“... man’s proven ability to build new homes in outer space’. Thirdly, we have a cod foreword by ‘John B. Wilson BA’ (Burgess’s true name, plus AB spelt backwards?), pretending that the novel consists of papers left by a dead author who derived his title from ‘That is the end of the World News’ (a BBC sonority as awful as the Director of the Spoken ...”

“... when it deals with the world at large. The sentence in the chapter on the military budget, by John Blackaby, is surely a candidate for the saying of the year: ‘The Soviet Union is a long way away.’ To recommend, on the one hand, a systematic violation of the Treaty of Rome by an import surcharge, and, on the other, the permanent vetoing of ...”

“... same may well have been true of the cities founded or developed by the Swedes in Russia. Was Sir John Hawkins a merchant or a buccaneer? Did his commerce bring benefits to West Africa? Finally, each of these books follows Sawyer’s lead in regarding Viking desecrations as more an unfortunate by-product than a deliberate purpose of their activities. We are ...”

“... have an integrity and persistence of their own. Academic historians such as Maurice Cowling and John Vincent have for years been plotting the political seduction of the aspiring middle classes into primrose leagues. It was all in Bagehot anyway. Similarly it is striking, but in some ways rather pathetic, to discover a Marxist such as Philip Corrigan ...”

“... than a gentleman (one of his favourite distinctions), a competent professional of modern spirit. John Kennedy was already dead, but the New Frontier spirit seemed to be alive in the Britain of 1964, and Harold Wilson to exemplify it. We believed him, or some of us did, when he said that he would get Britain going again, bring in new people, harness new ...”

“... They didn’t have the partinost, or ‘party spirit’, of friends like James Klugman or John Cornford. To put it crudely, the CP in Britain was beneath them. They were unwilling in the end to leave the Establishment, and became prominent figures in the BBC, the Foreign Office, Intelligence and so forth – just as they were destined to. Except that ...”

“... of Tennyson’s rhyme of ‘abysm’ with ‘Zolaism’. The first page of the introduction to John Montague’s Faber Book of Irish Verse moves at once from saying that ‘the true condition of Irish poetry in the 19th century’ is ‘mutilation’, to ‘Loss is Mangan’s only theme,’ this sentence then speaking of castration in a way which is grimly ...”

“... The brevity of the visit inevitably led to mistakes. He has the famous policeman/runner John Akii-Bua returning from exile to greet the liberators, when he was in fact returning from Kenya (where he had been briefly held in the Kakamega camp for Amin’s men fleeing the liberators) after a running engagement in West Germany. He never defected. Mr ...”

“... consumption in eight different countries. In particular, there is a very full and clear account by John Shearman of the complex building history of the chapel, its liturgical function, the programme of the 15th-century decorations, and of Raphael’s tapestries. There is also an article by Michael Hirst which subjects to scrutiny the fragile sheets from the ...”

“... But he does his best to enliven things with biographical vignettes. The revelation that John Ashbery was a radio Quiz Kid at the age of 14 does nothing to undermine my prejudices against his work, but the ever-catholic Perkins gives a sympathetic introduction. How far, though, is the book a history? By continual cross-cutting, Perkins gives an idea ...”

“... is too fierce. I find it hard to believe that Chaucer – whose wife clearly was the sister of John of Gaunt’s long-term and acknowledged mistress, later wife – was quite as obscurely middle-rank as he is presented. He certainly gave his son Thomas a flying start. And there could be an obvious reason for the omission of the Chaucer arms from the Ewelme ...”

“... to lodge a protest with the school, so sure was she that Joe was better at everything. The key to John Kennedy’s character lay essentially in acute maternal deprivation – and in the contrast between his cold, prudish mother and his overwhelming, earthy father. His mother could not bear to kiss or even touch her children (except to beat them), left them ...”

“... grisly slides of My Lai as the climax of his illustrated talk to the Cleveland Jaycees Club. John Updike has called Vietnam America’s least memorialised war. In its own way, this often ugly story is a handsome tribute to the Vietnam War of men like Thompson, Ridenhour and Peers, to the resurgent spirit of the Vietnamese, and indeed to its authors. On ...”

“... LEADER) and Honda (NUMBER ONE RATED CAR IN AMERICA!). Smith’s senior partner on this case is John Connor, the most knowledgeable of Special Services officers on matters Japanese. Some of his fellow policemen suspect that Connor went native during his years in Japan. His apartment is decorated in Japanese style, with tatami mats and shoji screens, he ...”

“... for a handful, in the House of Commons. Lord Gilmour admits that Thatcherism with a human face (John Major) is still Thatcherism. He is more reluctant to admit that the reason the Government is still Thatcherite is that the Conservative Party is largely Thatcherite. If he accepted that he might be able to explain the failure of the Wets more ...”