“... From 1991 to 1996, our dealings were managed through Operation Rockingham, a Defence Intelligence Service organisation that served as a clearing-house for all the intelligence support provided to Unscom by the UK. By 1996 most of Unscom’s leads had dried up and my need for actionable information was such that the Secret Intelligence ...”

“... from the Sacraments, the Puritans undermined the clergy’s position as a parish conciliation service. It is true they wanted parochial unity – but unity on their terms. Theirs was a different conception of the minister’s role from that envisaged for George Herbert’s Country Parson, ‘reconciling neighbours that are at variance’, and charitably ...”

“... military folklore, Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane and the High-and-Tight, what you learn at all the service academies: ‘that being a real warrior and hating Jane Fonda are synonymous.’* When Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial was built on the Washington Mall, well-organised veterans who criticised it as the ‘gook monument’ – Lin is ...”

“... Between leaving school and going to Cambridge, Ted Hughes did his National Service in the RAF. Writing from RAF West Kirby, in the Wirral, to a friend, Edna Wholey, in 1949 – characteristically there is no date on the letter – he exults in the wild weather:Edna, I’ve seen rain and I tell you this isn’t rain, – a steady river, well laced with ice, tempest and thunder, covers all this land, and what isn’t concrete has reverted to original chaos of mud water fire and air ...”

“... struggles, rather more defiantly, to escape the banality they represent. During the church service itself, after Victorine sucks down a ‘big swallow’ of communion wine, so quickly and avidly that the startled clergyman, the Reverend Fulton-Peate, is unable to tilt the cup back in his usual mincing manner, she feels ‘the colour hit her cheeks and ...”

“... Patel, would have had to go for being officially found guilty of bullying her staff; so would Robert Jenrick, the housing secretary, for a ripe lobbying scandal.As for policymaking, a concern for accuracy was supposed to go hand in hand with a thorough and detailed examination of pros and cons, a proper submission of papers and keeping of records, rather ...”

“... defeat of civil rights and the ‘Great Society’. Many of them came from families where military service was a proud axiom. All of them felt guilty and indebted for their luck. At 46 Leckford Road, in a scruffy house where many of them hung out, there were debates of a high quality. (There were also biscuits and brownies made out of marijuana, which meant ...”

“... own son, John, who also became an adept fiddler, like his grandfather. Clare felt an affinity with Robert Burns, collected songs as Burns did, and during his asylum years wrote a number of songs in the Scottish vernacular. Clare says in his autobiography that both his parents were ‘illiterate to the last degree’. Concerned to dispel the myths, Bate points ...”

“... keyboard. He keeps his hand in by studying piano with Mr Natural, or the individual on whom Robert Crumb’s comic-strip character Mr Natural is based. Mr Natural teaches out of a storefront in the Haight in San Francisco, where the Maestro and I are long-time neighbours. The Maestro regularly drives between San Francisco and Madison, Wisconsin, where ...”

“... count and for this reason is not dispensed by pharmacies but only directly by the mental health service. In the early days the medicine arrived through the post along with a monthly dose of Diazepam from the hospital. I had been warned that Diazepam was highly addictive and that I shouldn’t take it. But now I was sent a regular supply every four weeks. I ...”

“... Meldungen aus dem Reich, the regular confidential reports on civilian morale made by SS Security Service and local and regional government officials, together with diaries and correspondence, especially field-post letters to and from soldiers at the front, to chart the diverse and changing attitudes to victory and defeat. The most notable of these ...”

“... movement, which reduced union leaders’ ability to moderate the pay demands of their members. As Robert Taylor observes in his contribution to Crines and Hickson’s book, the unions were too weak institutionally to play the role Wilson required of them; and their historic commitment to free collective bargaining was irreconcilable with the corporatist ...”

“... a purely antiquarian urge. Post-Reformation alchemy was increasingly secularised, aligned with service to the state – it involved distilling medicines, mining, metallurgy and reforming the mint. The rich and powerful didn’t abandon hope that a lowly alchemist might yet change the world. In 1565 Elizabeth set up a Dutch alchemist in his own workshop at ...”

“... 20th century, among them Elizabeth Hardwick, Jean Stafford (these two had been better known as Robert Lowell’s wives) and Lucia Berlin, whose luminous short stories seem to me as good as anyone’s. Now Picador have published Blue in Chicago, a collection of stories by Bette Howland, born in 1937, a Jewish writer from a working-class neighbourhood in ...”

“... mentis owing to terrible head injuries received while fighting in the Napoleonic Wars in the service of king and country; it would be barbaric to convict him of high treason, for which he might be hanged, drawn and quartered. The lord chief justice was persuaded to halt the trial and set Hadfield free. His release led to a public outcry and the swift ...”