“... an actual dispute about contemporary art was staged at the Tate – defending, Michael Craig-Martin, leading light at Goldsmiths’ College; prosecuting, Hilton Kramer, editor of the New Criterion (it’s telling that there was no obvious British champion on this side). It was made a condition that the speakers should not address each other. Afterwards I ...”

“... on Convoy 69. On page 1043 is a snapshot of two Jewish boys boxing at a sports club at the Saint-Martin-de-Vésubie station in the Alpes-Maritimes; nine other boys crowd around. Only one, Isaac More, bare-chested and wearing short trousers, is identified. (He is shown in a colourful tunic on the tomb picture above the snapshot.) But who are the other ...”

“... of presents for my mother and the cats; numerous bottles of boutique olive oil for Tracy and Gilbert; the melancholy Charlie, small yet dignified in his plastic pet-carrier; piled-up copies of the TLS and World of Interiors; the computer and its many accoutrements; a space cult’s worth of junk food (it’s a ten-hour drive); the Goncourt brothers. I ...”