“... volumes for Maureen – the lapidary texts – were One Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith and The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford. Her copy of The Incredible Journey was one of the few things that she managed to hang onto till the end of her days. It tells the story of two dogs and a cat, who wander through Canada trying to get back to ...”

“... and other sectors where we have an advantage, like financial services. The argument that Adam Smith and others made for free trade did not depend on other countries accepting it as well. You appear to think that you should not let foreigners compete in this country unless our companies are able to compete in their country. I’m saying we stand to gain by ...”

“... these basic mythemes into their own forms of ‘poetic space’ or ‘heroic memory’, as Anthony Smith terms them in his fundamental study of The Ethnic Origins of Nations. In a moving passage, Braudel confessed his passion for France, but promised to put it aside in his book. He characteristically added: ‘It is possible that it will play tricks on me and ...”

“... to get back in. A nightmare, my own: to be locked in a dark, stuffy nursery cupboard with Boris, Michael, Nigel and their pals. England will become a place the young want to get out of, in search of fresh air and light.James ButlerThere is​ now a knot at the centre of British politics. If politicians push for inclusion in the European Economic Area, in the ...”

“... book-jacket and by all accounts Larkin the librarian could be a pretty daunting figure. Neville Smith remembers him at Hull stood at the entrance to the Brynmor Jones, scanning the faces of the incoming hordes, the face heavy and expressionless, the glasses gleaming and the hands, after the manner of a soccer player awaiting a free-kick on the edge of the ...”

“... English, French; pianist; willing to care for children; highest credentials. Write Box 4435, Frost-Smith Advertising, London EC2.’27 May 1938: ‘Young Austrian lady (Jewish) seeks position Governess; experienced; good references; teaches German, French, Italian; would accept modest salary; good family. Write Box T.1653, The Times, EC4.’6 June ...”

“... quid note. On one side we have a famous dead person: Elizabeth Fry or Charles Darwin or Adam Smith, depending on whether it’s a five or ten or twenty. On the other we have a picture of the queen, and just above that the words ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of’, and then the value of the note, and the signature of the cashier of the ...”

“... her leverage.’ Others agreed, but they were all ignored, in favour of such sages as Iain Duncan Smith. ‘You have no idea how bad this is,’ Rogers told the cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood. ‘She’s put herself in an incredibly weak negotiating position. She’s blown herself up, she just doesn’t know it yet.’We know how it went after that ...”

“... who claimed to have been abused in this way in childhood. The first survivor story, by Michelle Smith, a Canadian, had been published in 1980. It gave an account of memories she had recovered when she was having therapy after a miscarriage. Most of these memories had been accessed in a hypnotic trance. She said her mother had taken her to the satanic ...”

“... of the word ‘bloody’. He then named a 23-year-old Trinity College Dublin graduate student, Michael Clear, who quickly denied it. The story went nowhere and Clear went back to his studies. Then Leah McGrath Goodman wrote a piece for Newsweek claiming Satoshi was a maths genius called Dorian Nakamoto, who lived in the Californian suburb of Temple City ...”

“... were growing up, the only old framed photograph my brothers and I ever saw was of my grandfather Michael, a hero of the Second World War. And that’s always the way he was described to us, a war hero, the man who tried to save his Glasgow compatriots on HMS Forfar when it was struck by two torpedoes in December 1940. Except that story wasn’t true ...”