“... one hopes, by good. Abolition of the slave trade (described at one time as traffic in ‘black ivory’) was achieved with mixed motives and by mixed means, including the most extravagant sentimentality. As to form, both these long poems are divided into two parts. The second section of each is a large assembly of quotations, from a miscellany of ...”

“... actually slouching? On further examination, perhaps he is; but here, as in some other cases, the black and white illustration is not quite as clear as it might be (landscape on the dark side). When Gainsborough moves from Ipswich to Bath he brings forward his characters in a changed spirit, which owes something to the literary conception of the comic ...”

“... of Operation Sidewinder, with its hippy satire on the US military, doing in Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down (2001)? Still, Shepard has always seemed to be in two minds about the movie business, and about the status of acting in general. Compromised artists, troubled actors and imperfectly self-fashioned men litter his pages, and his writing has thrived ...”

“... curious hoax biography Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-60. The book even included a small black and white photograph, captioned ‘Logan Mountstuart, 1959’, that showed a round-faced, faintly-smiling man with abbreviated eyebrows and incipient jowls. Boyd described him as a curious and forgotten figure in the annals of 20th-century literary ...”

“... Not long after, the discussion group was disbanded. The gatecrasher’s name, we learnt, was Christopher Hitchens, and he apparently did this sort of thing rather often, being famous for a sort of pyrotechnic brashness. Looking back, one realises that these were entirely apposite qualities for the successful journalist, which is very much what Hitchens ...”

“... entry into the war in Europe was that the British should give up their empire. In consequence, as Christopher Hitchens has pointed out in his matchless Blood, Class and Nostalgia (1990), the British underwent a massive and soul-gelding relegation. Harold Macmillan’s remark that ‘these Americans represent the new Roman Empire and we Britons, like the ...”

“... conference denouncing the FBI, which had targeted her in the 1960s for her involvement with the Black Panthers. In his own suicide note, headed ‘For the press’, a year later, he wrote: ‘No connection with Jean Seberg. Aficionados of broken hearts should apply elsewhere.’ Gary didn’t stop writing while he was a Hollywood spouse, but he knew he was ...”

“... even before they’ve seen the documentation. If we needed a third reason, we could find one in Christopher Plummer, who plays the evil banker and is so securely installed in the stereotype of the suave rich fellow that the only Nazis he could possibly have met would have come from central casting. But what kind of movie is this, and why is Spike Lee making ...”

“... this country, though an unfamiliar name to most readers of verse in America. The other, Nicholas Christopher, is one of the most celebrated of America’s younger poets but – I suspect – an unknown figure in England, at least as a poet (his novel, The Soloist, was published by Pan last year). In each case, this disparity in reputation – this ...”

“... contemplate them. ‘He had tattoos of eagles and mermaids all over his arms, and straight black hair, a low brow, a dented nose, a moustache and a couple of missing teeth.’ One knows what is meant, but those missing teeth are very disconcertingly present: it is not just that the man had a couple of teeth missing, but that he had, positively and ...”

“... In January 1936 when George V was dying, Lord Dawson, his physician, wrote on the back of a menu card: ‘The King’s life is moving peacefully towards its close.’ This message was broadcast to the world by the infant BBC. Shortly afterwards Neville Chamberlain wrote that Dawson had touched the hearts of millions all over the world. In the last fifty years the media, trading in the human-interest story, have been the beauticians of the medical profession ...”

“... cityscape: It seems to satisfy a want that we have long been conscious of, when we see the black streams that welter out of factories, the dreary lengths of urban and suburban dustiness,                 The squares and streets,                 And the faces that one meets, irradiated with a gleam of divine ...”

“... on the fuss about gay marriage, and ‘Christmas’, which details the casual ripping-off of a black roofer by his colleagues and was originally published as an autobiographical essay, these stories make up the most explicitly political section of the book, which is organised under rubrics drawn from an imaginary ‘Taskbook for the New Nation’. The ...”

“... the 45th president-elect of the United States arrived at the White House in a cavalcade of black cars, stepped from his armoured limousine, strode up the stairs, and greeted Barack and Michelle Obama with a handshake and air kisses. Melania Trump caught up with her husband moments later, an unwieldy Tiffany-blue gift box in her gloved hands. Like ...”

“... were after all designed to be a home from home), and he travelled between them in Big Bunny, the black DC-9 jumbo jet with the bunny logo on its tail that he bought in 1967 and which set the trend for later playboys, such as Donald Trump. It was a penthouse on wings, furnished in the comforting Playboy-style: it had a dancefloor, screening room, wet ...”