“... seem beyond belief.As in his wonderful Ma’am Darling (a collagist’s journey around Princess Margaret), Brown deploys seemingly throwaway footnotes as peepholes into history. All the expected players are here – Bob Dylan, the Stones, Phil Spector – but also the Duchess of Windsor, Noël Coward, Peter Stringfellow, Malcolm Sargent, Beryl ...”

“... what’s really going on. Trump, for instance, wants to abolish birthright citizenship in the US. Margaret Thatcher did this in the UK forty years ago. Are both of these decisions fascist, or neither – or is there something qualitatively different about Trump’s actions? Does it even matter whether we have an answer to the question ‘Is this fascism?’It ...”

“... to back a UN resolution declaring Argentina the aggressor. There was talk of a boycott, but Margaret Thatcher, knowing little of football or the home associations’ tournament records, calculated that their performances would improve troop morale; in the event Scotland went out in the first group phase and England and Northern Ireland in the ...”