“... his occasional quotations from Wordsworth. A famous photograph shows him in country clothes with a robin perched on his hat. This lifelong rusticity led many to label him an insular amateur of limited ambition. As incoming prime minister in 1905, Henry Campbell-Bannerman was reluctant to make Grey foreign secretary because of ‘his ignorance of foreign ...”

“... history obsessives, novelists (Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters, Madeline Miller), classicists (Robin Lane Fox, Bettany Hughes), historians (Tom Holland), who salute her muscular resurrections of the classical world, and gay men who see her as a pioneer in her writing about homosexual relationships. Along with hundreds of other gay men, many of them ...”

“... of days of this, Louis had the churches on the route closed until Henry had passed by. The next day, Henry turned up on time, declaring that he could not possibly attend the talks because all the churches were closed, which must mean that Paris was under a papal interdict. Louis confessed his ruse, and asked Henry why he insisted on hearing so many ...”

“... before the Civil War, but hardly one touched on the great constitutional controversies of the day. Far from articulating a concern that monarchy might be growing absolutist, he seemed worried that the Crown was losing its grip (in particular that the Royal Supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs was being systematically eroded by high-flying ...”

“... her hand. Low cloud obscures the hilltops in the background. In the words of the art historian Robin Nicholson, ‘this is an image of complete hopelessness, of lassitude and despair and, in the case of the shepherd, an element of stoic indifference.’People leave places for different reasons. In Ramsay’s poem, a young man is leaving both his West ...”

“... and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day, vowed in a comment on a YouTube video that ‘Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten.’) Feminist commentators were quick to point out what should have been obvious: that no woman was obligated to have sex with Rodger; that his sense of sexual entitlement was ...”

“... far beyond the media. Sir John Hunt, a former cabinet secretary, broke cover as early as election day 1983 to voice the discontents of the mandarins:In the absence in our system of a chief executive with his own supporting staff, a ‘hole in the centre’ of government was perceived which an overworked cabinet seemed incapable of fulfilling. It was widely ...”

“... tone more false, the posturing more dishonest: ‘Potto said he was drawing you a picture – 3 robin red breasts against the moon – but its still unfinished. (Did you know that he has taken up art, to cure his heart? Neglect broke it.)’ With Ethel (her ‘uncastrated cat’) her relationship was more adult, had less fantasy in it, but also much less ...”

“... when I was older I saw Bankswood pictures: this photograph or similar ones, perhaps taken that day, perhaps weeks earlier, or weeks later. In the 1950s photographs often didn’t come out at all, or were so fuzzy that they were thrown away. What remains as a memory, though the colour has bled away, is the fast scudding of clouds, and the rush of sound over ...”

“... Schama’s advice helpfully prescribed in the blurb – ‘take a dose of the book at least once a day and retire early to bed’ – will sleep easy. In fact, two narratives are here in constant tension. One is an up to date, deeply informed, but ultimately traditional, history of medicine, though mercifully short on the genealogy, on who begot whom, which ...”

“... In the event Lawrence contented himself with ringing a bell in college in the middle of the day, since All Souls ‘needs waking up’. Graves and Nancy tried to support themselves while he was in theory an undergraduate by setting up a general store in Boars Hill outside Oxford, the landscape across which Matthew Arnold’s Scholar Gypsy had wandered ...”

“... excess, when they would begin drinking as soon as the pubs opened in the morning, carry on all day, take a bottle of whisky and a bottle of vodka with them into a late-night movie, and continue through the night drinking home brew at Peter’s house. During these two-man carnivals they would go into a hotel, plug all the baths and leave the taps ...”

“... and the ‘ragged peasants’ he met. There, he said, ‘it was as though Homer had come alive.’Robin Flower, another English scholar who came to the Blaskets (in 1910), also perceived this kind of timelessness or a connection to a time and a culture long passed. In The Irish Tradition, he described meeting an old man on a path on the island who, ‘without ...”

“... and about whether that was a first example of industrial action … Let me start with that sad day in March 1603, when our beloved sovereign of blessed memory, Elizabeth, died … I was concerned about my hon. friend’s attack on the Victorian age, which was one of the finest ages in British history, when most employers were benevolent, kindly, good … I ...”

“... in certain constituencies, such as the famous Basildon; and c. keen readers of the Sun. On the day of the 1992 general election the Sun ran a headline saying: ‘IF KINNOCK WINS TODAY, WILL THE LAST PERSON TO LEAVE BRITAIN TURN OUT THE LIGHTS.’ After the result it ran another headline saying: ‘IT’S THE SUN WOT WON IT.’ That was a joke, but from the ...”