“... or stone. Some see in this detail the physical expression of a kind of warts-and-all truthfulness. John Berger says in his introduction: ‘When I first looked at these photographs I dismissed them as derivative ... something stronger drew me back ... I like to think it was a recalcitrant response to their truthfulness.’ The truth he sees is essentially ...”

“... Even incidentally, there’s a broad, unlikely set of references to literature – to Saki and John Fowles and Gatsby’s ‘old sport’. In more detail, a character called Clem Snide does a Sam Spade impression and spends his days checking into Hiltons on a headless-body murder investigation. The case involves drugs, black magic and an Egyptian sunset ...”

“... There is no single recorded instance of any public official, national or local, refusing a John Poulson bribe. And a lot of the time, Reggie Maudling was Home Secretary. Not that we should fall into the trap of criminal rationaliation: even if law and order and public morality are a sham, the illusion is necessary to keep miners down the mine. Biggs ...”

“... has withered and the sunshine faded. The death toll recorded by Roy Strong, Marcus Binney and John Harris in The Destruction of the English County House tops nine hundred, and few writers set contemporary novels in country houses as they did only a generation ago. One gratifying consequence is that it has finally become possible to view country houses ...”

“... a rapid, clear account of the main events of the war. Since he is a consultant surgeon at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, as well as an amateur historian and a collector of photographs, he comes into his own in his account of medical consequences both of the fighting and of the handling of the civilian population. There are graphic descriptions of ...”

“... for the average, out-of-shape voyeur. Of course, Hastings does have some professional artists – John Bratby, for instance. When he exhibited locally, some arse-licker left his address and wrote, ‘Wonderful, just like Vincent,’ in the Visitors’ Book. I couldn’t resist adding ‘Price’ in the same writing. In the evenings, there are the pubs – the ...”

“... adventures within it seem both realistic and safe. No possible turn of a Ransome story would allow John, Roger, Susan and Titty to be embarrassed by their mother’s breasts showing through a tight sweat shirt. Many heroes are a cut above Adrian in talent. K.M. Peyton’s Pennington is a rough diamond and gets into trouble with the police, but he is also a ...”

“... in writing a novel about Parliament relates to the characters’ credibility. Trouble begins, as John Lehmann once pointed out, when the author feels obliged to introduce a high-ranking minister. The real-life holders of office are too vividly before our eyes. Camp surmounts this problem by avoiding it. He opts instead for a recent past in industrial ...”

“... from science. The 18th century, the author would have us believe, conveniently turning his back on John Ray and that brilliant company of contemporaries in the later decades of the previous century, was the first age in which nature came under close scientific observation. That Professor Charlton is unsure of his footing on such ground is revealed by the ...”

“... the casualty of the Falklands War, although if blame is to be allocated, I would place it on Sir John Nott, the Secretary of State for Defence, whose policy of running down the Royal Navy (with Mrs Thatcher’s support) gave the Junta the signal it sought to embark on a bit of smash and grab. I was on the platform at the sensational meeting of the ...”

“... anything other than the continuance of affection and regard. In December 1881, Browning wrote to John W. Field, a friend of his and the Storys’, of a recent trip to Venice: ‘Had the Storys – all of them – been where we expected to find them – why – the arrangement would have been too perfect: I rejoice to hear they are well.’ 6 The ...”

“... at Oxford: a Fellow of Lincoln College was expelled for recommending Milton to his pupils, and John Locke was driven from Christ Church at the behest of the King. The much more extraordinary events in which Charles gained control of the City of London, packed the bench with judges like Jeffreys, purged JPs, and silenced his opponents by censorship, occupy ...”

“... The collection edited by Peter Quennell has some attractive photographs and two good essays, by John Bayley and Martin Amis. For the rest, there is a lot of laborious exegesis, which might have amused the recipient of the tribute, and a thought-provoking piece by Alfred Appel Jr, who knew Nabokov well and is steeped in his work. The thought provoked is that ...”

“... Politics are three-quarters drudgery, so it takes a special ingredient to enliven the diary of a politician. Harold Nicolson and Chips Channon wrote splendid diaries because they were not so much politicians as sublime social columnists who happened to sit in the House of Commons. Richard Crossman and Barbara Castle were heavyweights and professionals, and the eternal grind of committee life is reflected in their accounts ...”

“... for putting oneself to this task. Isherwood expressed this with typical simplicity in a letter to John Lehmann in July 1939: ‘I am so sick of being a person.’ The beginnings of his interest in Eastern religion were not easy, and this book starts out by conveying powerfully the Tennysonian quality of ‘honest doubt’ that Isherwood felt towards the whole ...”