“... order of things – an ornament of gentlemanly education which served to mark and reinforce class privilege. In Shakespeare’s day, however, study of the classics was a pragmatic requirement. ‘Reading and imitating classical literature were not activities only to be undertaken with reverence and awe … It was just what you did … an engagement ...”

“... Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald, ‘an unimpressive man; eyes disappointing; rather heavy; middle-class; sunk; grumpy; self-important; wore a black waistcoat’. They all called each other Van, Bogey, Ramsay, Eadie, across the table; engaged in governing England ... Bogey has the glazed stuffed look of the well fed bachelor. Is evidently one of those elderly ...”

“... rum and lime, with enormous hilarity.When I was about fifteen, while John was fighting a gallant war over the Atlantic, my father started to drink again.Heavy drinking is often associated with boisterous behaviour in a social context. My father never drank publicly at all and, drunk or sober, was never boisterous. He saw himself as a nobleman; and his style ...”

“... and keep her.’ What happened on that day was, from his perspective, not a rebellion but a civil war among Elizabeth’s followers, fought between her true friends and her secret enemies. In seeking to illustrate Essex’s murderous intent, the Government fell back on cloudy insinuation. Had the rising succeeded, it indicated, he would have permitted her to ...”

“... childhood: rain, leaves, Halloween pumpkins, galoshes, the smell of the coat closet at the back of class, wet wool and shiny oilskins, the last days of recess outside in the playground, before the onset of cold, the going back of the clocks and, along with that, darkness, the lit rooms and closed curtains of winter. The world through these windows, where ...”

“... magazine’, Country Life was founded in 1897 to cater for the leisured interests of the upper class, and was devoted to articles on golf and racing, leavened with discreet advertisements for manorial estates. Now a subsidiary of Time Inc., it has become a lavishly ornamented real estate window for the 1 per cent, and for those who dream of joining that ...”

“... the rank of major as a result of the military equivalent of corporate restructuring after the Cold War. A marine’s son who grew up on overseas bases and spent his army career abroad, he’d barely set foot in America beyond a few years at West Point. So he decided to wander around the country, hitching rides or taking trains or buses, in order to satisfy his ...”

“... to cook for the salade niçoise I switch on TV and catch a clip of the always excellent World at War, and it’s Speer talking. Speer escaped the death penalty at Nuremberg and ultimately survived for one reason alone: class. He could have been an English gentleman. The person he most resembles is Kenneth ...”

“... federal grants for health, welfare and education. He believes that America is mired in a ‘silent war’ between Christians and the left, but his advocacy of ‘religious liberty’ – for example, the right of a business to refuse to serve a gay couple – does not extend to Muslims, whom he would monitor and regulate. He has claimed that parts of Europe ...”

“... arguing that the IRA would have to abandon the 1975 ceasefire and fight a lower-level ‘long war’ to exhaust London. But as that phase of the conflict unfolded, it became clear that a prolonged campaign wouldn’t be any more successful in forcing the Brits out. By the 1980s, when Adams was developing a political strategy to go alongside the military ...”

“... I thought of Lydia Davis’s story ‘Happiest Moment’, about a man in a beginners’ language class. ‘At last he smiled with embarrassment and said that his wife had once gone to Beijing and eaten duck there, and she often told him about it, and he would have to say the happiest moment of his life was her trip, and the eating of the duck.’ Imagine ...”

“... cabaret-owner and trainer of young talent. Badia’s career as a dancer ended around World War Two, but her true heir and disciple was Tahia Carioca, who was, I think, the finest belly-dancer ever. Now 75 and living in Cairo, she is still active as an actress and political militant, and, like Um Kalthoum, the remarkable symbol of a national culture. Um ...”

“... is among the most racially-divided societies anywhere. Within a huge mulatto and black under-class, racked by permanent unemployment, drugs and Aids, homicide is the leading cause of death among young males. American economic hegemony, taken for granted a generation ago, is being eroded by the successes of Japan and the EEC. In the southern Americas the ...”

“... and superintendent of the Sunday School, a son who was in his youth himself a teacher in the Bible class. The post office was in the same building as the excellent public library, which was based on the collection left by the engineer Thomas Telford, and to this the boy had free access and benefited in no common way. Moreover, there was a marvellous ...”

“... international benefactors. Then again, in the ideologically-charged aftermath of the Second World War, most of the nations of the emergent Third World chose to listen to the siren song of the developed world. India, in stark contrast, under the influence of those associated with the Nehru-Mahalanobis model of development, elected to develop its own industrial ...”