“... for. But the most dangerous example by far is Pakistan, where the national intelligence service, the ISI, was intimately involved in the financing of the centrifuge programme, and sponsored the Taliban in Afghanistan. Senior personnel in the nuclear programme are sympathetic to al-Qaida: indeed, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who worked at Kahuta for ...”

“... base except the archetypal white male rock critic. In mini hatchet jobs for the Village Voice, Robert Christgau declared war on ‘the enemy’. He situated Abba in the tradition of the advertising jingle and sniped that their ‘disinclination to sing like Negroes reassures the Europopuli’. The Anglo-American pop-rock canon had by then established ...”

“... to Abdulrab Rasul Sayyaf (who had palled around with bin Laden in the past). The UK Special Boat Service embedded with Abdul Rashid Dostum, whose men would soon herd hundreds of Taliban supporters into shipping containers to be suffocated to death, before bulldozing their bodies into holes in the desert. The notion that the CIA teamed up with Dostum, Fahim ...”

“... were the ‘reformadoes’, Parliamentary soldiers previously disbanded and now eager for fresh service. And not least there were the Presbyterian colonels and majors within the New Model itself who, once geographically separated from their colleagues in the high command, could be turned against them. In the spring of 1647 it was Presbyterian ...”

“... for which society cannot find a use. In 1829, an Oxford-trained barrister called Sir William Robert Grove found a new way of making electricity: he trickled oxygen and hydrogen gases over a pair of electrodes and produced three things. One was heat. The second was water. The third was electricity. There were no moving parts to the instrument, and no ...”

“... them there; the families’ ancestors; a barbecue; the holidaymakers’ children; mosquitoes; service-industry employees; the ibis; fruit trees; the daytime sky; night and stars. These are the mosquitoes, humming across four extremely long lines (the extended verse line echoes the oral tradition on which this ‘song cycle’ draws): they find the ...”

“... of a woman who opted for a prophylactic mastectomy after signing up for a genetic sequencing service and being told she carried a BRCA mutation – but she had signed up originally because she thought knowing more about her genetic profile might help her design an effective exercise programme.Last year the government’s ten-year plan for the NHS ...”

“... independence of the Transvaal, and won election to Parliament as a Crofters’ MP for Caithness. Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham was a member of the Scottish aristocracy who became famous in Argentina as ‘Don Roberto’ for his exploits as a cattle rancher, returning home to become the first president of the Scottish Labour Party and, later, the honorary ...”

“... this year’). He got an A in Metalwork, but the teacher couldn’t think of his name and wrote ‘Robert’ while telling him to keep up the good work. His form teacher, Mr Norman, said that ‘Ronnie’s attitude and standard of work is slipping. I hope that he takes note of what has been said to him recently. He is always pleasant and happy.’ Ronnie ...”

“... exclusively for Harvard students in 2004. No human enterprise, no new technology or utility or service, has ever been adopted so widely so quickly. The speed of uptake far exceeds that of the internet itself, let alone ancient technologies such as television or cinema or radio.Also amazing: as Facebook has grown, its users’ reliance on it has also ...”

“... The pages of the Spectator and the Telegraph have been filling up with denunciations of the civil service and Parliament for some time. Tory moderates such as Amber Rudd and Matt Hancock have shown themselves to be willing to say things they don’t believe in exchange for power. This is the energy and propaganda that propelled Johnson to office. It’s not ...”

“... that carries Russian gas across the Black Sea to Turkey. No word yet about plans for the Eni service station on the road into Moscow from Sheremetyevo airport, the first ‘foreign-branded operator’ to open in the Soviet Union, hot on the heels of McDonald’s, in 1991.Draghi, like other Western leaders, has expressed not only revulsion but shock at ...”

“... the domestic intelligence network, with Special Branch frequently acting as the muscle on security service operations, as well as pursuing subversives in its own right. In 1919, under the Bolshevik-hating Sir Basil Thomson, Special Branch adopted the practice of intimidatory attendance at left-wing gatherings. It comes as no surprise to learn that it was ...”

“... with some of the older children. In Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens, Robert Gottlieb quotes the letter in which Dickens explains to his wife what happened: ‘Presently, we heard them come back and say to each other with some alarm: “Why, the gate’s shut, and they are all gone!” Ally began in a dismayed way to cry out, but ...”

“... of utter ruin. Branson’s line on Bower is that he got lucky a while back exposing the monstrous Robert Maxwell and is now trying the same trick on other prominent figures in the hope that lightning will strike twice. But Bower doesn’t portray Branson as another Maxwell. He never suggests he is a crook and he is almost admiring of the skill with which he ...”