“... 3 January. Alan Bates dies on 27 December and we break the journey from Yorkshire at Derby in order to go to his funeral. It’s at Bradbourne, a tiny village the taxi-driver has never heard of, and he and his Asian colleagues have a map session before we eventually head off into the Derbyshire hills ...”

“... you see him write of this scatter-burst of            rock in open sea, ‘We seem brought near that mystery of             mysteries, the first appearance of new beings on the               earth.’The Rambert Dance Company produced a new work, The Comedy of Change, as their ...”

“... The table is full, the wall is painted, the space is filled with voices!’ Zurab was talking. We were in a Mexican-Japanese restaurant in Tbilisi, ending a heavy night. Bottles and dishes crowded the table; the diners were even gaudier than the décor; over the blast of the band came the voice of Georgia’s richest brewer yelling at his bodyguards ...”

“... spokesmen for al-Qaida or as the Islamic equivalent of Monty Python’s People’s Front of Judea? We are here for the official opening of a conference – not a celebration, they are keen to stress – to commemorate the glorious memory of the 19 men who killed themselves in flying four planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the ground. ‘The world is ...”

“... mass influx of people coming across our border.’ Pence claims that when he visited one camp ‘we spoke to cheerful children who were watching television, having snacks.’*On his state visit to the UK and France to commemorate the Normandy landing, the president of the United States is distressed to find that Fox News is not available, and calls on ...”

“... hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions with a view to criminal proceedings being brought. We earnestly express the hope that nothing will be allowed to stand in the way of a speedy progress of those proceedings.’ I felt the need to pinch myself. Was this the same Lord Lane I had watched over the course of several weeks in 1987 when he presided over ...”

“... leave him,”’ he told me. ‘My daughter Fethia sent me messages every day – “Daddy, come, we need you. Daddy come.” When the council gave us the flat, I worked it upside down, and changed everything, making it beautiful. And when the woman came from the TMO’ – the Tenant Management Organisation – ‘she was shocked at how different it now ...”