“... flowers” and went to bed, as he himself declared, “dreaming of Nijinsky”.’ On 29 May 1913 Nijinsky’s ballet Le Sacre du printemps opened at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Several bars into the opening movement, people in the audience, who had paid double-price to get in, began to jeer and scream at the tops of their voices. The ...”

“... with irony and sophistication. But Mahler would never admit that he was an entertainer. It may seem inappropriate to characterise the high priests of Modernism in terms usually reserved for the producers of Hollywood blockbusters, but it is worth bearing in mind that just before Schoenberg discovered atonality he wrote Gurrelieder, the splashiest ...”

“... it’s clever, because it would be a shame if opportunities such as these were missed. One thing may affect the way another thing feels – skimming stones takes on a certain quality for Catrine because the way she’s taught to hold them, like clasping a waist between thumb and forefinger, is a reminder of Gilbert’s characteristic gesture – but this ...”

“... It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese ...”

“... amusing prose poem of metropolitan servant life, without speculating on how much the young Dickens may have owed to Hunt. In relation to such ‘Cockney’ subjects, both writers displayed a delicate play of the sympathetic and the facetious, and an imagination that was, to a startling degree, urban (i.e. fanciful, artificial, deliciously contrived). And one ...”

“... has a big price tag: once only high-energy physics and astronomy were hugely expensive; now you may need many millions to be a serious player in genomics and other areas of molecular biology. More generally, science, like all kinds of other claimants to public funding, functions in a scarcity economy, the legacy of the ‘anti-government, anti-tax politics ...”

“... the upheavals of recent US history, which he saw through the lenses of decline and nostalgia. He may have been a Democrat, but he had a conservative temperament and reactionary impulses; he supported the Vietnam War and would (like Richard Maple) mock civil rights leaders’ oratory. In the company of liberals like Mary, he considered this part of his ...”

“... pilot. Westwood was handsome: ‘You have to be interesting-looking to capture my attention!’ He may have captured it, but he didn’t hold it. She left him months after Ben was born and was now back with her mum and dad, living in the flat above the post office, making jewellery that she sold on the Portobello Road. Her brother, Gordon, started bringing one ...”

“... The significance of this idea can perhaps best be expressed by a short sequence from what may be the most overlooked great British novel of the 20th century. Early on in Alexander Trocchi’s Cain’s Book, the junky narrator embarks on a strangely Proustian sequence of perception and recall in which, watching a man urinating in a New York alley, he ...”

“... saying: ‘How the mighty have fallen! Where’s your greatness now little man!’ The quotes may differ but the scene and the outcome were the same. O’Neill was taken to hospital and signed a petition – later withdrawn – to have Monterey committed. In order to win her back in the last days of his life, O’Neill had to amend his often changed will ...”

“... pointed remarks about ‘seclusion’ being ‘one of the few luxuries which Royal personages may not indulge’ coincided with a new boom in republican clubs, which sprang up from Plymouth to Aberdeen. For the rest of the decade most of Albert’s work in shoring up the monarchy was undone by the woman who claimed to have appreciated it most. As ...”

“... Field of Cloth of Gold – on Henry’s arrival at Dover Castle in the small hours of Saturday, 26 May, the pair met and hugged ‘right lovingly’ on the stairs outside Charles’s apartments – but arranged to meet again immediately after it. Such amity was, of course, essential to any pan-European peace: as Wolsey stressed, peace in Christendom depended ...”

“... Idaho, told the radio programme This American Life how easy it was to be swayed by donors: ‘You may end up voting the wrong way because you haven’t fully understood both sides of the story, even if you do have integrity.’ One issue he faced was how to regulate payday lenders: ‘They’re a big political contributor in Washington. And so that’s an ...”

“... education of anyone who spoke English. Consequently it still exerts a literary influence which may reflect hostility to the religious and political tenets that inspired it as much as reverence for the biblical message. In a variety of guises and moods, one can hear the KJB resonating in the work of Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison. One of ...”

“... try to get out of the water at this time. If this is not possible, repeat bangs to the snout may offer temporary restraint, but the result will likely become increasingly less effective. If a shark actually bites, we suggest clawing at its eyes and gills, two sensitive areas. One should not act passively if under attack – sharks respect size and ...”