“... It hit the big time a while ago, with sought-after interviews with the Stone Roses and George Michael (‘breaking a six-year silence’). Guest editors have included Damien Hirst and David Bailey – Big Issue chic. The ads say something, too: Levis, Sony, Calvin Klein, Bacardi; British Nuclear Fuels, a contentious issue in the office, soon pulled; some ...”

“... the principal agent of order in such establishments, was a time-honoured instrument for training young minds, hence the disquieting ambiguity of ‘discipline’, a word that in Shakespeare’s day could even denote the principal weapon of instruction: the whip. In his essay ‘Of the Institution and Education of Children’, Montaigne, who grew up speaking ...”

“... front, outside the windscreen, the camera slightly off to the driver’s left. Ray Liotta, looking young and spruce but tired, is at the wheel, his face well lit. Robert de Niro, in the passenger seat, is asleep. Joe Pesci, in the back seat, is nodding off. A thumping noise is heard, and Liotta says, ‘Jimmy.’ De Niro wakes up. Liotta continues: ‘Did I ...”

“... by Mrs Beeton at every turn, perhaps even after they had been many years in service. Of course young wives, or Esther Summer-son-style dependent relatives, were equally ignorant when they first took up their duties of household management. But they at least had a copy of the book; they read it; and they were the normal conduit by which the knowledge in it ...”

“... in 1995. Mossbourne’s first head, or ‘principal’ as they are often called in academies, was Michael Wilshaw, who subsequently became chief inspector at Ofsted.Both City and Mossbourne began with a single cohort of Year 7s (11 and 12-year-olds) before building up to a full school and sixth form after seven years, which gave their heads time to decide how ...”

“... their heads and complained of the ‘bad Bengali’ – ‘the language does not taste well.’ Michael Datta (Madhusudan Datta, 1824-73), who took the name ‘Michael’ on his conversion to Christianity, was highly regarded as an innovator in Bengali blank verse and for his elevated Miltonic style. But he was never a ...”

“... of success can serve to push them further and further away from their talent. If a bright young director survives this malarkey and makes a second great hit, in Hollywood he is no longer a genius but a prophet. His relationship with reality is then likely to be beyond talking about, and unlike the successful novelist, say, or the smart ...”

“... flames, still recite sacred epics. But as time passed in the West, clever scissorwork became a young woman’s skill, and dropped below stairs; the bastard progeny of the paper cut are the doily and the cutlet frill. Yet Lotte Reiniger, a Berliner who died in London in 1981, adapted the craft to make experimental ‘shadow films’, as she called ...”

“... of beer. It was always said that he wrote from the world of these men, and in their language. But Michael King’s biography, Frank Sargeson: A Life, published in 1995, told a different story. In 1929, Norris Davey, a junior government clerk, was convicted under New Zealand’s anti-homosexuality laws. To avoid prison, he denied his sexuality, and gave ...”

“... Ionce​ drove to Forest Lawn Memorial Park. It was before Michael Jackson had his crypt there, but I remember finding Walt Disney’s grave and that of Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore. A few writers are there too: Theodore Dreiser, who wrote well about department stores in Sister Carrie, and Clifford Odets, who believed shopping was one of America’s chronic diseases ...”

“... UK on Sky Atlantic, was nominated for five Emmys and made much of by everyone from Lorrie Moore to Michael Bloomberg. Before this, 26-year-old Dunham had made short films, web comedy series and two movies – the best and best-known thing she’s done so far is the movie Tiny Furniture – in which she also plays women her own age, slouching towards adulthood ...”

“... that he’s ‘wonderfully handsome’, or (at first) that Hans Castorp looks like ‘an ordinary young man’. We couldn’t describe them to a police sketch artist and expect to get anything back. Gatsby, first spotted, is ‘standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure ...”

“... were by now enthusiastically clambering onto the bandwagon. First out of the traps was the brash young defence secretary, Gavin Williamson. The Sun’s report, he said, shows why Corbyn cannot be trusted: ‘Time and time again he has sided with those who want to destroy everything that is great about this country.’ On 18 February the story moved up a ...”

“... the temperature by one degree. The fire is just to burn those who don’t drown As too full of young voices she goes down. This is the finest hour of Mail and Star. The Sun especially is cock-a-hoop, Shouting commands as if at Trafalgar. Swab out the trunnion cleats and calk that poop! What terrifying warriors they are, These slewed slop-slingers of the ...”

“... to live in. O’Faolain may agree with me. In the Preface to the Penguin book, he says that as a young man he was very romantic, that his style took pleasure in such words as ‘dawn’, ‘dew’, ‘onwards’, ‘youth’, ‘world’, ‘adamant’ and ‘dusk’. I could extend the list, but it is already long enough to make the point that his early ...”