“... secret degenerates,’ as Lord Acton put it long ago; which is why we still need to keep a keen eye on MI5. In particular we might want to watch how it interprets the change in its brief in the late 1980s, which extended its duties to the safeguarding of ‘the economic well-being of the United Kingdom’, in case it takes that as code for simply ...”

“... because I may be some help on Commons’). Blair also offered advice to Rupert and James Murdoch. Peter Mandelson offered to prep Brooks for an appearance before the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. Two Conservative peers gave glowing character references: Baron Black of Brentwood, a former director of the Press Complaints Commission, for ...”

“... Records, in which jazz took its place alongside what would be called world music. Avakian was keen for Shankar to tour with Brubeck, a plan that foundered on Shankar’s reluctance to involve himself too deeply with contemporary jazz. The jazz that spoke to him – Armstrong, Basie, Ellington – had, he said, ‘innocence, life and soul in it. Their ...”

“... recalled, ‘you couldn’t give comic books away’. Lee’s production partner wasn’t keen on them either, and Saturday morning cartoons based on non-Marvel properties such as the Transformers and My Little Pony became the company’s bread and butter. By the 1990s, Lee was ‘a minister without portfolio’, one executive told Riesman. ‘He ...”

“... Eliot professed himself mystified by these exemplarily Shelleyan lines from ‘To a Skylark’:Keen as are the arrows      Of that silver sphereWhose intense lamp narrows      In the white dawn clear,Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.‘I should be grateful for any explanation of this stanza’, Eliot said.Until now I am still ...”

“... as surrender, which boded ill for the all-party talks. The situation wasn’t simple. Trimble was keen to attract Catholics into the Unionist Party, but for that to happen breaking the party’s link with the Orange Order was necessary, and he failed to do the preparatory work which would have been required to bring this about. Then came the second battle of ...”

“... a poor thing if I thank them here alphabetically. They include Mr Gerald Albertini, The Rt Hon. Peter Archer MP, Miss Amanda Aspinall, Dr Robert Aspinall, The Duke of Atholl, Miss Julie Battersea, Mr Tom Begg, Dr Kurt Benirschke, Mr Robin Birley, Mr Anthony Blond, Mr Robert Boutwood, Mr Claus von Bülow, Mr Timothy Cassel, The Hon. Mr Alan Clark, Sir David ...”

“... up an alternative life, and to develop her vital allure reading movie magazines. Norma Jeane had a keen sense of how to conquer people’s affections – especially those of men. She wore lipstick. She wore short skirts. She told a sad story of her upbringing. And after a spell modelling and flirting and screwing and practising her walk, waiting in line with ...”

“... class="highlight-term">keen’, ‘emaciated’, ‘preoccupied’, quite often ‘attractive’, yet more often animal-like in the sheer strikingness of his animation. ‘He has still the air and manner of a young man,’ the journalist William Archer wrote, ‘for illness has neither ...”

“... 1980s, when I was researching the commissioning and installation of the statue of Shakespeare by Peter Scheemakers in Westminster Abbey in 1741 as part of my doctorate, I discovered that one of the leading proponents and fundraisers for the project had been Susanna Ashley-Cooper, née Noel, Countess of Shaftesbury. It became clear that she was also the ...”

“... The war​ rescued my father, Peter Raban, from his first job as a probationary teacher in the West Midlands and restored him to his proper station as an officer and a gentleman. He had hoped to go on to university (Oxford or Cambridge) from his boarding school in Worcester but his dismal Higher School Certificate results nixed that ambition ...”

“... postwar renaissance. Thomas Bernhard was the acknowledged leader of the dissident pack, with Peter Handke and the Forum Stadtpark group from Graz representing the next wave of an obligatory avant-garde. Jelinek was at the young end of this group, but gained instant recognition within it. It was her natural mode to épater les bourgeois, starting with her ...”

“... of the child behind the man, Mandelson’s short-trousered induction into political life. Boy Peter on a Hovis bicycle! That was the madeleine moment in an interminable chronicle of not-saying, arcane rituals of grazing and trouser-changing unmatched since Roberto Rossellini made The Taking by Power by Louis XIV for French television. Triggered by an ...”

“... of some nearby Classical architecture to the futuristic technology of the working environment. Keen to escape the predictable routines of business appearance, these photographs certainly don’t withdraw into a romantic focus on personal character. It is no part of their intention to seek out the distinguishing signs of wisdom, skill or experience in the ...”

“... like a cartoon wolf while motorbikes crash in her wake.What’s Up, Doc? was directed by Peter Bogdanovich, fresh from the success of The Last Picture Show. For the first time Streisand was in the hands of a director her own age and a denizen of New Hollywood. Bogdanovich, ever the auteur, had worked out every beat to his own exact specifications. In ...”