“... at least until Alexander came along. There is no long winding road, by contrast, from Solomon to Nathan the Nabi’ or Gad the Seer. Nathan the Nabi’ is on hand. Gad is Solomon’s seer. Although what can be deduced about power and religion in early first millennium Palestine is highly debatable, the Bible seems to ...”

“... the ostentatious solemnity one finds in the liturgical minimalism of composers like Arvo Pärt and John Tavener. The Messiaen ‘cathedral’, if not exactly ecumenical, is vast, with plenty of room in the nave – as Edward Said noted – for ‘staunch secularists like myself’. The sixth movement of Vingt Regards, a turbulent fugue, is called ‘Par Lui ...”

“... John Reed,​ witness to the October Revolution and author of Ten Days that Shook the World, seems to have turned against the Bolshevik leaders just before he died in Moscow in 1920. His apostasy was not publicly known, however, and a decade later the American Communist Party, eager to exploit his fame, encouraged the formation of John Reed Clubs in New York and other cities ‘to bring closer all creative workers ...”

“... of sporting successes, he said the explanation was simple. Money: the lottery money introduced by John Major in 1994. But the national lottery wasn’t the ECB’s only source of money. Sky began broadcasting cricket in 1990, but in 2006, on the back of England’s Ashes success, it acquired exclusive rights to all of England’s home matches. Since ...”

“... House (where I do not pee). It’s the home of the Lascelles family, an ancestor of which, John Lascelles, blew the gaffe on Catherine Howard, the king’s fifth wife, but was later culled himself in the purge of evangelicals during that dreadful monarch’s last years. I watch two of the now well-established red kites tumbling about the sky above the ...”

“... if the Iraqis ‘just washed their hands and cleaned the crap off the walls’. I heard Colonel Nathan Sassaman say: ‘With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them.’ I heard Richard Perle say: ‘Next year at about this time, I expect there will be a really ...”