“... bullshit, his own as well as others’. In the 16th century most of these men were Spanish. Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón was fifty when the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V mandated his expedition to Chicora, in present-day South Carolina, which slave raiders claimed was a ‘New Andalusia’. Ayllón funded the voyage himself, banking on future ...”

“... as a way of allowing honourable men to stay in office without appearing to want to do so. John Nott offered his resignation after the Falklands invasion but he allowed himself to be persuaded by Mrs Thatcher to stay in office. William Whitelaw has written that he wanted to resign as Home Secretary after an intruder had entered the Queen’s bedroom in ...”

“... profession and the other asylums of London (especially Hoxton) when necessary. Lamb’s brother John had urged him not to take on this task: it was typical of Lamb to say that he understood John’s reasons for saying this, and thought no less of him for it, while disregarding his advice. The history of the fate of insane ...”

“... Reformed Protestantism is often called Calvinism, after the French Reformer John Calvin, but that is a mistake; the Reformed had many and varied leaders and thinkers of significance, and one of the things that annoyed the Reformed about Lutheranism was its idolisation of the single figure of Martin Luther. There was good reason for ...”

“... in debt, had a near-death experience. In 2005, Alain Senderens, of the three-star Paris restaurant Lucas Carton, handed back his Michelin stars, following the example set in London by Nico Ladenis and bad-boy star-chef Marco Pierre White. The burden was too much, and the economics didn’t compute. Convinced that Michelin requires a soigné ambience, Senderens ...”

“... Alvarez, he addresses the cult of Sylvia Plath, and his sense of having colluded in it. Writing to Lucas Myers (14 February 1987), he says that Plath managed to present her ‘diabolical streak’ as the voice of her suffering and martyrdom:And protecting Aurelia, I colluded – and promoted the cult which interpreted my continued silence in the blazing ...”

“... rather Buñuelesque) by Duff C. and Lady W. being so middle-aged and ultra respectable. John Julius Norwich puts his father’s sexual success down to his ability to write bad sonnets to his lady-friends but one wonders if it was a more basic attraction. The moustache is hardly a plus, the photograph on the book jacket making him look like a 1940s ...”

“... laying waste to peasants’ homes or to whole villages in Flemish works by Gillis Mostaert, Lucas van Valckenborch and others before 1600, or by Sebastiaen Vrancx and Roelandt Savery after that, all of whom made a speciality of the theme. Later Dutch painters created more realistic landscapes for it, with fewer figures used for a more focused drama in ...”

“... the communal kitchen is ill-fated Ruth, with her plait down her back. In the car the mystic madman Lucas Simmonds is eternally interfering with Marcus. And Stephanie, suffering from ‘an excess of exact imagination’, exerting her whole will to bring her family together, is wrestling with the slithering Christmas turkey in its dish.It is in part a response ...”

“... were awaited with interest. Since it opened to the public in 1985, the Saatchi collection in St John’s Wood has become a focus of what’s called the contemporary art debate. With every purchase, names are made and names are called. But Saatchi’s taste, his collecting policy, is eclectic and elusive. So much art, of so many kinds, has passed into and ...”