“... Churchill was an inveterate war-lover who flatly refused to consider a negotiated exit from the June 1940-June 1941 Anglo-German war. That Churchill was addicted to war is certainly beyond dispute. One reading of his often brilliant observations about nuclear weapons (the 1955 ‘Balance of Terror’ speech said it ...”

“... to death as the TLS has ever come, but it has continued to have its ups and downs. Circulation rose through the 1920s to 30,000, then dropped sharply, down to 23,000 by 1934, and Richmond despaired of arresting the decline: ‘Even among my own relations I know three households that have given it up.’ He did not believe, however, that ‘“new ...”

“... to think about politically, but I don’t know how to measure happiness,’ George Oppen wrote to June Oppen Degnan in 1970 (an extract from his letter is the epigraph to Midnight Salvage). How, then, should women see themselves? As mosaics, fractured with the lines of putative and possibly regraspable pasts; as fluid, and open – like the clitoris in ...”

“... In June this year the BBC showed a documentary called Diana’s Dresses. It was about the auction which took place at Christie’s in New York two months before the Princess’s descent into the Paris underpass. The purchasers spoke reverentially of Diana when she was alive, but her death turned glad rags into relics ...”

“... even represented. In this, at least, the Finals which begin next month will be different. On 10 June, Scotland will play Brazil at the Stade de France in the opening game. For the first time in eight years, English supporters, too, will be able to admire, or rail at, their team on the most important international stage. The media and advertising bonanza ...”

“... On 18 June​ 1940 Charles de Gaulle, speaking from London, where he had arrived the previous day, denounced the new government led by Marshal Philippe Pétain, which had called for an armistice after the comprehensive defeat of France’s armed forces at the hands of the Wehrmacht. ‘Nothing is lost for France,’ he declared ...”

“... workers as soon as they tried to force radical demands for reform. The murderous civil war of the June Days in Paris ‘had shown that the myth of February … could only sustain itself by bracketing out the social demands that had helped to bring the revolution about’, Clark writes. ‘The potency of the myth did not ultimately rest upon the beauty of the ...”

“... that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces would try to pass Shafiq off as the winner. Until 24 June, when Morsi’s victory was announced by the electoral commission, nothing was certain, even whether the former president was alive or dead. As the train reached the station at Alexandria, my fixer, Magdy, got a call from his boss, a reporter for the ...”

“... across Whitehall from my office in the Ministry of Defence to see the Home Secretary. Roy Jenkins rose from his chair and said: ‘Well, it’s all over, Callaghan is appointing Crosland.’ He nodded to a handwritten envelope addressed to the President of the French Republic. I knew that it contained a letter declaring his willingness to become President of ...”

“... women at boxing-matches?) The well-timed reissue of his autobiography of 1970, The Tiger and the Rose, gives us some excuse to consider his life and character – helpful toward the appreciation of his writing (as with Byron and Graves, again). None of the women in Ring of Truth can appreciate boxing: Scannell sets up women characters to argue against the ...”

“... and larger objects at the horses. One horse bolted, throwing its female rider to the ground. Last June, two black women – sisters – from West London were found murdered after celebrating the older sister’s birthday in a local park. No one has been charged, but two police officers were suspended after selfies they took with the women’s bodies were ...”

“... at risk of famine, and 900,000 children were at critical risk. As the cost of a 25 kg bag of wheat rose to $415, there were stories of Palestinians eating grass. People I spoke to who had left Gaza told me that their relatives were going without food for days on end.As the situation deteriorated, there were reports of looting. Israel has repeatedly blamed this ...”

“... Jeremy, the narrator of Black Dogs, is writing a memoir about his wife’s parents, Bernard and June, ex-Communists who took off in opposite directions, towards emphatic rationality and passionate faith. They can’t live with each other and can’t stop thinking about each other, feeding greedily off hearsay, fuelling their favourite myths. They seem ...”

“... of conflicting data (and many doubting colleagues), Stagg finally called it right, scrubbing 5 June for 6 June, thereby avoiding the worst ever Channel storm. Rommel, in charge of the Atlantic sea wall, thought it safe to leave his post on 6 June. Stagg, crucially, had access to data ...”

“... after everyone, Linder included, went to see the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976. Her early designs for friends’ record sleeves featured floating Expressionist heads (Real Life by Magazine) and photomontages inspired by Dada and Surrealism (the Buzzcocks’ ‘Orgasm Addict’). When she formed her own group, her persona was as ...”