“... Towards the end of Radclyffe Hall’s The Unlit Lamp (1924), the heroine, Joan Ogden, who has grown miserably old in a small provincial town, overhears two young women discussing her. She recognises them as women of the same ‘type’ as her: unattached, independent, sexually ambiguous. They dress like her, and wear their hair cut in a similar style ...”

“... names starting with the same letter? The question is posed in The Truth (2019), Hirokazu Koreeda’s delightfully low-key film about showbiz rivalries and regrets. It is prompted by a glimpse through a car window of an apartment in central Paris once occupied by Michèle Morgan (born Simone Renée Roussel), star of Marcel Carné’...”

“... animosity of the anti-Obama movement is concentrated now on handing him a defeat in this year’s midterm elections. Don’t do anything rash to jeopardise our victory – that is what the radio hosts say. (The Tea Party crowd with their anti-tax, anti-debt, anti-government views are regarded sympathetically by something between 20 per cent and 30 per cent ...”

“... kind of film. The separation is often painful because the collaboration can be intense, especially so if they had loved each other. In the same way, Freud was always moving on, though the ending could be frayed. When the break-up was especially traumatic, it effected a drastic change in Freud’s painting style, as in the ...”

“... All writers know about lunch. A good lunch with one’s publisher is sometimes the only thing that keeps one going on a project threatening to go stale. The worst thing that usually looms over the soup is a missed deadline. The diaries of Parviz Radji, the Shah’s last ambassador to London, are largely about lunches and dinners, many of them spoiled by subjects weightier than missed deadlines ...”

“... The exhibition of Anselm Kiefer’s new work at White Cube Mason’s Yard (until 17 March) is entitled Aperiatur Terra – ‘let the earth open’ – the reference is to Isaiah 45.8: ‘Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation, and let righteousness spring up together; I the LORD have created it ...”

“... There wasn’t anything inevitable about David Cameron’s rise. If Kenneth Clarke had stirred himself into running something like a campaign when competing for the leadership with Iain Duncan Smith and been ready to appear more tractable on Europe; if David Davis had moved decisively in the immediate aftermath of Michael Howard’s resignation or been a more fluent speaker; if Howard had offered Cameron the shadow chancellorship or George Osborne had not accepted it – if these or any number of other contingencies had been otherwise, Cameron might not have become leader ...”

“... got back. By his account, a ‘huge, apoplectic, stand-up row ensued’, as much about the play’s lack of narrative structure as about its ‘controversial content’, before MacTaggart, who knew original work when he saw it, found a way to back down gracefully. For if sexual intercourse didn’t begin with Up the Junction, then something else did. A ...”

“... It’s time for the criticism to stop. Whatever you think about the changes to higher education that have been made in recent years, in particular the decision in the autumn of 2010 largely to replace public funding of teaching with student fees, this is now the system we’ve got. Carping about the principle or sniping at the process is simply unhelpful: it antagonises ministers and officials, thereby jeopardising future negotiations, and it wins little sympathy from the media and wider public ...”

“... particularly in the 19th century, wrote about ‘parliamentary government’ as the nation’s pride and Britain’s gift to a less fortunate world, but they did not mean that Parliament should actually govern. It would zealously check an overmighty executive, and scrutinise hasty ideas, but was not in itself a ...”

“... Though few anticipated the agreement, it is not difficult to understand why David Cameron and Nick Clegg should have made a bargain to share power. By forming a coalition Cameron secured protection from his mutinous right wing, while Clegg became the pivotal player in British politics. What is more surprising is the degree of unity the government has so far exhibited ...”

“... Insects don’t get a great deal of airtime in Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. The book that exposed the harmful effects of DDT on fish, birds, livestock and people had surprisingly little to say about the creatures the pesticide was intended to harm, except that they were starting to develop resistance – in other words, the case for spraying poison indiscriminately wasn’t compelling even on its own terms ...”

“... Public inquiries​ are an ancient institution. Edward I’s Statute de Officio Coronatoris of 1276, which codified already longstanding law, obliged coroners to ‘go to the place where any be slain or suddenly dead’ to investigate. But coroners’ inquiries rarely deal with matters of general public concern. The idea of holding an inquiry in response to a public scandal is comparatively recent ...”

“... you see one, but definitions come hard. The paintings are likely to be detailed, but Rossetti’s are soft and generalised; they often take subjects from English poetry or the Bible, but can be pure landscapes, or illustrations of Greek myths, or even about modern politics. The Pre-Raphaelite programme – to replace an exhausted tradition, of painterly ...”

“... On 24 July, in a speech to the Rwandan parliament, David Cameron said that the old ideological divisions concerning aid and trade – aid is ‘wasteful’, trade is ‘unfair’ – needed to be abandoned in favour of a commitment to what works. He talked about the importance of transparency and accountability at both governmental and non-governmental levels to ensure that resources were used efficiently and money reached its targets ...”