“... enthusiasts, unclear. But out of the indiscernible drama, each of the too famous late poems – ‘Lady Lazarus’, ‘Daddy’ – comes through as at all events a craftily composed Racinian tirade. One need only compare Plath’s punctuation with Lenier’s to see the difference – the difference, that is, between a schooled and responsible poet who has ...”

“... there were times when a handbag was just a handbag: ‘the child who opens the handbag of a lady is not necessarily expressing his curiosity whether his mother’s womb conceals another baby.’ True enough, but one still has to have a theory capable of indicating when for a child handbags are handbags and handbags are wombs. In this and other ...”

“... vengeance on me’. Beaverbrook’s vengeance was as likely to have been provoked by thoughts of Lady Beaverbrook – a figure conveniently absent from West’s fictional account – as by any knowledge of how he might be presented in the novel, where an attempt is made to render him humane as well as thrilling. Beaverbrook’s devotion to Bonar Law is ...”

“... or Scots songs for a few pennies, selling wild birds, or merely wandering – like Long Tom and Lady Mackintosh, he with his roll of oilcloth under the arm, she crocheting as she walked. David watched the moment in spring when the cattle are let out of the byre where they have stood all winter and, dazzled by light and unsteady on their feet, move out to ...”

“... again. The group I joined consisted in Easter holidaymakers, workmen in overalls and an elderly lady perched elegantly on a capstan, who perhaps knew this would be her only chance to see a great whale. Or maybe she’d seen hundreds and was coming back for more. They are a bit addictive. Some people preferred to gaze over the water in silence as they ...”

“... February 1981, which also featured a number of more ‘traditional’ graffiti artists, including Lady Pink and Futura. In December 1981, the writer and performer Rene Ricard wrote in Artforum that Haring ‘is so famous now’ that he was ‘mugged by four 13-year-olds for the buttons he was carrying (as well as for his Sony Walkman)’. ‘The Radiant Child ...”

“... No National Service. More women around than men. No secret police. Getting away with books like Lady C. Not bad.’ Barnes’s modest analysis of the not-badness of England is in stark contrast to Marilyn French’s blockbuster, The Bleeding Heart. This is a truly international book: originated transatlantically (where it earned a near-record $1.9 m. in ...”

“... and in their spare time to entertain us with their pretty ways. We are a good deal nearer to Lady Fortescue’s Perfume from Provence than to anything by Wyndham Lewis. Perhaps that is the truth about Mr Grigson. He ought never to have fallen among literary intellectuals. It has all been a mistake. He doesn’t like them, and his liking for literature ...”

“... she does not know. To Kensington came young Emilia Francis Strong, later Mrs Pattison, later Lady Dilke, to draw the nude under Mulready’s instruction. It was good to see, my source relates, ‘the old man’s handsome but satirical face ripple all over with a welcoming smile as he saw the little figure come trotting in with a portfolio of drawings on ...”

“... image involved adding a decade and a half to my age and switching gender, but I was a very old lady in the pool, much like the brave and relentless Barbara Frietchie.Back in the real world, I looked out of the window. There was no one on the street outside. This was not unusual. In the suburbs of LA there is usually no one on the street outside. My ...”

“... films are those no one has heard of.’ I name two for a start: Closely Observed Trains and The Lady with the Little Dog, the latter of which could take the place of Battleship Potemkin, which was always very boring. And here is another poll of more urgent interest. Forty per cent of Church of England clergy support unilateral nuclear disarmament, 49 per ...”

“... escape from captivity in Mexico to seek their homelands, and the story of the death of the old lady in her old Scottish country house in ‘Miss Christian Jean’ are very different in their setting but similar in narrative tone. It is perhaps strange that a writer who could write with such passionate vigour of the abuses that embitter people’s lives ...”

“... an old White Russian relative of mine told me recently. Her indomitable life has included being a lady-in-waiting to a grand duchess, working as a reporter for the BBC and finally running a hostel for former mental patients. ‘I loved my lunatics,’ she said once, and then added: ‘It is love they need.’ She is 86 and she should know. When all the ...”

“... work and uncomfortable dreams. Even when they are fortunate, like Mrs Hanratty in ‘Luck Be a Lady’, who has unprecedented wins at the bingo, they betray themselves. There is only one man on the Bingo Coach, and ‘She wanted him. It was as simple as that. A woman of 55, a woman with 5 children and 1 husband, who had had sexual intercourse 1332 times in ...”

“... the person who almost told the story on TV, believes the mother’s ghost is helping the old lady out. Agustina’s own mother disappeared around the time of the fire. Raimunda and her companions return, in the literal, mundane sense, to Madrid, and the film dives into a brisk mix of old Hollywood melodrama and new Spanish soap, with a glance at Italian ...”