“... or the Iraq war that they were waiting there to be ‘discovered’. ‘Something of that sort’ may well have come into being, but an example of ‘something like’ Figaro is Salieri’s Axur, Re d’Ormus or even Abba’s ‘Waterloo’. You don’t necessarily have to construct counter-factual histories to support this sort of sensibility. Scientists are ...”

“... More Cecil Beaton?’ Norman showed her the book he was looking at, this time something on David Hockney. She leafed through it, gazing unperturbed at young men’s bottoms hauled out of Californian swimming-pools or lying together on unmade beds. ‘Some of them,’ she said, ‘some of them don’t seem altogether finished. This one is quite ...”

“... universal human rights, the rights of nature, and peace on Earth.’ These transports may seem peculiarly Anglo-Saxon, but there is no shortage of more prosaic equivalents on the Continent. For Germany’s leading philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, Europe has found ‘exemplary solutions’ for two great issues of the age: ‘governance beyond the ...”

“... her hands as she tries to enter into a conversation among Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau, Theresa May and Christine Lagarde, who grimaces. It is reported that a ‘friendship tree’, given months earlier by Macron to Trump and ceremoniously planted by both on the White House lawn as a symbol of the ties that bind France and the US, immediately died.*Before ...”

“... the place,’ James wrote, ‘had seemed cruel to the poor little dressmaker outside, it may be believed that it did not strike her as an abode of mercy while she pursued her devious way into the circular shafts of cells … there were walls within walls and galleries on top of galleries; even the daylight lost its colour.’Millbank Prison had ...”

“... year to year in Exeter. I knew of his austere reputation and of his reluctance to publish from David Marquand, who was at Magdalen and who told me how he had been scared out of his wits one dark night in the cloisters when Bruce had swept past him in his Spanish cloak. I must have written to him and been told to come down to Magdalen, though I remember ...”

“... surely that of William Strang, the Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, in a paper of May 1943: We need Russian collaboration. The conclusion of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty marks our decision that this must be our policy … even if fears that Russia lay a ‘heavy hand’ on eastern, central and south-eastern Europe are realised … I should not ...”

“... for a great range of thinkers, including Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams in Inventing the Future, David Graeber in Bullshit Jobs, Paul Mason in Post-Capitalism, Rutger Breman in Utopia for Realists, and Peter Barnes in With Liberty and Dividends for All. UBI is definitely having a moment.Guy Standing is a long-standing member of BIEN, the Basic Income Earth ...”

“... with the proprietor and chat with other customers, or run into a friend or neighbour. That may happen in big chains such as Starbucks – but the employees aren’t likely to be around for long, the profit doesn’t go back into the community and the design of the place is generic, not reflecting its environment.The San Francisco of my youth was full ...”

“... selection of speakers, who ranged from Patrick Heron to Victor Burgin, Mary Kelly to Robyn Denny, David Hockney to Rasheed Araeen. The highlights included Lisa Tickner’s brilliant dismemberment of Reg Butler’s defence of his question: ‘Can a woman become a vital creative artist without ceasing to be a woman except for purposes of census?’ Peter ...”

“... teeth, in the hope that some of them will thrive. (‘Don’t talk to me about unemployment. They may have been unemployed but they could afford expensive motor-bikes, and two of them had cigarettes hanging out of their mouths.’) The narrative, after several pages of convoluted actuarial prose, comes to life with a burst of scene-setting worthy of Enid ...”

“... The most notable New York venues in that era were probably the Sanctuary and the Loft, home to DJ David Mancuso. Saturday Night For Ever includes some enthusiastic reminiscences of the gay scene in London: the drugs, the songs and the very late nights. The camp, glam impulses behind the upsurge in gay clubbing influenced the image of disco in the ...”

“... by individuals. The individual style is consequently cherished. Within the bounds of grammar, you may speak as you please. Contributors to any American publication at an equivalent level will know that the same privilege, however freely offered by the editor, will effectively be withdrawn by his minions. Edmund Wilson’s famous letter to the editor of the ...”

“... sweep over her and she would violently begin to spin a large gold ring on her left hand. Violent may seem too strong a word but it is not; the movement was so abrupt and vigorous, accompanied by such a gust of alarm across her expressive face, that the kids sitting at her feet almost seemed to start …She talked incessantly about ‘John’ (her ...”

“... an undeclared nuclear weapons programme. The team was led by an aggressive IAEA inspector called David Kay, though it was not really an IAEA operation but a US one: the deputy chief inspector, the American diplomat Bob Gallucci, called most of the shots. ‘The team,’ Gallucci said in 2001, ‘was very, very special … we had a lot of team members with ...”