“... Cosmopolitan in 1972, is the tale of Patricia, once ‘bouncy’ and ‘flip’ but now married to Richard, the first in a long line of academic prigs in Colwin’s work. Richard leaves notes to inform his wife that he’ll be late home due to ‘fac. meeting’ – ‘fridge filthy, I might add.’ His idea of a pleasant ...”

“... the time that Erasmus was writing, he had already put into words the Tudor image of a villainous Richard III. Though this was not printed either in English or in Latin until after his death, the work may once have been intended as an aid to the consolidation of the dynasty into whose service he had entered. Here was one ...”

“... resolved themselves into a Scottish Parliament which has struggled to live up to expectations. Richard Leonard, elected as the new leader of Scottish Labour last month, ran on a platform condemning the ‘managerialism’ that has characterised both Labour and the SNP’s approach to devolved government since 1999, pledging to ‘stretch every sinew’ of ...”

“... Westwood – faced criminal charges. The performance was a publicity stunt devised by McLaren and Richard Branson to promote the band’s new single. The Silver Jubilee’s real radical was the Black activist Darcus Howe, born in Trinidad in 1943. As Howe knew, the monarchy wasn’t just a symbol of empire but was actually built on the proceeds of slavery. In ...”

“... no mistakes, just happy accidents’ – are filed here under ‘unintentional’, but while Ross may not have called his style ASMR, he knew what he was doing. The truly unintentional clips are curiosities, but it’s hard to say what exactly connects the rhythmic hum of a sewing machine, the crackle of tinfoil and advertisements for flat-pack furniture ...”

“... Of course, in the 17th and 18th centuries many men expressed disgust at aspects of domestic work. Richard Bentley could think of nothing more disparaging to say about his opponents’ views on Classical literature than that they belonged in the dripping-pan, and Swift’s ‘Directions to Servants’ show a morbid disgust at problems of the disposal of human ...”

“... operated by Cuadrilla. At around 8 a.m. on 25 July 2017, as seven lorries approached the site, Richard Roberts, a piano restorer from London, got through a police cordon and climbed on top of the first lorry, bringing the convoy to a standstill. Rich Loizou, a teacher from Devon, climbed onto the cab of the final lorry. At around 3 p.m. Simon Blevins, a ...”

“... on a highway at night.In 1954, Johns destroyed all his earlier work – an act of erasure that may have been prompted by his meeting and developing a working partnership with Rauschenberg. In 1953, Rauschenberg had approached Willem de Kooning, the most celebrated painter in New York, and asked him for a drawing to erase. De Kooning gave him a piece that ...”

“... contradictory attitudes derive from a common source and are interdependent, whereas mixed feelings may be based on a realistic assessment of the imperfect nature of the object.’ Love and hate – a too simple vocabulary, and so never quite the right names – are the common source, the elemental feelings with which we apprehend the world; they are ...”

“... of the Cold War it is time to start again. None of the old assumptions applies any longer. Russia may be difficult to deal with but it is not an enemy: we have relatively normal relations with it. The US now has strategic nuclear primacy over Russia: its chances of disabling Russian nuclear forces with a first strike are estimated at more than 90 per ...”

“... because you can never tell, and both the Arab unity and the Muslim-Jewish co-operation he sought may always have been chimerical. That said, Anderson concludes, ‘it’s hard to imagine that any of this could possibly have produced a sadder history than what has actually transpired over the past century, a catalogue of war, religious strife and brutal ...”

“... one that month in Bury St Edmunds. He held another on 20 April in Lincoln, and three more in May, in Lichfield, Windsor and Eltham. He liked a tournament. His victory over France at Crécy two years earlier and England’s seizure of Calais were still fresh memories for him and the aristocratic chums who’d fought beside him. Now they replayed their ...”

“... and at the close of the book offers a description of Chateaubriand’s Vie de Rancé that may well be meant as self-referential: ‘It was his final surrender to free – even wild – association, a perverse rummaging in his own memory that stirred up shadows among the ruins of time ... The prose juxtaposes facts, quotations, and recollections like ...”

“... the service from sixth mate, and had been captain of the Abergavenny since 1801. Like his brother Richard, who became a lawyer, and unlike his brother William, who became a poet, John needed to make a living in a gentlemanly job, and began his sea career immediately after leaving Hawkshead Grammar School. It may have been a ...”

“... but able to accommodate Robert (son of Edwin) Lutyens’s stores for Marks and Spencer as well as Richard Neutra’s blonde American beach houses. Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh, Cyril Connolly, Freya Stark, even Penelope Chetwode (Mrs Betjeman) shared the pages with respected authorities on building materials, the English town (‘one must not be too gay or ...”