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“... control. Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon, nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions. It was described in 1871 as a power granted ‘without limit’. Later, in 1925, Chief Justice Taft spoke for a unanimous court in a case of ...”

“... understanding, and opened my eyes to what can go on between two men of different ages and class and character: At that self same instant that M. de Charlus passed through the gateway whistling like a fat bumblebee, another one, a real one this time, entered the courtyard. Who knows whether it was not the one so long awaited by the orchid, that had ...”

“... mother as kind and stoical, a maker of puddings and cheesecakes who came into her own during the war when she knitted socks for the troops. She knitted Betty an oatmeal and orange cardigan which she wore for thirty years. After Veda died, Betty arranged for thousands of daffodils to be planted in the grounds of the local primary school for the children to ...”

“... de menthe. We had to dance with her father, who’d been wounded as a sapper in the First World War: either he had his “arms” on, with black gloves, or he couldn’t be bothered to put them on and we just had to dance with the stumps.’Miss Popham, the headmistress of Cheltenham College, ‘during a Scripture lesson on the First Book of Samuel, went on ...”

“... died at the age of seven. His father died soon after, leaving enough money for an upper-middle-class lifestyle. Dahl was then only three. He survived the beatings and misery of an English boarding school and got a job with Shell. When war broke out he volunteered as a fighter pilot. He had a bad crash-landing in Libya ...”

“... or no acquaintance with Roussel’s oeuvre’. Written about an artist who did not ‘class himself as belonging to any school’, it is, aptly enough (and not only because it is the first analysis in English of Roussel and his work since Rayner Heppenstall’s short and now wholly superseded 1966 volume), a book in a ...”

“... teacher, I haven’t yet adopted the practice of the ‘pronoun round’: going around a class or tutorial asking for everyone’s preferred pronouns. My reasoning has been that the respectful way to address someone in the third person in their presence is by using their name, as in: ‘Does anyone have an answer to Mary’s excellent ...”

“... locked in a struggle for business on the streets of the Netherlands, part of a fratricidal postal war across northern Europe from which Royal Mail – soon, if the government gets its way, to be privatised like its Dutch and German peers – is not immune. Privatising old state post companies doesn’t necessarily make it easier for rivals to compete with ...”

“... this came to an end in 1938, by decree not of the Germans but of their own government. After the war the V+W collaborative enterprise never made a real comeback, though their lyrics, set to superb jazz music by their own composer, Jaroslav Jezek, are alive in Prague to this day. Through Werich, Havel caught a glimpse of the ribald end of the intellectual ...”

“... believing that all spirits are either angels or devils, all drilled and in uniform and for ever at war and under direct orders either from God or Satan. If you believe in the Principle of Plenitude, or Great Chain of Being – that is, believe that God has caused life wherever there is room – it seems plain that there is room for life between ourselves and ...”

“... in 1935, is as blunt as Joan Crawford. (Her mother once told her that their family belonged to no class, but that’s a fine myth for an Eduene to shrug off on a Joan.) And Didion likes names as much as clothes. When young and in Paris, she looked up Didion in the telephone directory and found a lot. To which I’d add that ‘Maria Wyeth’ – she is the ...”

“... drama of Brexit. Milne dismissed those concerned with Brexit as engaged in an unserious ‘culture war’. But one does not always get to choose which war to fight.In the wake of Labour’s defeat a year ago, some fantasised – with the benefit of hindsight – about what might have been if Corbyn had handed over the reins ...”

“... legs – Corrosive, hairy, rank – and, shameless, begs For Pestilence to fuck her if he can, For War to come, and come again, again.In the evening I might turn to the overwrought adulterous rhapsodies of Marry Me (1971), in which a man strokes a woman’s arm and says, ‘No one’s ever told you how cunty you are,’ and regret that the sexual revolution ...”

“... and nullity the opium, perhaps, of the English rectory and manor-house during the troubled inter-war period. With an extraordinary unanimity, good representative Introductions to Hamlet and critical essays on it speak of it as ‘the most enigmatic play in the canon’, ‘the most problematic play ever written by Shakespeare or any other playwright’: a ...”

“... corrupted by a political assault on locality, that humans unable or unwilling to engage in a war they can’t win respond by venturing into forbidden depths. As the first Thatcherite towers sprung up in Docklands, and downriver parts of London agreed to behave as if the fictions of J.G. Ballard were planning documents, the painter Gavin Jones, working ...”