“... by her father after she refused to ‘marry’ him. I went on Saint Dymphna’s feast day (30 May); a large congregation filed up to kiss a small fragment of bone in a glass case. The mood was hushed and intense; the votaries clearly in earnest and filled with hope and trust. After the ceremony, I went to the sacristy to talk to the young celebrant of the ...”

“... her in a bag. This bag had once held my hats.’ She concludes: ‘Please keep this letter as I may want to refer to it some time for a story.’As she put it in her autobiography, drily entitled Curriculum Vitae (1992), ‘most of the memorable experiences of my life I have celebrated, or used for a background in a short story or novel.’ Usually she ...”

“... grim and containing shots of what the censor called ‘actual’ sex, which I saw on 12 May 2000 as an alternative to Gladiator. François Truffaut, the patron saint of this weirdo sub-type, said that no child, on being asked to name their dream, replies: ‘I’m going to be a movie reviewer.’ He was wrong.The beginning of my obsession coincided ...”

“... two years later, reported on the Rio Olympics for the Guardian.In How to Save the Amazon (Bonnier, May 2025), the half-finished manuscript Phillips left behind which was completed by his friends and colleagues, the Guardian journalist Jonathan Watts suggests that two reporting trips in 2015 were responsible for Phillips’s awakening. For the Washington ...”

“... a treatise of systematics is bound to be more explicit about doctrine than a narrative poem. It may also be that Milton was cautious enough, in a vernacular poem published during his lifetime, to avoid bringing too much attention to his most controversial positions. Paradise Lost does not show God the Father creating the Son. But it does show the Father ...”

“... time trying to write a poem, the retrospective report on having written a poem – all these may be communicated to correspondents, but the actual process of composition will remain something of a black box. With the exception of ‘Little Gidding’ (or ‘Spittle-Skidding’ as Eliot whimsically termed it in a letter to Hayward), the writing of which ...”

“... Act 2003, which introduced the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004, which came into force on 1 May 2005. These contain a mandatory regulation: ‘Every building must be designed and constructed in such a way that in the event of an outbreak of fire within the building, or from an external source, the spread of fire on the external walls of the building is ...”

“... with these gentle criticisms: the subtitle, perhaps also devised to please the general reader, may raise a sigh or a yawn rather than quicken interest. It pertains, but so would ‘the flight from love’ or the like, and neither really gives much idea of the content of the volume. Holroyd is keen to map on to Shaw’s maturity his recollections of the ...”

“... a lady flanked by two gentlemen, one older and one younger.’ Dickens, and more acutely Gogol, may have influenced Roth, but probably the strongest impression was made by Viennese journalism, in particular the practice and perfection of the feuilleton, or short literary article. Feuilletons were brief sketches, sometimes arguments but often exquisite ...”

“... by the end of the decade rare ‘class’ was being shown by such public-school amateurs as Peter May and David Sheppard. In 1949, such was the craze for sport, 90,000 people turned up to watch the FA Amateur Cup Final. As Anthony Bailey, who watched Portsmouth when they won the League Championship two years running, fondly remembers, ‘football shorts were ...”

“... to declare a view. This reviewer stands – albeit with some strong reservations – nearer what may be called the Hamilton position than its opposite. Monty did bring a completely new spirit to the Eighth Army when he assumed command. He showed who was master. He imposed his will. Monty did sometimes force sense upon Allied planning, absolutely refusing to ...”

“... the historical materialism that has been my Ariadne’s thread ever since. Slow conversion may last longer than sudden enlightenment; and convictions, as Nietzsche said, are the backbone of life. We had no time then to assimilate Marxist theory more than very roughly; it was only beginning to take root in England, though it had one remarkable expounder ...”

“... it’s also the look in the eye of the man throwing up his hands before being shot in The Third of May. Find no one to hand with whom I can quite share this (probably mistaken) perception so come away. 22 February. Switch on Newsnight to find some bright spark from, guess where, the Adam Smith Institute, proposing the privatisation of public libraries. His ...”

“... is, I think, Bishop’s final formal representation of literature as sheer ongoingness. The bus may be flowing, but it is never flown. And the sharp demarcation of the word ‘historical’, so final in ‘At the Fishhouses’, has given way to a concept altogether less angular – the grandparents, out of time at last, talking in that Eternity which is ...”

“... The young have had their education and their socialisation disrupted, with consequences that may take years to play out – that may, for all we know, be irreversible. Covid has involved an upturning of the contract between the generations: children have been conscripted to protect adults, and have paid the price. To ...”