“... Now comes Scott Hicks’s Shine, an equally arty but commercially viable biopic about a man – David Helfgott (played by Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor and Alex Rafalowicz) – who is abnormally inarticulate. Helfgott’s very first words are: ‘Kissed them all, I kissed them all, always kissed cats, puss-cats, kissed them, always did; if a cat’d let me ...”

“... of pace’ might seem to be the problem with this dual strike-force, but happily the author – David Bennie – does not say so. Nick Hornby cannot be blamed for writing of this kind, although Fever Pitch has helped to set the tone. In some ways, Hornby has links with the old school. He knows and cares that there is something ‘moronic’ about his ...”

“... influence will be exerted ... to achieve a fair and equitable settlement so that all in the area may live in peace, security and tranquillity.’ The United States’ influence was not, however, exerted in that way. Gunnar Jarring, who was appointed the representative of the Secretary-General of the UN to supervise the implementation of 242, received no ...”

“... and in London, describes Boxer in his autobiography as ‘both Figaro and the Count’, which may suggest not a blend of patrician wilfulness and backstairs cunning but internal strife between the two. Presumably you had to know him well to get an inkling of that. More obviously he was handsome, dandyish, an upper-class socialist. He liked cricket, bridge ...”

“... the most densely populated places on earth. Though it is part of the Marshall Islands, Marshallese may only live on Kwajalein with the permission of the US army. The relationship between Kwajalein and Ebeye mirrors South Africa’s apartheid pass system: Ebeye’s residents are allowed onto Kwajalein only to work and must leave every day after their shift ...”

“... of being prickly but pusillanimous (it subsequently emerged that these facets of his personality may have been exacerbated by an undisclosed thyroid condition that also had the unfortunate side-effect of making him fat; as he got plumper, Thatcher got thinner). Heath wanted to micro-manage the economy but lacked the ability to exert his will. The new intake ...”

“... the past, would-be biographers have been discouraged from poking their noses into the business of David Cornwell, the former spy who has written under that curious pseudonym since 1961. Robert Harris chose not to proceed, for reasons that are hinted at but not made clear in this book, while in the early 1990s the journalist Graham Lord withdrew under a heavy ...”

“... on the Massachusetts authorities to give the men a new trial. But, Temkin suggests, the pressure may have backfired: US officials didn’t want to be seen to change their minds in response to foreign criticism. They bristled at interference even from Americans who did not live in Massachusetts; foreign advice was still more unwelcome. In 1930, former ...”

“... Activities Committee. Kuhle Wampe was initially banned, but after cuts it was released in May 1932 and attracted large audiences. In July that year the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag. A month later, with a perverse sense of timing, Brecht borrowed money from his father to buy a house on the Ammersee in Bavaria. Any hope he had of an ...”

“... into Savoy to kidnap Mandrin, despite the possible diplomatic ramifications. On the evening of 10 May 1755, a French officer ordered his men to take off their uniforms and blacken their faces, then led them across the Guiers river into Savoy. They found Mandrin peacefully asleep in the château de Rochefort, threw him, still in a nightdress, into a cart, and ...”

“... of England and Wales came to acquire its salient features, a transformation which, it now seems, may also bring about some fundamental rethinking in rural planning policies which have long passed unquestioned. The front-runner was W.G. Hoskins, an economic historian by training, who since the Second World War has inspired a great new army of local historians ...”

“... and startling ways, are worth more than a thousand words, but words must accompany them. It may well be that the importance of the photographs of the Vietnam War has been overemphasised, so that it sometimes seems as if they alone brought the war to an end. If this is indeed the society of the spectacle then mere exposure to more and more images will ...”

“... that we have a Republican president spending madly on controversial and dangerous causes, history may well be kinder to Clinton. History is unlikely, however, to look more kindly on Kenneth Starr and the people who kept him going, or on the other members of the much touted right-wing conspiracy that devoted huge amounts of time and money to trying to bring ...”

“... enough to produce these effects was intense reading. Modern readers of Julie and Pamela, however, may find it surprising that these novels in particular could induce any physical effects besides a narcotic one. Our current sensibilities do not generally take well to their massive helpings of undiluted sentiment. But as literary historians have long pointed ...”

“... The harsh repression of protests in the province of Constantine by de Gaulle’s government in May and June 1945 – estimates range from five thousand to thirty thousand Muslim protesters killed – is dealt with in a single, matter-of-fact sentence: ‘In Algeria, an insurrection begun in the Constantinois … was put down by Governor General ...”