“... poor Lord Byron’s PAGE. The ‘steady indignation’ has presumably abated, and the adult woman smiles at the little girl’s transvestite ambitions; elsewhere she, too, can object to ‘a woman of the masculine gender’. But no anxiety about the proper spheres of the sexes, no consideration even of the value of good needlework as against bad art, can be ...”

“... in which three of the texts I name here, three films it happens, were released: Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night, the Alain Resnais/Marguerite Duras Hiroshima, Mon Amour and Antonioni’s L’Avventura – each associated with a question about whether something new might happen (Samuel Beckett’s Godot and ...”

“... morning; its moisture, its repose, its obscurity, waiting the miracle of light to kindle it into smiles; the whole is, like the principal figure in it, ‘a forerunner of the dawn’. The same atmosphere tinges and imbues every object, the same dull light ‘shadowy sets off’ the face of nature: one feeling of vastness, of strangeness, and of primeval ...”

“... the great producers of the day who used him as they liked but enjoyed his ambience (Jack Warner, Samuel Goldwyn, Darryl Zanuck, Harry Cohn); warmer if not closer friendships with Cocteau and Renoir, Hemingway and Sinatra; and the frequent company of younger men in theatre and the movies who emulated him (Kenneth Tynan, Peter Bogdanovich). All this is known ...”

“... bike there while I walk round to M&S. People often smile at me, but this afternoon nearly everyone smiles. It’s only when I come back to Parkway to have my hair cut that I realise I’m still wearing my crash helmet. 8 February. A row over some remarks the Archbishop of Canterbury has made about Sharia law. They’re perfectly sensible; the only thing for ...”

“... the rest of the crew turn up and he performs his routine for them, which they watch with indulgent smiles. 21 April, Yorkshire. I go out with my pail of salt and water looking for slugs. They don’t require much hunting as there are dozens, huge creatures the size of turds, which, luxuriating in my absence, loll on the plants, sprawled on top of the poppies ...”

“... to begin its journey towards the chancel. The organist was meanwhile playing an arrangement of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings which many in the congregation were enjoying, having been made familiar with the tune from its frequent airings on Classic FM. Seeing no conclusion in the offing Father Jolliffe pressed a button behind a pillar to alert the ...”