“... about the origin of Vinteuil’s little phrase. It may derive from a rather inferior sonata of Saint-Saëns; or from something by Fauré; or it may be borrowed from the Good Friday music in Parsifal; or the shepherd’s piping at the beginning of the last act of Tristan. Or, to me the happiest, if not the most probable conjecture, from Beethoven’s Opus ...”

“... Richard Hughes, Naomi Mitchison and C.S. Lewis, and Auden was an early fan. (Auden was a patron saint of lost causes. He was also the only major writer to stand up for Laura Riding.) But mostly, the sort of people who get their opinions published have lashed it with contempt. ‘Hypertrophic . . . A children’s book which has somehow got out of hand ...”

“... really up against it. We have to deal with these things.’ Darwin was similarly enlisted in Andrew Marr’s BBC series Darwin’s Dangerous Idea. Marr discovered that ‘Darwin’s ideas are helping us to save ourselves and all life on earth from extinction … Charles Darwin is the father of ecology. The modern environmental movement was built upon his ...”

“... old as the institution of organised policing itself in Britain. Modern political policing began on Saint Patrick’s Day 1883, when four CID men and eight uniformed officers were picked to form the Special Irish Branch, in response to a Fenian bombing campaign on the mainland. In 1888, the word ‘Irish’ was dropped from the title, and the unit widened its ...”