“... a chair, men’s razors, women’s razors, children’s toys, all held together with a nameless brown grime, like one great capitalism sundae.’ Geologists increasingly see waste as the salient marker of humanity’s presence in the stratigraphic record, the signature of the Anthropocene. ‘There are few places in the world,’ Franklin-Wallis ...”

“... harder edges of Thatchersim have been rubbed into a certain fubsiness by a ‘kinder, gentler’ John Major. What seems to be gathering power among the middle and professional classes is a new republicanism, a desire for a complete political representation of the Whig dream. This was Margaret Thatcher’s dream also, and why she cried (when given the ...”

“... Labour’s levels of borrowing on the eve of the crash compared favourably with those of John Major’s Conservative government in the early 1990s; and – even if Labour’s petting of the financial sector had left Britain overexposed – in his Keynesian response to the crisis, Gordon Brown had pulled the economy ...”

“... lore had Warhol moving into bed with his mother while his father slept upstairs with Paul and John [Warhol’s siblings],’ Gopnik writes. When Julia moved to New York to live with her son, people ‘thought she was stupid’, a friend said, ‘but she was brilliant beyond belief … and much smarter than Andy.’In high school, Warhol was not known for ...”

“... and the rest – and he had a good-looking mug: good bones, a nicely shaped head, straight nose, brown eyes, full mouth. A bit like the young Marlon Brando, in fact, especially around the eyes. In this good fortune, he took after the men on my mother’s side of the family. Me, I got stuck with the other. In retrospect, for someone that good-looking and ...”

“... named Tariq say: ‘I see no difference between us and the Palestinians.’ I heard Captain Todd Brown say: ‘You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand is force – force, pride and saving face.’ I heard that the US, as a gift from the American people to the Iraqi people, had committed $18.4 billion to the reconstruction of ...”

“... home, I thought. ‘Estimate: $4000-6000.’ And further along a hand-knitted cardigan, ‘with a brown geometric pattern and matching knitted belt. Worn by Marilyn Monroe in 1962 and featured in a series of photographs by George Barris taken on the beach in Santa Monica, California. Estimate: $30,000-50,000.’ In the corner of the window there stood a ...”

“... him with Basil Fawlty. Except that the dying Dennis Potter went further, maybe, when he called John Birt, the BBC’s then director-general, ‘a croak-voiced Dalek’ in 1993. Much expectation surrounded Doctor Who’s return last year, into an industry that has changed vastly since he went away. Mark Thompson, the BBC’s current director-general, sees ...”

“... on her work as worthy of parody – not just recognisable, but recognised. When Thomas Hardy, John Masefield and Walter de la Mare secured her a civil list pension in 1923, Mew couldn’t decide whether it was more ‘like a dream or a nightmare’. Such diffidence also contained defiance. Her public readings were bracing affairs – ‘like having ...”

“... of the Late Victorian literary and artistic worlds: his maternal grandfather was Ford Madox Brown, his uncle William Michael Rossetti. The only possible career for the children of these classes was that of a genius. Ford’s Rossetti cousins had written Greek dramas at the ages of five, nine and fourteen respectively. It became his duty always to aspire ...”

“... side by side, high officials of MI5 and MI6, sea lords, permanent under-secretaries, Lord George-Brown, chiefs of the air staff, nuclear scientists, Lord Wigg and others, stand patiently leaking in the public interest. One can only admire their resolute attention to these distasteful duties.’ Pincher describes the comparison as ‘my most cherished ...”

“... to think when they placed those two statements side by side? I recently listened to some of John Kennedy’s press conferences, and was struck, not by his charm and easy control of the press, the usual traits that people bring up, but rather by his quickness and conversational rhythm. Kennedy’s answers are detailed and matter of fact, and though he ...”

“... how can repeal make any difference to that right’s continued application within Britain? The John Terry case notwithstanding, the right to privacy, for example, is now pretty well established in the British courts, as are the changes to the restrictions on the powers of the police, which may originally have been inspired by the convention but which take ...”

“... furniture; a deep window ledge held a small number of books: The Highland Clearances by John Prebble, pamphlets on local flora, a field guide to birds, Gavin Maxwell’s Ring of Bright Water. After we’d unpacked, we went for a stroll over the salt marsh. The tide was out, leaving creeks and channels. A bridge spanned the river that ran, swollen ...”

“... from a one-page story from 1925 called ‘Je t’adore’: Chocolata sat, swathed in the smartest brown, which itself spoke the most distinguished of tongues, in the automobile; Fragmentino, a gallant just like in books but otherwise imbued with quite practical views on life, stood, with his hat respectfully removed, beside the vehicle which was all set to ...”