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“... of mirth. ‘You’ve got a chance in a place like this,’ says a sixty-year-old woman called Rose at the opening of Harold Pinter’s first play, The Room. ‘It was the alcoholics’ paradise,’ Barry Humphries writes in his introduction to Darren Coffield’s entertaining book.You merely ran up a slate. Later, much later, came the reckoning, but you ...”

“... well-being, maternal ambivalence and the direction of feminism runs very high, as Jacqueline Rose searchingly discussed in her essay ‘Mothers’ (LRB, 19 June 2014). Ever since Euripides showed unexpected sympathy with Medea she has been a heroine for real-world questions about women – their status, their weakness – and about betrayal, blood ties ...”

“... and Powell, but he was not destined to be on the backbenches for long. In a debate on the NHS he rose to take on the speaker all Tories feared most, Aneurin Bevan. A few months later, Churchill made him Minister of Health. Macleod was so shaken that he had to go to a phone box to find out where on earth his ministry was. He announced that he would be the ...”

“... on its enemies and to honour their experiences. In a book about Tazmamart published in the 1990s, Christine Daure-Serfaty, a French activist working on behalf of Hassan’s detainees, added that she was frightened of ‘forgetting’ and eager to perform ‘an exorcism’ by sharing what she knew with her readers.*What little was reported in the ...”

“... the river. The Great Fire of London was remarkable for prophesying, five years ahead of the event, Christine Edzard’s double-decker film of Little Dorrit. Here was a correspondence, a playful vortex of invention and coincidence in the style that Ackroyd would make familiar through bestselling biographies, histories and offshoot television ...”

“... to deliver the speech; John Profumo in 1963 as secretary for war for lying about his affair with Christine Keeler; and Amber Rudd as home secretary in 2018 during the Windrush scandal for claiming to be ignorant of the government’s immigration targets, although the figures had been sent to her. In Dalton’s case, it was at worst a bit of indiscreet ...”

“... yes’ (insofar as they call me anything, thought Mrs Ransome). ‘Just wondered if it was Rose or Rosie?’ ‘Oh no.’ ‘Hubby calls you Rosemary, does he?’ ‘Well, yes,’ said Mrs Ransome, ‘I suppose he does,’ and went to put the kettle on, thus enabling Dusty to make her first note: ‘Query: Is burglary the real problem here?’ When ...”

“... of storytelling, something understood by every human society known to history’. The novelist Christine Brooke-Rose, in an essay resigning her own deuxième carrière as a narratologist, describes narratology as ‘immensely useful. But in the end, it couldn’t cope with narrative and its complexities, except at the ...”

“... not just tourists but prospective residents and second-homers. Cyprus prospered. House prices rose. Ticket prices fell. More visitors, more residents, more houses, more money. First it was people with money seeking homes; then, in a shift that was barely noticeable until after it had happened, it was people seeking a home for their money. Is there some ...”

“... de l’Etat, isn’t embarrassed to say so. In her foreword to the agency’s 2010 report, Christine Lagarde – then minister for economic affairs in François Fillon’s cabinet – boasted that the state would be more active than ever in building ‘champions capable of competing with global market rivals’. In Thatcherite terms EDF was a public ...”

“... and a half pounds. 5.35. Both doing well. I’m ringing everybody. Bye, Grandma.’ Midgley half rose as the young man put the receiver back, but sat back as he consulted a bit of paper then picked it up again and dialled. ‘Hello Neil. Hi. You’re an uncle ... You’re an uncle. Today. Just now. 5.35. Well, guess.’ He waited. ‘No. Girl. No. I’m over ...”

“... some $20 million from Gaddafi for the electoral campaign that took him to the presidency. Christine Lagarde, his finance minister, who now heads the IMF, is under interrogation for her role in the award of €420 million in ‘compensation’ to Bernard Tapie, a well-known crook with a prison record, latterly a friend of Sarkozy. Nonchalant adjacency ...”