“... Soames exercised the powers of the Prime Minister with the aid of the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Norman Brook. But the diaries are silent on the crucial weeks, and one wonders whether there is still more to learn about this risky constitutional experiment. What the diaries do show is that Churchill never recovered sufficiently to do his job properly. The ...”

“... words, citing a characteristic declaration that ‘a bill becomes a law because certain words of Norman French are pronounced in specific circumstances: the same words in other circumstances and synonymous words in the same circumstances would not make law.’ What is being invoked – celebrated – here is a view of allegiance and identity and governance ...”

“... If this goes on, Conservatives will soon have to choose their heroes from a short list of Montague Norman, Lord Eldon, Judge Jeffreys and (possibly) Bonar Law. We are now enjoying the fruits of the monetarist revolution, and the sans-culottes of monetarism seek to deflect criticism by denouncing the alleged follies of the Ancien Régime. So what took place ...”

“... the repertoire of names in regular use began to increase rapidly. As Gothic-looking steeples rose around the country, so medieval-sounding names crowded around the font: Arthur, Walter, Harold and Neville, Ethel, Edith and Dorothy, soon to be supplemented by endless Geoffreys. This remarkable efflorescence has been described as a ‘personalisation’ of ...”

“... Broadway theatre, not to see a play but to enjoy what was meant to be a thrilling contest between Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal. The place was packed; except for those sponsored by some publisher, the audience had bought very expensive tickets, and they displayed a keenness more appropriate to a prizefight. Indeed a prizefight was what they expected, Mailer ...”

“... There were also early biographies by Marilyn’s friends (the columnist Sidney Skolsky, the poet Norman Rosten) and her enemies – Marilyn, the Tragic Venus, based on the incriminating fibs of Hollywood scribe Nunnally Johnson. There have been plenty of biographies by people who worked for Marilyn, by her housekeeper Eunice Murray, her cleaner Lena ...”

“... He knew not what to do – something, he felt, must be done – he rose, drew his writing-desk before him – sate down, took the pen – – found that he knew not what to do. Fond readers who dream of the poems Keats might have written had he lived past 25 and speculate about what works died with Shelley at 29, humane readers who deplore tuberculosis and drowning (together with rheumatic fever, arsenic and other wasters of Romantic genius), entertain a different and darker regret when they turn their attention to Coleridge, wishing, not that he had lived longer, but that he had died sooner ...”

“... beautiful with honeysuckle, clematis and lupins. The church is particularly interesting. A Saxon-Norman central tower has become a west tower with the disappearance of the original nave. Now a small Norman nave runs east of the tower on the site of the first chancel. There is a fine fresco above the chancel arch – a ...”

“... which Pound, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore (and, slightly earlier, Gertrude Stein) rose up, angry and ready to do battle with mediocrity. Carr describes a pretty mediocre Philadelphia a hundred years ago, ‘pink and drab’ and hidebound. H.D. found it disconcerting after a bucolic childhood in the Moravian town of Bethlehem, further north ...”

“... point holds good. I am reminded of a radio interview in which the ultra-conservative cleric Edward Norman, then dean of Peterhouse, tried unsuccessfully to cajole the Reverend Ian Paisley into a declaration that liberalism was the root of all evil. Paisley was not to be budged from his own hobbyhorse; of course liberalism was an abomination, but popery, he ...”

“... war he kept getting sick or wounded on the eve of great battles that decimated his regiment, and rose to the Labour leadership because most of the obvious contenders had lost their seats in the National Government landslide of 1931. Apart from sheer luck, what changed matters was his ascension to the rank of major in the war and the postwar Labour tide that ...”

“... came on the scene in 1864-65.) Trollope himself collided with the prevailing prudery when the Rev. Norman Macleod, having commissioned him to write Rachel Ray for serialisation in a religious paper, was obliged to return it unpublished, on the ground that readers would not tolerate the approving mention of dancing in an early chapter. The incident was without ...”

“... state in Polish history.’ He rightly draws attention to the high birth-rate – the population rose from 23.9 million in 1946 to 35.1 million in 1979 – which has constituted a difficult problem. The large number of school-leavers forced the Government to commit itself to a policy of capital investment in industry to provide jobs for them. Dr Davies ...”

“... and made a stab at dragging its image into the second half of the 20th century (hence the red rose in place of the red flag). He worked behind the scenes to deliver a stunning rebuff to that section of Norman Tebbit’s 1984 Trade Union Act which required unions to hold a secret ballot of their members on whether they ...”

“... a cold rage which frightens even myself.’ Croucher decides to investigate Tony and his English rose. When he finds that Tony is in the business of video-monitoring and security-surveillance, Croucher surveys and monitors him almost to death, with good old British bushcraft. This leads Croucher into some pretty tight corners, with Irish commercial ...”