“... mobility. He was the valedictorian at his prestigious high school, and a wealthy banker, moved by his speech, offered to pay all the expenses at whichever university he chose. He studied microbiology at Yale, but never stopped selling or using drugs. In 2011, at the age of 30, he was the victim of a gangland execution. In the conversations about the deaths ...”

“... to the court of Queen Victoria. I can’t say that it brought me any closer to Runciman. He seemed by then a personage quite as remote as Prince Albert, too lacquered in anecdote for there to be any question of getting to know him. His reputation as a historian was past its peak: it was as a figure that he was famous, a ...”

“... and began to explore the neighbouring Palestinian villages. He made friends, learned Arabic, and by being there found out about the lives of Palestinians under the occupation. He worked as a floorer before beginning his academic career. He reads the Bible but no longer considers himself ‘religious’. He goes ‘more often to Hebron than to Tel Aviv and ...”

“... diary is a ruse just like her modesty. It’s a cover for her unladylike ambitions – to be an author and to be in charge of her life. Romance offers girls the opportunity to gain the upper hand, but a diary, to adapt a Wildean aphorism, gives a more lasting pleasure, the chance for a lifelong romance with ...”

“... healthcare of the future would take place in general hospitals, and the number of beds would be halved, with care in the local community preferred wherever possible. Powell spoke in stirring and martial terms of setting ‘the torch to the funeral pyre’, ‘the defences we have to storm’ and ‘their powers of resistance to our assault’, to an ...”

“... a confession but a boast when he tells an interviewer: ‘I’m an incredible non-art lover.’ By that time he was a member of the English faculty at Cornell, where he taught for thirty years and lived for the rest of his life. Part of what ‘non-art’ means for Ammons is described in an early poem as ‘the non-song/in my singing’. Singing is usually ...”

“... discouraging, it’s unlikely that Tony Harrison would have gone on to write as much as he has: by my calculation, 13 plays, 11 films and twenty or more poetry collections and pamphlets, not to mention the essays and addresses assembled in Edith Hall’s edition of his selected prose. That teacher, commemorated but unnamed in the poem ‘Them & [uz]’, was ...”

“... It’s a truth not quite so universally acknowledged that the semi-final against Denmark was won by the amazing Raheem Sterling taking an equally amazing dive to earn a penalty in extra time. It’s the kind of action that draws furious condemnation from opponents (sorry Denmark!) and neutrals (sorry world!) but gets laughed off, glossed over or celebrated ...”

“... the shows should mirror each other across several themes in ten galleries each. Delayed for a year by the pandemic, the retrospective arrives when Johns has turned 91 – an essential figure in the eyes of almost everyone who cares about postwar art.*Johns made an exceptional entrance in early 1958: his first show at the new Leo Castelli Gallery nearly sold ...”

“... total collapse. The subsequent occupation was upheld through the use of torture and justified by the evidence of depleted uranium ammunition, a poor cousin of the weapons of mass destruction falsely held up as the reason for the invasion. Most former champions of the war accept that it led to an increase in global jihadist activity, culminating in the ...”

“... scrunched up’. The only really accurate word is ‘Goreyesque’. The term was in circulation by the time of his death, and doubtless long before among aficionados. When he did the Cavett interview Gorey was no longer a cult figure. His set and costume designs for a hit Broadway production of Dracula had brought him recognition and a great deal of ...”

“... was far from simple. In April 1436, when Cyriac of Ancona arrived in Athens, he was thrilled by his first sight of the Parthenon, the ‘marvellous marble temple of the goddess Pallas, the divine work of Phidias’. He counted its columns, admired its friezes and commented on the artistry with which Phidias had represented the battle of the Centaurs and ...”

“... or your browser, at least – to the website. (Cookies do have expiration dates, but they may be years in the future.) Then there are ‘pixels’. The type of pixel used as a tool to gather data is a tiny, transparent image, which you can’t see on your screen. When I first realised that, without knowing it, I must have downloaded pixels of this sort ...”

“... women in love, as it were – is decadent, in a country where there is so much development work to be done. But, she corrects, ‘I’m talking about a country where most people are women. We have a rural country made by women. Therefore, the true development of Mozambique is in the hands of women.’ And it is to women she ...”

“... Algerian independence.In 1962, with independence declared, I went back to Algeria. Vacancies left by close to a million fleeing Europeans meant that jobs were on offer in every ministry and sector. Before long, I found myself working in President Ahmed Ben Bella’s press and information office, where I received foreign journalists, scheduled appointments and ...”