“... trying to form a provisional government under the regency of the Duchesse d’Orléans, the former king’s daughter-in-law, who was sitting calmly in the chamber. But the masses didn’t want a regency; they wanted revolution. Their presence swung the balance of power towards the radical opposition, which promptly announced the birth of the Second ...”

“... lamented that Rousseau had died before discovering his ideal island. Swinburne wanted to be its king and drink ‘rapture of rest’. Temperatures avoid extremes; camellias bloom at Christmas. The very competitive mathematician and ocean-wave expert Sir James Lighthill swam the ten miles around Sark five times; on his sixth attempt, in 1998, he ruptured a ...”

“... and Claud was sent to school at Berkhamstead. The headmaster during the First World War was Charles Greene, father of Graham and a high-minded radical, and Cockburn first saw political violence on Armistice Day, when a drunken mob burst into the school accusing Greene (quite wrongly) of having been ‘anti-war’. But the experiences that followed were ...”

“... riddles of Roman times, Antonio de Guevara and the transmission of medieval tales to the age of Charles V, Montaigne, La Bruyère, Madame de Sévigné, Voltaire, to finish in Proust – all in 25 pages. In this procedure, which we could also call historical montage, the premium is always – to use a contrast that gives its title to the opening entry in ...”

“... its – or her – place. A lovely thing. 31 December. Because some 25 years ago The Madness of King George was nominated for an Oscar, around Christmas we generally get a clutch of DVDs soliciting votes for the next year’s awards. Today it’s Call Me by Your Name, which has been much lauded, so much so that when we come to watch it this rather gets in ...”

“... Lord of the Rings experience are about to be replaced with fast-food tie-ins (a deal with Burger King has been announced), a hit pop record, trading cards, furry backpacks. It is a strange reversal. Except that in a way it is not.Take a look at the Fellowship trailers, different versions of which can be downloaded from www.lordoftherings.net. The landscapes ...”

“... flush out the devout, the fluent genuflection before entering the pew the first indicator. Charles Moore sinks to his knees straightaway and prays for a considerable period of time, and Piers Paul Read similarly. Some admiration for this, men who pray in public not uncourageous, though more often met with at Catholic rather than Anglican services. The ...”

“... dead master’s work. Shortly after collaborating on Timon of Athens, Middleton had presented the King’s Men with a double-edged homage to Shakespeare, The Revenger’s Tragedy, whose protagonist is a frenetic caricature of Shakespeare’s hesitant revenger; and near the end of his career, in The Changeling, he would subject Othello to an equally bizarre ...”

“... decades after 1945. The first is the dream of the social-democratic equivalent of the philosopher-king. This expresses the hope that even in contemporary mass democracies a figure will emerge who can work the political machine and at the same time embody intellect, sensibility and liberal values, someone who can win power and then exercise it in the name of ...”

“... were the only words he ever uttered. ‘Then he would lead Mamma upstairs while she murmured “my King!”’Whatever the extent of his voyeurism, David was happy to give the couple space. When he knew Austin and Mabel were alone together, he signalled his return by whistling a tune from the opera Martha. Sue was less complaisant. During a row with Austin in ...”

“... world which admirers could happily recognise and inhabit. When Alton Locke, the tailor in Charles Kingsley’s novel, reads Tennyson’s descriptions of the dreary Lincolnshire flats he feels he has had his eyes opened to an unexpected universe: ‘The desolate pools and creeks where the dying swan floated, the hint of the silvery marsh mosses by ...”

“... systems and partly in systems of political and military control. Every technological system, as Charles Perrow has observed, has its characteristic ‘normal accident’. The things that Murphy’s Law says will (or can) go wrong depend on the design of technical and human systems that are intended to ensure the weapons work. In the early atomic age, bombs ...”

“... He had trained as a painter – including a spell at the Royal College of Art. He had danced for King George V, and Anna Pavlova had invited him to choreograph a set of Indian dances, which were performed at Covent Garden the year before his father’s ballet was put on there. ‘He is endowed with one of the most perfect bodies I have ever seen in a man in ...”

“... system and drawn attention to what are known as ‘variable stars’. So much event! Charles Pickering, the director who hired Mrs Fleming and who oversaw the years when the number of women computers grew from three to twenty, is not only dashing and interested in women’s intellectual development, but also comes co-cast with a prodigal brother ...”

“... Kathy, Whitney was abused as a child. Aged twelve, she was groomed and ‘seduced’ by Tony King, her guardian’s fiancé, who is eventually sent to jail and kills himself in his cell. It was the first time the theme of underage abuse had been broached in a British soap opera, with the Daily Mirror calling it ‘one of the darkest and most disturbing ...”