaculating words in the direction of Venetia Stanley because he couldn’t offload anything else. There was certainly a feeling of frustrated lust about one embarrassing episode when he squandered government resources arranging an ...”

“... with the express purpose of creating the conditions for the sustenance of life. While it may seem that where some see God, Lovelock sees Gaia (‘Gaia looks after us’), he doesn’t say Gaia is God. He has never claimed that Gaia is sentient, or benevolent, or anything so obviously woo-woo as that. Rather, he maintains that all the evidence ...”

“... shelves. This came as a shock – I’m still not sure why Marsh escaped me then, except that she may have seemed in some mysterious way more of a grown-up taste than Dorothy L. Sayers or Christie – but being a completist I settled down last year to read all of her books, in chronological order. And then I read or reread two hundred or so by other writers ...”

“... an investigation. ‘As a result of Professor Dean’s comments,’ he explained, ‘there now may be students on our campus who feel threatened in or outside of the classroom.’ An email, with the subject line ‘Invitation to Participate in Investigation’, has been sent to Hobart and William Smith students by a law firm retained by the college ‘to ...”

“... for Zafrullah In late May 1985, a tidal bore struck the south-eastern coast of Bangladesh causing widespread devastation and loss of life. I Either side of the bund nobody slept That night. It wasn’t the siren warning (The third time this year), but the wind’s cling And the way frisky things stayed wrapped About uprights, legs or gateposts, till swept By a sidling gust up and away, a strange falling Toward the sky ...”

“... spoke like a gentleman: ‘Grandpa, if you and your good wife could have one wish ...?’ ‘May we work as vergers in your chapel, and, since our lives Have been spent together, please may we die together, The two of us at the one time? I don’t want to see My wife buried or be buried by her.’ Their wish came true ...”

“... a train of motes in their wake, the sough of traffic along Claremont Boulevard. I’ll wave. He may or may not wave back. Usually not, or maybe offer the barest of nods. Some days more than others weigh heavily upon him, I can tell that by now. One day I thought I even overheard a sob, which is all the noise I’ve ever ...”

“... and funny’. At least they make each other laugh.) Tim Allan, a former Labour aide who may, rather marvellously, be sued by the organisers of the event for leaking the story to the Times, has said that ‘it is a matter of huge public interest that John Humphrys was getting paid thousands of pounds to tell audiences that . . . the job of the BBC ...”

“... the BBC that spun, should never have become the issue it has become, to the point where the BBC may suffer lasting damage at the hands of a vindictive regime. The hard fact is that the evidence, whether spun or unspun, was, we’re now entitled to believe, false, and in my own view (see Short Cuts, 19 June) is likely to have been sufficiently negative in ...”

“... broadcasting talent (unless you count Alistair Cooke and Clive James, who provide epigraphs). This may be because Lawson overlooked Connolly when it came to changing the names, or it may be because he forgot Connolly isn’t a member of the royal family. ‘I think you get into such an alternative Britain, once you start ...”

“... The most dramatic episode in the short history of automated trading was the ‘flash crash’ of 6 May 2010, a sudden huge fall – and then almost as rapid a recovery – in prices, which led to a widespread disruption of trading. Cermak was where the crash began. It seems to have been triggered by a set of electromagnetic signals – originally generated by ...”

“... The anger may have subsided on the streets as hoodies, gangstas and other members of Kenneth Clarke’s ‘feral underclass’ retreated into the shadows after last month’s riots, but it soon burst out in courtrooms across England. The most egregious instance was the judge at Chester who gave two men without criminal records four-year prison terms for trying (and failing) to incite riots via Facebook, but it was among magistrates that the rage was most sustained ...”