“... young apprentices. Thomas More, then under-sheriff of London, came out to meet them at St Martin-le-Grand and tried to persuade them to return home. His speech is reimagined in the play Sir Thomas More, written by many hands, including Shakespeare. More reproaches them for their ‘barbarous inhumanity’:Imagine that you see the wretched ...”

“... Think, too, of the enormous slice of the Beatles songbook covered by other acts. How many Jagger/Richards cover versions can you call up before your forehead starts to wrinkle? The only two that came unbidden to my mind are by Devo and Cat Power, who gave us wildly different takes on ‘Satisfaction’. (For the record, my own favourite Beatles covers ...”

“... Empson’s return from China; this fashion, led by such as C.S. Lewis and practised by such as Fr Martin Jarrett-Kerr, seemed interesting to others, who may thus have seemed, willy-nilly, to be crypto-Christians. One point of importance in this, as usual good, but as usual digressive, essay concerns Empson’s refusal to distinguish between the truth of ...”

“... a sound it would take the Rolling Stones until 1972’s Exile on Main Street to secure. And Keith Richards says he still can’t work out some of Moore’s blistering riffs and runs.) Listening to these itchy little songs in your front room, sixty years on, you miss the most vital spark in the detonation: Elvis’s own vivid, mercurial presence. His heat and ...”

“... with power divided between controllers, strand editors and regional department heads. Troy Kennedy Martin’s 1985 anti-nuclear six-parter Edge of Darkness was commissioned by the head of serials, Jonathan Powell, produced by the Birmingham regional drama head, Michael Wearing, and scheduled before Martin had finished the ...”