“... how he is. Requiring. Furthermore – it is his due ... You are part dust, part deity. But he is king. The flipside of this is the sarcasm of Thersites, ‘God is on Agamemnon’s side,’ and Odysseus is made to throw the sarcasm back at Thersites with a literal force: ‘God is on Agamemnon’s side’ Odysseus then, ‘turning his voice on us’ (the ...”

“... knew what to celebrate. At the start of the opening ceremony – a service in St Paul’s – the King praised the nation’s courage in the world wars; the official handbook declared categorically that ‘Britain is a Christian Community’; brightly coloured pavilions on the South Bank paid tribute to picturesque countryside, seaside holidays and an ...”

“... though Binyon, with customary care, thinks Cameroon the likelier origin. He was a gift for Peter the Great, and rose from servitude to become a general in the Army, responsible by the end of his career for all military engineering in Russia. Pushkin’s father belonged to a family that had distinguished itself in public affairs in the late 16th ...”

“... his act may look dull and formulaic: he simply got uppity with a luckless straight man called Peter Brough and showered him with childish insults. But he was able to bring on a troop of co-stars – Max Bygraves (‘I’ve arrived … and to prove it, I’m here!’), Tony Hancock, Gilbert Harding, Harry Secombe, Beryl Reid, Bernard Miles and Hattie ...”

“... Anthony Deane said Petty’s design ‘must needs prove a folly’. The navy commissioner Peter Pett told Pepys that the double-hulled ship was ‘the most dangerous thing in the world’: if it was successful, the secret would get out, and it would be the ruin of English trade and sea power. The Dutch, with whom England was about to fight the second ...”

“... of Bath’s Tale’, Chaucer has the Wife declare that her tale is set long ago, in the days of King Arthur. Back then the land was ‘fulfild of fayerye’, and the elf queen danced with her company in the green meadows. But that’s all over now. The elves and fairies have been driven out by the friars, who have blanketed the country with prayers and ...”

“... and outrageously reactionary fantasist at the Daily Telegraph, who wrote under the pseudonym Peter Simple. Yet Wharton’s attempts to ridicule the enemies of Unionism were funny precisely because they drew on received assumptions about both Unionists and liberals. Among the most memorable creations in his gallery of bien-pensant absurdity was the trendy ...”

“... the account of it is inaccurate in almost every detail (old men forget), he warned me that Cecil King, because I declined to do something he asked of me, would make sure I’d never find another job in London. In fact, as I rightly supposed, Mr King, if ever he had any such intention, which is very doubtful, simply had not ...”

“... as one of the first volumes of the complete works of George Orwell, for which the editor, Dr Peter Davison, uses Orwell’s original manuscripts, letters and proofs to establish the text that Orwell would have wished to have. In the case of this work, among the most personal and directly political of Orwell’s writings, he has made particular use of the ...”

“... governments have tried to subdue the Corporation. Mrs Thatcher’s man was said to have been Lord King, privatiser of British Airways, and a highly unsuitable choice that would have been. We have been spared Lord King, who has withdrawn, and rumour has had it that we may be given Lord Barnett instead, someone with no ...”

“... the Portuguese colonial governor; it was sent along with a chest-full of precious baubles to the king of Portugal. As with many gifts, there was a diffuse expectation of reciprocity – in this case, the hope that the gesture might forestall a disastrous war with the European power. The rhino was loaded in chains onto a Portuguese ship in Goa and delivered ...”

“... and lawyers in support of Henry Wallace’s 1948 Presidential campaign. And in My life as a Man, Peter Tarnopol’s brother Moe offers his children edifying bedside stories: ‘Instead of Pinocchio, Joe McCarthy; instead of Uncle Remus, tales of Paul Robeson and Martin Luther King.’ Even Alexander Portnoy is a trusted ...”

“... it officially was) practised religious toleration. When Henri duc d’Anjou was elected king in January 1573, only months after tens of thousands of Protestants had been massacred in his native France, he was forced to submit to a resolution which ran: Since there is in our Commonwealth no little disagreement on the subject of religion, in order to ...”

“... wife. ‘Now we shall never know.’ The regular scenario for many of Barry’s jokes concerned St Peter at the gates of Heaven, so that when he finally arrived there last month it can have been no surprise.24 February. One doubtful blessing of my new and sophisticated hearing aids is that I can hear every rumble and gurgle of my stomach as well as the ...”

“... of that, and the Express in particular is down on its luck. In the days of Hugh Cudlipp and Cecil King, the Mirror was a wonder to us all – slick, successful and serious about its politics. Its journalists and layout men buzzed round Hugh Gaitskell, seeking to burnish the Labour Party’s shabby image. Now, in 1987, Captain Maxwell does his best when not ...”