“... pounds’ worth of gold: the link between currency and gold was ended in 1971, and anyway, Gordon Brown sold off the Bank of England’s gold reserves in the 1990s. The fact is, there’s no answer to the question, ten pounds of what? The ten pound note is worth what it claims it is because the state, in the form of the Bank of England, says so, and we choose ...”

“... we built a raft from old oil-drums, and, too afraid to sail on it ourselves, we tethered one of David Luck’s hapless chickens to its deck and sent it on a squawking unhappy journey downstream. Another time we constructed an elaborate camp on a small island in the middle of a pond with a rope drawbridge worked by discarded bell-ropes from the Church.I only ...”

“... He was still not an independent actor, remaining, in the matter-of-fact judgment of Judith Brown, in her biography of Nehru, an ‘utterly reliable’ prop of the old guard within the party.At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Congress high command instructed all its provincial governments to resign in protest at the viceroy’s declaration of ...”