“... swamp. Readers of these poems might be surprised to learn that early medieval England had cities. York, which had been a Roman garrison town, flourished as a trading settlement (or wic in Old English). On the Thames, about a mile upstream from ancient Londinium, sat Lundenwic, a bustling hub with a population in the thousands, in what is now Aldwych (‘Old ...”

“... initiated by Suu Kyi, and obediently agreed by the NLD executive, has been just as unexpected. Peter Popham’s life of Aung San Suu Kyi is gripping, partisan and emotional, a welcome complement to the only other serious biography in English, Justin Wintle’s assiduously comprehensive Perfect Hostage. It contains fascinating new material and ...”

“... until they form a single unit, set square to the prevailing on-shore winds. The occupier, New York-born to a childhood in John Cheever commuting country, now reinvented as a Vietnam-vintage Irish citizen, removes all the offending oil paintings from the wall: jewelled landscapes in oil; lively, naive renderings of the headland on which the cottages have ...”

“... is finding out about them. Final Exit, like Spycatcher, is a best-seller in America. Like Peter Wright, Derek Humphry is a renegade Briton. He admits to having ‘assisted’ three of his loved ones exit: under British law he is a serial killer. Humphry confessed to his part in the suicide of his first wife Jean in his biography of her, published in ...”

“... in November 1949. A stop in London with relatives was still all German, as were a few weeks in New York. My mother’s brother – my Onkel Otto – and his wife lived in Manhattan near Fort Tryon Park, in the middle of a German-Jewish ghetto. Later, when we had settled in West Virginia, my mother visited them periodically and came back complaining how insular ...”

“... members of the family who sympathised with her parents’ politics, has long made her home in New York. Her account of her childhood and of Lucan’s character is balanced, regretful and affectionate. Through her eyes the man begins to emerge from behind the cardboard cut-out, and it is her recollections and those of Lucan’s unnamed schoolfriend, who had ...”

“... time at the Trafalgar Studios. I saw the first production at Wyndham’s in 1964 with Madge Ryan, Peter Vaughan and Dudley Sutton. Good in the part Sutton was already too old, as have been most of the actors who’ve played in it since. It’s a play I would dearly like to have written, though these days for it to retain its shock value the young man should ...”

“... certainly fed into Schoenberg’s next major work, the oratorio Gurrelieder, a setting of Jens Peter Jacobsen’s tale of the Danish king Waldemar’s love for his mistress Tove. In November 1901, Schoenberg moved to Berlin to take up the post of musical director at the Buntes Theatre, one of the city’s most fashionable cabaret venues. It was a ...”

“... uncompromising and deeply protective. She shied away from the lens, her most recent biographer, Peter Kurth, explains, because ‘she could make no natural motion while posing for the camera.’ Natural motion – as opposed to the engraved arcs and acrobatic tricks of classical ballet, the swooning decadence of the waltz or the silliness of social dancing ...”

“... He picks up. It’s the travel agent, calling to say there’s a seat on an earlier flight to New York. ‘You run away from me the first chance you get!’ he growls, clutching her throat. ‘Don’t act like this, Dix! I can’t live with a maniac,’ she protests, before he pushes her onto the bed and starts to strangle her. In version one, Dix finishes ...”

“... generate prosperity for all.’In July 1929, Claud was dispatched to support the Times man in New York and report on the ‘great bull market’, the apparently unstoppable uprush of share values. On 24 October, the boom broke, shares fell vertically and the cataclysm that would drive the world into the Depression began its horrible ...”

“... care for, and also the Degas Hat Shop which was shown last year at the National Gallery.6 May, New York. To the Frick, last visited in 1963. It hasn’t changed much and can’t change much, I imagine, by the terms of its endowment. What has changed is the number of visitors: in 1963 I was the only person there; today it’s crowded out, a large proportion of ...”

“... often from North London to Sloane Square, walking away from the Royal Court Theatre, rounding Peter Jones on Symons Street and turning up towards Cadogan Square. On entering the house, you rose in a coffin-like lift to the top and walked down to the first half-landing, where the door of her place would be open. Inside, if it was summer, you could browse ...”

“... real cheese man.’ Odd how I could take such a place without question did I come across it in New York, say, or California. But here it’s so bound up with class and money and all one’s complicated feelings about England I hold back. Like Saga, another rich and popular establishment catering to an obvious demand, it’s so successful it becomes slightly ...”

“... Iron Curtain. His immediate desire was to go to America to work with George Balanchine at the New York City Ballet. In a letter to Richard Buckle, Lincoln Kirstein described Nureyev ‘making peeeteeyous Russky noises’ about joining the company. But ‘Mrs K says defunutely: Nyet.’ The dance critics Arnold Haskell and John Martin denounced his ...”