“... enthusiasm, ending in a wild ovation – for whom? For Grenfell or for Lipman? Some of them may not have been quite sure. This element of doubt in their delight is typical of that teasing ambiguity which has always been inherent in the act of theatre-going – an ambiguity exploited to fullest effect by the art of Barry Humphries. Perhaps because I have ...”

“... Gormenghast than anything evoking perfect symmetry. Is there something wrong with our narrator? It may be only that there was something wrong with the set designer, but the effect is wonderful, and it goes with the tone of the voice, if not with what the voice is saying. Lateish in the film Laurence Olivier, as Maxim de Winter, who has married the ...”

“... inviting worlds populated by exuberant eccentrics. A yawn, a laugh, an eye opening in the morning may provide enough of a glitch to set her stories in motion. Like poems, they start with irresistible first lines: ‘Not knowing what else to do, I send you walruses’; ‘This week, I am an editor of laughs’; ‘This had long been the dynamic between the two ...”

“... made to kneel publicly.’ His offence? ‘I went to London and in a public statement I said: “May Edo people live long and prosper.” I should have said: “May the oba live long and prosper.”’ Neither the palace nor the police has commented on the assault.The day after the protest at MOWAA, Monday Okpebholo, the ...”

“... leadership, just drawing to a close as I write, has been a glaring signal that quitting the EU may not be the referendum’s gravest outcome. In the past three years the meaning of Brexit has shifted. First, what was supposed to be a future event with bureaucratically limited parameters became a rallying cry for a diffuse set of resentments. Now, the ...”

“... then shadow chancellor, and he wanted to be Britain’s first Asian prime minister. Amin, who may not have been so high up the kill list, was interviewed by Good Morning Britain shortly after going to Syria, and told the interviewer that leaving Gatwick had been ‘one of the happiest moments in my life’. Both young men had appeared from Syria in an ...”

“... decapitate her; for others, the amputation of fingers or toes would do. Premature Burial: How It May Be Prevented, first published in 1896 and now reissued by Hesperus Press (£9.99), is a catalogue of those unfortunates who didn’t plan so well ahead. ‘The thought of suffocation in a coffin is more terrible than that of torture on the rack, or burning at ...”

“... letter to Alice Godley explaining why he had to jilt her on the occasion of his escape, may be seen, as she says, in the National Library of Tasmania at Hobart. Another story, called ‘The Red-Haired Girl’, is about a group of poor and talentless young English painters on an expedition to Brittany in 1882, the girl in question being used as a ...”

“... by Hollywood (Joanne Harris’s backlist, incidentally, is selling like hot chocolate), help may still be at hand in the form of literary prizes. The Booker, which despite Martin Amis’s best protests still considers itself ‘Britain’s most prestigious literary accolade’ (whatever that means), won’t be bestowed until 17 October, and the shortlist ...”

“... and their ‘barbarism’, he spoke specifically and concretely of London. He may also have been making a veiled appeal to the government not to use the attacks as an excuse to tighten even further its rules on immigration and asylum. Some hope is all I can say. Given how hard people have had to work to stop Charles Clarke’s Home Office ...”

“... are draped with flashing bulbs like the girls you see leaving office parties draped in tinsel. It may be that CCTV cameras need every alley to be well-lit if they are to provide the blurred images that have replaced film noir stereotypes in the iconography of villainy, but it means that one can now only imagine the wonders of the dangerous world that ...”

“... on a single cliff. Its future will be determined, as the Merlin engine’s was, in battle. It may win the commercial war with Boeing – it doesn’t combine technological overreach with commercial finger-crossing as Concorde did. On the other hand, it just may, like Brunel’s Great Eastern, be too far ahead of the ...”

“... to her tomorrows,’ said Marilyn’s housekeeper, the last person to see her alive. But now we may be in a position to say that Marilyn Monroe’s tomorrows have stretched beyond any known horizon, becoming one of the publishing world’s core subjects. More than six hundred books have been produced about the late movie star; that’s more books than ...”

“... to be put to the question. Music to John Reid’s ears that would have been. Reid’s ambition may well be to establish himself as New Labour’s most illiberal home secretary yet. Such an aspiration means of course having to out-Blunkett Blunkett, and that is a stiff call. Reid no doubt knew when he spoke in Manchester that his predecessor was on the ...”

“... and usually unsatisfactory – ways out of the quandary are silence or cliché. A third way may be available, however: play a game of Scrabble, and what it means to be failed by words acquires a new complexion. Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble by Stefan Fatsis (Yellow Jersey, £15) announces ...”