“... of American magazines and the man on the omnibus had ‘some acquaintance with James Baldwin and John Cheever’. In Crossroads, a man ‘in the vitamin business’, Franzen’s idea of a regular Joe, buys ‘the recent Mailer, the recent Updike’. Free from the ‘total electronic distraction of our time’, Franzen’s people keep their minds on higher ...”

“... he immediately looked into the possibility of winning the hand of her half-sister, Elizabeth. Don John of Austria, Philip’s illegitimate half-brother, later to achieve immortality at Lepanto and the son of a scullery maid at a hotel in Regensburg where Charles had once stayed, also fancied his chances at bringing England back to the True Faith, offering ...”

“... in real time over the course of the broadcast. The fortunes of the Republican candidate, John McCain, took a dive during the second debate in Nashville, when an off the cuff reference to his opponent, Barack Obama, as ‘that one’ caused a sudden surge of negative opinion, visible to TV audiences across America.The rapid expansion and consolidation ...”

“... the effect as Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, and reports from sufferers abounded. The following year John Olney of Washington University set out to confirm these findings under laboratory conditions. His experiment involved injecting newborn mice with monosodium glutamate, and the results were alarming: the effects on the mice culminated in acute neural necrosis ...”

“... formed relationships with influential figures in the Liberal Party, including the ageing John Bright and the anticolonial poet Wilfrid Blunt. He forged links with women’s rights activists and working-class representatives, sharing a platform with William Morris. He supported improving the lives of labouring Britons, while educating his audiences ...”

“... Voorhees’s study is different. He highlights the all-important fact that in October 1962 John F. Kennedy was about to face congressional midterm elections. The results would determine the fate of his presidency, as well as his prospects for re-election in 1964. Kennedy’s New Frontier domestic agenda – which promised a huge house-building ...”

“... then further fictionalising their situation in The New Machiavelli. The editor of the Spectator, John St Loe Strachey, a pillar of the National Social Purity Crusade (no, really), foamed at the novel’s ‘poisonous and pernicious teaching’, finding it ‘in its essence depraved’ (the book, it should be said, contains no description of sexual activity ...”

“... of David Mellor’s bedroom attire came a drip-drip of inane yet telling details of purchases from John Lewis, which didn’t interrupt politics as usual so much as reconfigure it altogether. That Ed Miliband was revealed as the most frugal member of the cabinet, and his brother one of the most extravagant, spoke of something more important than their views on ...”

“... don’t know how to talk to women and wish they knew bigger words. Dacre’s spiritual mentor was John Junor of the Sunday Express, a man who thought that men who drink white wine are ‘poofters’ and believed, according to the paper’s literary editor Graham Lord, ‘that Aids was a fair punishment for buggery’. According to a memoir written by ...”

“... a time Pevsner described as modernism’s ‘first chapter’. In the 1930s, the psychologist John Carl Flügel described the era’s ‘Great Masculine Renunciation’ of gaudy ‘peacock’ fashion in favour of strong, simple forms inspired by classical architecture and the heroic male figure seen in Greek statuary. The suit, designed to augment the ...”

“... on a hideous yacht. The romance went out of New Romanticism the minute the band’s bass player, John Taylor, in the video for the single ‘Rio’, crawled up the beach with a rifle to help a lady who was being splashed with champagne, followed quickly by their singer, Simon Le Bon, diving into the blue Antiguan waters wearing a pair of budgie ...”

“... is to purge itself ruthlessly of dud leadership. It’s true that had it been Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell who spooked the markets, Labour would have stuck with them out of a determination not to be pushed around by anyone. The Tories bailed out at the first sign of trouble. Perhaps this is the way parliamentary democracy is meant to work. The contrast ...”

“... mysticism. It influenced Nouveau réalisme and psychogeography. Isou even claimed that it was John Lennon’s visit to a lettriste exhibition in Paris in 1961 that led the Beatles to embrace experimental techniques. Those who saw lettrisme as a confidence trick were pointing, whether they knew it or not, to its hysterical character. Isou was forever ...”

“... from dead ancestors, burlesque (‘as I neared my pudenda, it seemed that it was no longer me but John Indian who was caressing me … a pungent tidal wave flooded my thighs’) and an imagined meeting between Tituba and Hester Prynne. Condé describes the book as ‘the opposite of a historical novel. I was not interested at all in what her real life could ...”

“... the 1970 ‘School Kids Issue’ of Oz. The classic defence tactic was used of having counsel – John Mortimer QC – representing two of the editors and arguing issues of law, while the other, Richard Neville, represented himself and said things that lawyers were not permitted to say (though Mortimer was at his fluent best when not talking about the ...”