“... written to a correspondent who had theories of his own. ‘Dear Mr Riches,’ the letter says, Frank Greene, one of my nephews, was with us the other day and I told him of our discussion about ‘Will of the Mill’. He at once, without any hesitation, announced that he agreed with your reading of it. He was not content with announcing his own opinion, but ...”

“... can’t stop drinking, and in ‘(Florida Revisited)?’ the moon can’t stop crying. Both poems peter out in a mood of gloomy, resigned self-hatred that registers like a bitter penance for the poet’s impulsive reaching for ‘feather-light’ wood and the stocking on their respective beaches. The imagery of ‘(Florida Revisited)?’ in particular recalls ...”

“... closest thing to a crisis in the public acceptance of Operation Desert Storm occurred when CNN’s Peter Arnett broke the rule against showing bodies, and transmitted images of Iraqi civilians killed by one of our smart bombs. Senator Simpson of Wyoming promptly labelled Arnett an Iraqi ‘sympathiser’. The criticism even extended to Ted Turner, who was ...”

“... and a desperate battle over Sangin in 2013 … attracted little attention’. In 2012, when Frank Ledwidge was researching his book, which tallies the personal and financial cost of Britain’s Helmand campaign, he approached all six ministers who had held the defence portfolio since the start of the operation to ask what they thought its legacy would ...”

“... imprisoned here too. The case comes up on BBC Question Time later on when the sleek and suited Peter Hain, now leader of the House of Commons, maintains that Hamza should be handed over to face justice (sic) in the United States, the same sort of justice (though nobody is indelicate enough to say this) as there used to be in South Africa at a time when ...”

“... of his life. 21 April. Persisting with the Duff Cooper diaries, which, though they’re more than frank about his innumerable liaisons, are utterly silent on more interesting topics, the cruise of the Nahlin, for instance, in 1936 when Duff Cooper and his wife accompanied the King and Mrs Simpson around the Mediterranean. Years ago Russell Harty had supper ...”

“... friend who had done most to look after the dying Acker and whom she had appointed her executor. Frank Molinaro, whom Acker had paid for astrological advice, passed out business cards in the car park, then grabbed hold of the vase with the cremains in it. ‘The astrologer ran toward the sea tossing handfuls of ash and bone while he proclaimed ...”

“... of photographers like Atget and Sander. In a rare essay on Lorck’s drawings from 1955, Peter Ward-Jackson noticed ‘the hallucinatory quality’ of his work, ‘the morbid trend of his imagination’ and ‘his predilection for the weird and the sinister’. Lorck practised bizarre conjunctions and often communicates a cold absorption in his ...”

“... rollicking Irish Catholic clan, athletic, photogenic and as rambunctious as any crowd of kids in a Frank Capra film. They are presided over by Joseph Kennedy, a fabulously successful self-made father with connections in Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington and London, and by Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, a devout but fashionable Catholic mum, as at home on the golf ...”

“... because he was an infidel. But Milton Bearden, the Islamabad station chief from 1986 to 1989, and Frank Anderson, chief of the Afghan task force at Langley, vehemently defended Hekmatyar on the grounds that ‘he fielded the most effective anti-Soviet fighters.’ Even after the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1988, the CIA continued to follow ...”

“... when Stephen Shaw writes about a death at Colnbrook in November 2004 the subject is clearly Kenny Peter, a 24-year-old who had fled from Nigeria. In a report published after the inquest, Shaw comments on a ‘lack of understanding by healthcare staff . . . failure in systems of psychiatric referrals and shortcomings in the communication between centre staff ...”

“... canny, entertaining book Surf’s Up – a summa theologica of Beach Boy lore and legend – Peter Doggett sums it up: ‘As ever with Brian and the past … the details altered sharply in each new telling.’ Sometimes during the course of the same interview. As if this or that reminiscence were simply one more of the musical ‘feels’ he said flowed ...”

“... second time I saw him must have been a few years later at the Mermaid Theatre at a performance of Peter Luke’s play Hadrian VII with Alec McCowen. Then it was his characteristic walk that I noticed: he tripped down the aisle after the designer, Gladys Calthrop, his hands, fingers pressed together, half slipped into his trouser pockets ...”

“... a righteous nation at war is, a fortiori, an argument against empire: ‘No nation has ever made a frank avowal of its real imperial motives. It always claims to be primarily concerned with the peace and prosperity of the people whom it subjugates.’ Nor is any political or economic system exempt from this corruption of the will. Moral Man and Immoral Society ...”

“... and flat, Vulcan-like affect, usually tops the list. Last year, the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel told an audience that in the current economy people ‘who do not suffer from Asperger’s are at some massive disadvantage’ because they’re more likely to fall prey to caution, complacency and the conventional wisdom of the crowd. It​ isn’t ...”