“... the blue shutters of potential tower blocks. A comic procession of police cyclists puff up the hill, reluctant box-tickers for the eco lobby. A scarlet open-top Coca-Cola bus – Supporting the Olympics since 1928 – waits for the action, for somebody to enthuse. The low-loader, with its chorus line of shivering Samsung cheerleaders in white tights and ...”

“... not so long as the Kafka. I worked out a route, and set off in plenty of time. At the Notting Hill tube, where I usually boarded a train on the Central Line to carry me east to work, I took one instead on the District Line travelling west. This subtle adjustment of a daily routine had about it something aberrant, as in a dream where perverse and ...”

“... being received.’ I admit that I hadn’t heard of this institution, which is based in Notting Hill and offers several degree-level courses as well as many lower qualifications. Its website announces that it is ‘an Approved Partner of the University of Derby’, though it is not clear whether Derby actually validates any of the degree courses (and at ...”

“... US Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, to be chaired by Anita Hill (who brought charges of harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991), is more effective. In the past few months, our understanding of what constitutes sexual harassment has been put under considerable strain. For all the remonstrations ...”

“... lists whenever a parent complains. Recently, one school in Florida restricted access to ‘The Hill We Climb’, the poem Amanda Gorman read at Joe Biden’s inauguration, after a parent complained that it contained ‘hate messages’.DeSantis is an extreme example of the right’s doublethink around free speech. In that sense he is a boon for more ...”

“... arrests and all-round discomforts that made life for everyone extremely hard. While we were there Peter Hansen, the Danish commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main aid organisation serving Palestinians, spoke out strongly about the dangers – including starvation – of Israeli policies in the West Bank and ...”

“... a few miles to the east, separating the Severn and Thames valleys. Their highest point, Cleeve Hill, isn’t much more than three hundred metres. The Cotswolds are an escarpment. On the eastern side, the land rises gradually from the Thames valley, from the direction of Oxford; on the western side, however, looking towards Cheltenham, Gloucester and ...”

“... saw more action than the Mini and she would tootle off in it on a Sunday morning, park on Primrose Hill (‘The air is better’) and even got as far as Hounslow. More often than not, though, she was happy (and I think she was happy then) just to sit in the Reliant and rev the engine. However, since she generally chose to do this first thing on Sunday ...”

“... my name without making a patronising show of it, and stayed to tell a good story about Christopher Hill and John Sparrow, and of how he’d been the unwitting agent of a quarrel between them, while ignoring an ambitious and possessive American professor who kept yelling ‘Eye-zay-ah! Eye-zay-ah!’ from across the room. (‘Yes,’ he murmured at the ...”

“... in many other countries in Europe, Aids was initially considered an overseas ‘media import like Hill Street Blues’, in Garfield’s words. The gay charity Switchboard assured nervous callers that ‘sex is as safe as crossing the road.’ When Terrence Higgins collapsed at work and began inexplicably dying in a London hospital in July 1982, his boyfriend ...”

“... from Marseille to Oran and come overland in the hope of obtaining a visa to Lisbon. Ugarte (Peter Lorre), a forger and procurer of documents, asks Rick to look after two sets of safe-conduct papers until his clients arrive. ‘You despise me, don’t you?’ he says to Rick. ‘You object to the kind of business I do, huh? But think of all those poor ...”

“... with Wright, to seeing the patents and the new blockchain ideas. During our lunch in Notting Hill, Matonis suggested that this technology would change the world. One of the scientists said to me, ‘This isn’t Bitcoin 2.0. This is something magnificent that will change who we are. This is Life 2.0,’ and Matonis agreed. The idea was now to use the ...”