“... 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 ...”

“... sisters Tilly and Molly Button now spread excitement without a word. There is a notion that Higgs may be named after the narrator of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon; in which case – nothing more arch than The Archers – are the Button girls a nod to Gertrude Stein’s nickname for nipples? It may become clear when, as will ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... drinking endlessly and making dark epigrams by the score (‘Critics are like death: they may be late but they always get there’); and partly because Chao has cobbled lots of these epigrams from Onetti’s novels, so that he seems, in casual conversation, to be talking like his most literary self. Perhaps this is how Onetti talks, but the uneven ...”

“... but never summoned up the courage to break the news. Come the next spring, another try. In May 1809, Constant and Charlotte travelled to the vicinity of Coppet, Constant lodging in Ferney while Charlotte took a room in the inn at Sécheron. Charlotte sent a note, signed ‘Charlotte Constant de Hardenberg’ to de Staël, who promptly ordered her ...”

“... been – most recently, over his advocacy of the extension of the franchise to 14-year-olds. It may have suited both Brian Bunting and Slovo himself to push blacks into the symbolic front seat, but no one doubts that Slovo is still the real SACP boss. Take the case of the late Moses Mabhida: he may have been the official ...”

“... led to his banishment; Jonson in due course drew on this in his Poetaster. Moreover, Ovid himself may have been conscious of an element of formal or literary transgression in his work. He refers to the ever-flowing stream of his poem as carmen perpetuum, ‘perpetual song’. This is likely to be a deliberate, arrogant inversion of the canon laid down by his ...”

“... was not invariably all that different from the rest of Europe. By the same token, Mrs Thatcher may believe that Magna Carta secured liberty more effectively than did the French Revolution. But there has as yet been no revival of a British history emphasising native constitutional achievements. Indeed, some of the most unabashed Tory historians seem far ...”

“... to give top priority to defending sterling. With that fateful decision went the best chance Labour may ever have; after 13 years of waiting and planning and passionate commitment, the Party simply blew it. The shock-waves from that awesome failure are still with us. What one looks for in vain in Benn’s book is any recognition of the great turning points of ...”