“... liked to hear what it was like to carry a standard in battle, or to know more about the Spanish lady to whom he gave a lift under fire, or about the wounded soldier he decided to carry on his ‘private mules’ rather than leave him dying at the roadside with the others: but on these matters Aitchison keeps a tight lip, just as he does on the daily details ...”

“... sleep in a cat’s basket. Even at the age of 20 – the year of her personal crisis as a young lady – she could hardly manage stairs. She may have reached a height of two feet. She has a tiny safe income, until the crash comes. She might be a toy, an object, a mere collector’s oddity but for the fact that she is aggressive, rash, sharp-tongued and ...”

“... a party here says she’s for Hungerford.’ In this context, ‘party’ meant a funny old lady, but it was a suitable term for my grandmother, who carried an atmosphere of festivity around with her. She loved popular tunes and at any period of her life would be ‘mad about’ some contemporary hit – from The Belle of New York, The Merry ...”

“... were being made to drip-feed £990 million into BL. There is a nice picture of the Iron Lady attending a Leyland lunch in 1979. ‘Well, Michael Edwardes, why should we pour further funds into British Leyland?’ she asked, and then ‘glared stonily around the table at each of us in turn’. It was, apparently, a disastrous occasion – until a ...”

“... the fastest-growing job category, it is also fashionable, with Kanye West signed on at the Gap and Lady Gaga in line to be taught about millinery by Philip Treacy. In Intern Nation, Ross Perlin, a survivor of serial internships on three continents, describes the lengths to which graduates must go to secure an unpaid intern position (often the first of ...”

“... pathetic triviality’, though he later fell foul of the regulations himself. So did Lady Astor, Lord Donegall and the army’s provost marshal, no less. It was a smart move by the authorities to target these figures. It was smart, too (though not mentioned here), to make such a play of the king’s and Churchill’s strict adherence to food ...”

“... Blues’, W.H. Auden Marseille is an old-fashioned town. ‘You still have a queen,’ the lady checking museum tickets remarked. ‘So why don’t you cut her throat? Kings and queens are pointless, cost a fortune.’ Red Republicanism, 1793 brand, is not extinct here. This year, Marseille is a European Capital of Culture, which means it must make a ...”

“... dish and its contents were an invocation to Yemaja, the sea goddess, to invoke her help with the lady in the photo’s health problems. I agreed to replace the casserole and photo in the sea. I didn’t mention the fruit floating in the water but many pages I Googled cite this as a possible sacrifice to the goddess and it is perfectly OK for passers-by to ...”

“... the tiger esteemed one of the most beautiful as well as the most ferocious of animals?’ to which Lady Collins replies with a verbatim recital of Conran’s letter. The story was also related in The Third Chapter of Accidents and Remarkable Events Containing Caution and Instruction for Children (1801); Scenes in Asia for the Amusement and Instruction of ...”

“... scalp. Then Mrs Baker, who had looked to Mary like any other powdered, wrinkled, grey little old lady when she came in, began to look monstrous. Her opened out, upside-down face came alive. Her pulled-back hair revealed a line where her foundation ended in a tidemark. Mary imagined peeling it off like a mask. Her face powder caught in the down on her cheeks ...”

“... Dick sat next to Eliza, or that on Sunday 2 May 1802 J.F. (himself) was seated between Lord and Lady Thomond. For us, too, it can be a delight to savour such diagrams – especially when they include names like Fuseli, Flaxman and Turner. (On one occasion the company appears to have been particularly grand: Titian, Rubens, Van Dyck – until one looks again ...”

“... a slide-lecture in an apartment building about ways of avoiding being raped – it was called ‘Lady Beware’ – the rapt audience was entirely male. At the Academy, a gay LA eaterie, all waiters are dressed as cops and the maitre d’ as a police lieutenant. One young gay took the law enforcement fantasy to its natural conclusion and seduced a speed-cop ...”

“... about the inhabitants of Mr Polly’s world: the dyspeptic grocers’ sons and their flat-footed lady friends who work in drapery establishments. But that was not low enough. For Reynolds was no leveller. Low is how he really thought of it; at one point he uses the expression ‘pigging it’ of his life chez Woolley. In his books it is de haut en bas from ...”

“... Samuel Palmer, Goya, a miniature of the bewitching Cornelia Boinville (disturbingly like Lady Caroline Lamb), a sketch-plan by Edward Williams of the interior of the Don Juan boat, showing folding tables, lockers, and ‘Shilo’s library’ skilfully fitted round the bulkhead. Ah, dreams of ...”

“... constantly cross-fertilised with his bibliographical and archaeological studies: the mutilated Lady Chapel sculptures at Ely, for example, could at last be recognised as illustrating not canonical but Apocryphal scenes, and his immersion in these byways of legend gave him a special perspective when dealing with medieval manuscripts, wall-paintings or ...”