“... Henry James) mocked me for my taste, reminding me of Shelley’s description of Wordsworth in ‘Peter Bell the Third’ as ‘a solemn and unsexual man’. Never afraid of being thought either solemn or unsexual I persevered, and even persuaded my history teacher to allow me to do an extended A-Level essay on Wordsworth’s political beliefs. I chugged ...”

“... Either side of that are chapters describing the first Viking attacks on Britain, Ireland and France, and chapters on the second series of Viking wars, in which Scandinavian kings like Knut established short-lived ‘new empires’ in England, Normandy and their own homelands. Parker tells the story thoroughly, with good references and a sprinkling of ...”

“... might have done even a few years ago.Deemed a ‘barbaric fiction’, civil death was abolished in France in 1854, yet residual interdictions persisted there, in the US, and elsewhere. A criminal conviction can reduce legal personhood – the voting rights of ex-cons are disputed to this day – and people in many other categories were and are routinely ...”

“... performing as an itinerant demoniac in Milan in 1600, perhaps a more congenial atmosphere than France. After that, she vanishes from the record.Christianity cannot leave exorcism behind. Jesus practised it, and in each of the synoptic gospels he commissions his disciples to do the same – the historian Peter Brown ...”

“... of paintings and drawings; Claudia Stumpf deals with the ‘Expedition into Sicily’ and Peter Funnell with the more general critical writings: A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, An Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste (1805), and An Inquiry into the Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology (1818). Individually the chapters are ...”

“... in uniform. ‘I thought for an awful moment that it was my brother Fergus who was killed in France when serving with the same regiment. It was only for one second – a flash, a family likeness, but how tragic.’ Such flashes of memory and premonition were the experience of thousands of middle-aged Britons; ‘what a lot of war we have seen in our ...”

“... 1936 they had to abandon Chelsea for something more modest. At this low moment Joyce was asked by Peter Fleming, then a leader-writer on the Times, to help enliven the Court Page, whose only light relief from the comings and goings at the Palace was a series of articles about flora and fauna – ‘Woody Plants for Limey Soil’ or ‘Family Cares of the ...”

“... context of the religious drama being played out in England, or of various prophetic movements in France, the Netherlands, Germany and elsewhere. At the very beginning of his messianic career, he was identified, for example, in a Polish pamphlet as a Quaker-Jew, and a contemporary woodcut from Germany labelled ‘the two great impostors’ shows him facing ...”

“... every appearance of relish. Maybe he did do that in public – the Derek and Clive dialogues with Peter Cook left very little to the imagination, so it’s not unlikely.23 March. Barry Cryer brings a good deal of old-fashioned joy into my life, as I’m sure he does for many others. His phone calls always begin, ‘It’s your stalker,’ after which without ...”

“... on the subject. A volume did appear in 1988 – English Extremists, written with Deyan Sudjic and Peter Cook, celebrating the postmodern architects Campbell Zogolovitch Wilson Gough – but since then his medium has been television. Meades has never been a fully paid-up architectural correspondent; he argues in Museum without Walls that taking up such a job ...”

“... objections to Jean of Meung’s ‘continuation’ of Guillaume of Lorris’s Roman de la Rose. In France, partly because of fun and games in the Canard Enchaîné, Gerson evokes memories of clerical anguish about masturbation; students of Erasmus may also too readily accept his delight in belittling an author he had studied as a boy. Dr Brown’s approach, a ...”

“... and Indonesia from East Timor were passed unanimously in the Security Council. The US, Britain, France, Russia and China supported them all to the hilt – provided, of course, that no one was expected to do anything to enforce them. Commercial interest and oil provide the only coherent explanation of US policy over Iraq. After the Iranian revolution of ...”

“... in ‘want of well pronouncing shibboleth’. Rochester, perhaps, would have agreed with Lord Peter Wimsey (another post-war figure) that ‘a principle has no claim to be called a principle until it’s killed someone.’ In the end, Rochester may have become a prisoner of his own disbeliefs. Much of what he wrote may appear to have no discernible ...”

“... become a global power player, and the precondition for that would be a centralised EU led by France and Germany, in place of the current ramshackle institution where instability on the periphery – code for Greece or Portugal – could make the whole thing collapse. There is an obvious alternative to hegemony: more democracy in the EU, and Germany’s ...”

“... studies of really violent societies – 17th-century China, 18th and 19th-century France and modern Sicily. The Smorthwait-Bainbridge ‘gang’ in Cumbria in the 1680s are simply not in the same league. This case-study is intended to elucidate the following points. First, that these felons were respectable men mainly rooted in the land and in ...”