“... racism’, the male prison population rose by 14 per cent: but the increase for white males was only 8 per cent compared to 17 per cent for Asians and 41 per cent in the case of black men. Meanwhile – from a very much lower base – the total increase for women was a staggering 61 per cent; the number of black women in prison doubled. Even ...”

“... of early 1960s London. Maverick, ambitious and something of a fantasist, he was a co-owner with Peter Cook of Private Eye and the Establishment Club in Soho. He was also a habitué of John Aspinall’s gambling club, the Clermont, which became the fulcrum of Lucan’s life after he left the bank. When Lucan disappeared the ‘Clermont set’ loomed large in ...”

“... young pheasant skitters across the road. Nothing unusual in that except that this pheasant is pure white. I’m not given to a belief in signs or portents but it’s nevertheless quite cheering to feel that she’s still around. The service in the village church in the afternoon is packed. I give an address but the whole occasion is wonderfully and ...”

“... in Venice in 1546 contained autobiographical material. These documents suggest a personality which Peter Humfrey in his 1997 study of Lotto described as ‘introspective, hypersensitive, often prickly and quick to take offence; but also generous in his affections, tender in his humanity and possessing a quirky sense of humour’. They also make it clear that ...”

“... is a familiar subject. It is ten years since ‘Diana Week’ in London – a sea of red and white English flags, with hardly a Union Jack to be seen – confirmed that the St George’s Cross had become the flag of the heart for millions of English families, a symbol of allegiance which had spread far beyond the football stadiums. The future of this ...”

“... I hated it! Or . . . Delicatessen. I couldn’t stand it . . . And I feel the same way about Peter Greenaway’s films . . . Yet I still get compared to these directors now and then.’ In the introduction to Trier on von Trier, Stig Björkman makes it clear where he places von Trier: ‘His development . . . is as daring as it is astonishing,’ he ...”

“... that no one would suspect that the pope had left the building. At the church of SS Marcellin and Peter, the pope’s coach was met by the Bavarian ambassador, Count Karl von Spaur, who was clutching a pistol in his right hand, in case they were challenged. The fugitive was bustled into a small open carriage and driven out of the city, his face obscured by ...”

“... as an agent in the mid-1950s, representing the interests of Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Peter Lorre, Mary Astor, Joseph Cotten and many lesser lights in the studio firmament. Those of us who knew Clancy – he died in July 2017 in Los Angeles at the age of ninety – can attest that he was a tummler of note, a real-life Zelig who found himself with ...”

“... hygiene was so extreme that some of the women believed it must be a power thing. A few knew him as Peter, others as Craig or John. One woman had him in her phone as Blue Van Man. Shown ranks of photographs by detectives, however, the women all pointed to the same man. His name was Iain Packer. He knew Emma, they told the police. He’d had sex with her ...”

“... Eye, as satire and exultant disrespect returned to Britain in the 1960s. Richard Ingrams and Peter Cook – three decades younger – let him guest-edit a gorgeous special number on the Profumo scandal in 1963, in which, among other scoops, he drove Whitehall to apoplectic fury by printing the name of Sir Dick ...”

“... astronomical bodies. This involved elaborate apparel (helmets and swords) and animal sacrifices: a white dove for Venus, a black goat for Saturn. The influence of texts such as the Picatrix can be seen in the Key of Solomon’s insistence not only on similar apparel but on the importance of precise timing of magical operations, which must be performed on the ...”

“... Operation Branchform, the fraud investigation that led to a raid on her house and her husband – Peter Murrell, then the SNP chief executive – being charged with embezzlement of more than £660,000 donated to the party.Sturgeon believes that the rights of transgender people are not (and can never be) in conflict with the rights of women. When Isla Bryson ...”

“... to restore the rule of fathers everywhere; to undo the psychic castration suffered by straight white men at the hands of invading immigrants, feminist women, ‘woke’ mobs, DEI initiatives and the democratic presumption of equality.In fact, the unconscious never left the scene. Psychoanalysis tells us that it is the unconscious that sets the scene. What ...”

“... do what they do precisely because they are anything but cock-sure. ‘Combine male fragility with white fragility,’ Dayna Tortorici writes, ‘and you end up with something lethal, potentially.’ The idea of the phallus is a delusion, psychoanalysts tell us, sustained not least by any man who claims to own or embody it. There is after all no such thing as ...”