“... The​ first thing that dies in Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland (which will be in cinemas from 17 May) is a town called Empire, in Nevada. The life-supporting sheetrock plant shuts down, the people leave, even the zip code vanishes. A woman called Fern, played by Frances McDormand, takes up residence in a van. She spends a Christmas season working at an Amazon warehouse, and hopes for jobs elsewhere ...”

“... In the early afternoon of Monday, 8 May, a sealed A4 envelope was delivered by the Iranian Foreign Ministry to the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. The wire agencies were told that it contained a letter from Iran’s president, intended for his US counterpart. The news travelled fast. Ahmadinejad had written a letter. Might this be a turning point in US-Iran relations? The US denied any knowledge of it, while the Swiss merely confirmed its arrival and said that it would be sent on ‘as soon as possible ...”

“... way and a Persian version of around 1600 hangs beside it in the exhibition. The wall paintings he may have made have not survived. Questions of attribution create less anxiety here than they do in many exhibitions. It may be that the costume drawings are workshop copies; a date recently discovered in the Louvre Reception of ...”

“... allegedly in honour of a nebula – Alan McHughen, the scientist responsible, may be a mild-mannered biologist by day, but at night he’s an amateur astronomer. He’s dismissive of fears that the association with John Wyndham’s 1950s novel won’t do the controversy-strewn world of GM any favours; and he’s done that clever thing of ...”

“... soften the desire to see the drawings themselves, nor will the planned replica of the cave that may be built, following the model of Lascaux II. Herzog leads you to a place you will never visit and the sense of being inside the cave that the 3D image produces makes it all the more tantalising. You want to get your own torch and walk where the film-makers ...”

“... of the gods (who are explicitly compared in the poem to Rome’s ruling elite) – though there may be more appetite now than there used to be for scandal about those who are famous only for being scandalous. Meanwhile, there’s little chance of scandal derailing ‘compassionate, decent’ Paul Wolfowitz’s bid to become the next president of the World ...”

“... the last count, it has at least 38 moons. ‘At some time in the future,’ the IAU warns, ‘it may be advisable to stop naming very small satellites.’ Most of Uranus’s satellites are named after characters in Shakespeare – Trinculo is the latest addition – though two, Belinda and Umbriel, take their names from The Rape of the Lock. This ...”

“... of one sense triggers stimulation in a completely different sensory modality’, so that colours may be heard, sounds tasted, smells seen. Famous synaesthetes – as those who suffer from (or enjoy?) the condition are known – include Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Kandinsky, Nabokov and Hockney. John Harrison’s Synaesthesia: The Strangest Thing, a scientific and ...”

“... healthy place – morally or physically. If the whores didn’t get you, infections did – which may explain why it gained so many hospitals in the mid-19th century. In 1854, Dr John Snow advanced the cause of public health – and epidemiology – by persuading the local Board of Guardians to remove the handle from the Broad Street (now Broadwick ...”

“... roof, and it’s possible the reason I didn’t wake up has something to do with that. Though it may just be that I’m a heavy sleeper. And the tremors, by the time they reached us, weren’t strong enough to do any damage. In the event of a larger earthquake closer to home, there’s an emergency muster point in a car park at the bottom of the hill. It’s ...”

“... nightingale, which sang back. The bird’s fondness for performing along with us is well known. In May 1924, Beatrice Harrison was recorded playing her cello with nightingales in one of the BBC’s first live outside radio broadcasts.Although it is often thought of as a haunted figure, the nightingale’s appearance in spring means that it has also long been ...”

“... discoveries had given vivid form to the idea that the dead do not disappear. And Janus, we may remember, the Roman god of gods, was the opener and closer of all things, who looked inward and outward, before and after, a pertinent god to have acquired, given Freud’s new-found preoccupations at the turn of the century. It is, of course, tendentious, to ...”

“... that they had never told, or ever would tell, anything but the truth. Courage and hardware may win wars, but cunning deception is just as surely a helpful friend. And this erasure of guilt for indulgence in ‘double standards’ has suited all sides and combatants, is quite in line with the manichaean ferocities of war, especially of big-scale ...”

“... the chief legal effects of marriage during the coverture’, Blackstone wrote, ‘upon which we may observe, that even the disabilities, which the wife lies under, are for the most part intended for her protection and benefit. So great a favourite is the female sex of the laws of England.’ Perhaps not surprisingly, Blackstone’s sisters now tell a ...”