“... occasionally feeds out misinformation on Europe’s crowned heads (Caroline of Brunswick becomes George IV’s mother rather than his wife, and Napoleon is ‘still secured’ on St Helena in 1816, as though this was anything but a terminal arrangement). It is a huge task, these are small slips, and there remains no substitute for studying the greatly ...”

“... but disciplined himself for the missionary purposes of A Single Man, where his mouthpiece George is in mourning for a dead lover, and so benefits from the status of honorary widower. The sexual acts that the majority find so troublesome could be underplayed for the duration, in favour of a more palatable theme, equal rights to bereavement. These days ...”

“... in the media by attacking their ex-comrades – I’d do it myself if the price was right.’) George Monbiot, the Guardian columnist and anti-capitalist campaigner, started looking at the group closely in 1997, after some of them contributed to Against Nature, the notorious anti-Green television documentary; over the years he has called them ‘industry ...”

“... Russell would have been with the minority in the US Supreme Court case that handed the election to George Bush. But that life is not simple (which is what makes Kruse v. Johnson so interesting) is demonstrated by looking at what facts were set before Lord Russell and his colleagues. For the bylaw that the local people had enthusiastically enacted was ...”

“... customers: all would be charged as if they had had running water, even when they hadn’t. Colin Matthews, chief executive of Severn Trent at the time of the floods, left the company soon after this to head another private monopoly, BAA, arriving just as the baggage-handling chaos at BAA’s new Terminal 5 at Heathrow was peaking. In his last full year as ...”

“... I liked hearing her hold forth, say, on the novels of Ethel Mannin and Naomi Jacob or about Jessie Matthews in Evergreen. On a really good day the subject would be some family matter – a bit of scandal or, better still, discreet criticism. But she could also be fascinating in the public domain. She was in especially good form on the day when Edward VIII was ...”