“... married one. Patricia Neal, co-star with Ronald Reagan in The Hasty Heart and former lover of Gary Cooper, was infinitely glamorous and their marriage was more or less instantly unhappy, since Neal wanted to be a movie star and Dahl wanted to be more than a movie star’s husband. Moreover, he wanted someone to cook him his lunch.Over these years he met his ...”

“... that had left Denis Anson to drown. The party had included Lady Diana Manners (later to marry Duff Cooper) and Margot’s stepson and daughter-in-law, Raymond and Katharine Asquith. Two years later, when Violet and her husband ‘Bongie’ Bonham Carter were laughing about Lloyd George’s behaviour, Margot was reminded of ‘that same laughter that rung down ...”

“... but also that of Lutyens, Giles Gilbert Scott, Charles Holden and lesser lights such as Edwin Cooper or W. Curtis Green. Practically every Georgian terrace they can find features in the book. They disapprove of the City’s ‘untidy and expanding cluster’ of skyscrapers, and are more pleased with the beaux-arts plan that defines the placing of ...”

“... lower down the road I am just ‘Bennett’ and when I occasionally see another neighbour, Dom Cooper, I am called out to as ‘A.B.’, which is what he and the other History Boys called me. At the stage door of the National I am ‘young man’, which reminds me that the doorman of Durrants Hotel once called Alec Guinness ‘young man’ thereby ...”

“... humour has a flintier edge. It is, for example, difficult to miss the disdain in a description of Stephen Spender as ‘a literary mover and shaker, knighted in 1983. His wealthy, artistic parents sent him to various private schools and Oxford, but he left without taking a degree.’ Similarly, it is hard not to detect the verdict of moral absurdity in his ...”

“... acceptances, including from Noel Annan, A.J. Ayer, Isaiah Berlin, Maurice Bowra, J.B. Priestley, Stephen Spender, A.J.P. Taylor and Angus Wilson – in the full list, unlike in this sample, the heteros outnumber the homos. Encouraged by this apparently principled and broad-minded response, Dyson set up the Homosexual Law Reform Society, and applied to some ...”

“... doomed to a swift, ignominious end, a 38-year-old economist from Birmingham University called Stephen Littlechild was working on ways to realise an esoteric idea that had been much discussed in radical Tory circles: privatisation. Privatisation was not a Thatcher patent. The Spanish economist Germà Bel traces the origins of the word to the German word ...”

“... the Bennites as Labour leader in the 1980s and has supported the moves against Corbyn; his son, Stephen, was one of those who resigned from Corbyn’s shadow administration). Christine Shawcroft, a member of the NEC, attacked the decision to suspend CLP meetings during the leadership campaign in response to the much publicised death threats, abuse and ...”