“... visits the Underworld on Circe’s instructions, to consult Tiresias about how best to get home to Ithaca. Among the shades Odysseus encounters is that of Achilles, who says: ‘Don’t you know that it’s sweeter to be alive – in any shape or form – than lord of all these shadows?’ In Homer he’s less ...”

“... The evidence and argument were over by lunchtime and he phoned his wife to say he’d be home for tea. At two o’clock the judge began delivering his extempore judgment. He outlined the issues; he then went through his notes of evidence, indicating what testimony he accepted and what he didn’t; then he turned to the law, citing substantial ...”

“... and South American colonies the Inquisition-based criminal procedures which they operated at home. When during the 19th century the metropolitan systems were reformed, to some extent separating the prosecutor from the court (and Portugal became the first state in Europe to abolish the death penalty), the elites which by then were in charge of independent ...”

“... a moment often treated as homoerotic (Mary Magdalene had been warned not to touch the risen Lord). Monastic frescoes of Thomas lead Betancourt to reflect more broadly on monasticism as a same-sex institution, even a kind of ‘queer utopia’. For instance, could the ritual foot-washing on Maundy Thursday have aroused or satisfied erotic desires? While ...”

“... need to be there. Forty per cent of them are waiting for a care plan – either in their own home or at a residential home – and another 24 per cent intermediary care. Social care budgets, outsourced and administered through local authorities, collapsed during George Osborne’s austerity decade. In October, the ...”

“... Lunch with the Prime Minister. Exotic foods on every side. And then Air India, first class, back home! Maybe my condition was self-inflicted. Or it could have been that conference. Colitis can be set off by an allergy. Just think of all those exotic and not always compatible intellectual spices thrown together: Bella Akhmadulina and Chinua Achebe, Régis ...”

“... and then in schools’ broadcasting for the BBC. The marriage worked – Bowen liked making a home, and entertaining – and lasted as a fond childless companionship (though she had passionate love affairs) until Alan’s death in 1952. They lived in Northampton and Oxford, then eventually in Clarence Terrace near Regent’s Park, spending what time they ...”

“... often. I just don’t care for any of them. 7 March, Yorkshire. To Oxenholme, half an hour from home and on the edge of the Lake District, where we catch a Virgin train to Glasgow. It’s a brisk ride, only two hours and seems less than that because the scenery is so uninterruptedly rural and sometimes spectacular. Virgin trains, though, are designed on the ...”

“... coal mine at Longannet flooded and closed down for ever in March 2002, a man called George came home from the pit to find his telephone ringing. ‘Dinnae worry, big man, we’ll see you’re no stuck for work.’ This is a nation at home in hard, stony times. It will find its own way in the world. This is a cold, hard ...”

“... when he was out composing. Poets must also entrench themselves in sound and syntax, learn to be at home in rhythms, etymological echoes, idioms and vocabulary. This linguistic digging in can be quickened by listening to other tongues, yet it is almost unknown for a poet to settle in a language – as distinct from an accent – learned after childhood. Only a ...”

“... see why the rest should worry you.’ Enter his alibi: Laurel Gray, a neighbour who saw him come home with Atkinson. At the threshold of the captain’s office she raises an eyebrow, just slightly, and over the next few moments it becomes clear that, for the purposes of irascible romance, Dix and she are the same person: unintimidated, less than ...”

“... Kultur here, not mass murder. The self-appointed members of the master race made themselves at home by turning Polish palaces into beer halls – often after stuffing their pockets with treasure. Governor-General Hans Frank toured the ruins of the Royal Palace in Warsaw and casually tore silver eagles off the canopy over a throne. Meanwhile Frau Frank went ...”

“... be missing a lot of jokes. When Gordon speaks of other writers, ‘including he who was to become Lord Archer’, and a little later tells us that he was employed to teach Prince Andrew to write grammatically, I am at a loss. I feel there must be a joke in there somewhere. Of course it is a perfectly acceptable ploy for a writer to be deliberately silly but I ...”

“... came: while Mac Donagh emphasised the sharp contrast between conditions in Kerry and in the Home Counties, he never lost sight of the fact that they were together part of a Hiberno-British world distinguished by its social and physical diversity rather than its homogeneity. Furthermore, throughout the first volume Mac Donagh demonstrated that ...”

“... and paternalism. When Marie-Sophie and her ragged followers tiptoe unannounced into the mayor’s home (Ti-Cirique, carrying copies of Césaire’s books to be signed, loses his nerve at the gate), Césaire’s first reaction is fear. Marie-Sophie has to recite a passage from his early epic Cahier d’un retour au pays natal before he calms down enough to ...”