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“... There are at least two problems with this somewhat Panglossian reading of the election result. As Peter Mair pointed out, European voters tend to register their opposition to the EU in the wrong forum. The European Parliament doesn’t decide the shape of the Union as a whole; that is determined by the treaties negotiated by member states. To be sure, a vote ...”

“... proudly displayed (as are the many builders’ cracks in the drawing), Barry Fantoni, Nick Newman, Martin Honeysett, Willie Rushton … the list is long. Most of this, including the strips, is topical, socio-comic work, or lunatic observational – the country seen from another planet – or simply anarchic. Scarfe and Steadman, the two high executioners, were ...”

“... you got a tourniquet, Robin?’ and he answered apologetically, ‘I’m afraid I haven’t, Peter,’ I looked at the second man. Only his clothes distinguished him as a human being, and they were badly charred. His face was gone: in place of it was a huge yellow vegetable. The eyes blinked in it, eyes without lashes, and a grotesque huge mouth dribbled ...”

“... of every sketch was people dying.’ Nonetheless, it was undoubtedly a strong influence on Peter Cook (one of the original cast members) and the other three-quarters of the Beyond the Fringe team (Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore), who would go on to present their own take on the nuclear threat, in a sketch called ‘Civil War’.In that ...”

“... and client are described by an impartial referee. In this account both parties gain. Darwin D. Martin, a self-made businessman who was responsible for Wright’s getting the Larkin commission, managed him better than any other client: rebutting his nonsense, bearing with fortitude the usual rising costs and missed completion dates, neither bullying nor ...”

“... interesting experiments in historical writing – by Natalie Davis, for example, in The Return of Martin Guerre, by Norman Davies in his Heart of Europe, and by Jonathan Spence in a number of studies of China. Their innovations in narrative form – making ordinary people protagonists, telling a story backwards, and so on – owe a good deal to the example of ...”

“... It was wet on the night of the opening of the new Turner galleries. The fireworks celebrating the occasion made the clouds of misty rain substantial. Reflections in the windows of the dismal wall of offices which faces the Tate across the Thames mixed with car lights and street lamps. A crowd from the party inside gathered on the steps under umbrellas ...”

“... tell their own story. This phenomenon, in the work of such scholars as Dirk Obbink and the late Martin West, is both positive and creditable. But explanations of what led to oblivion in the first place, for a poet rated as highly as Homer, have not always been so objective. The temptation to blame moral disapproval has been irresistible. But such evidence ...”

“... possible. Circle, an ‘international survey of Constructive art’ edited by the architect Leslie Martin, the Constructivist sculptor Naum Gabo and the abstractionist Ben Nicholson, was published in 1937. Although they roped in a few contributors, such as Herbert Read, who were willing to give the Surrealists (for example) the time of day, only ...”

“... secularisation of politics. Commenting on the growth of evangelical and fundamentalist churches, Peter Berger, doyen of Weberian theorists, was forced to admit that ‘serious intellectual difficulties’ had been created ‘for those (like myself) who thought that modernisation and secularisation were inexorably linked phenomena.’ Brushing aside the ...”

“... a city: visitors found what they were looking for. True believers like the English priest Gregory Martin, who arrived in 1576, came in search of Christian piety. When the Veil of Veronica and other relics were displayed, ordinary Romans were ‘so ravished with devotion’, he wrote, ‘and sodenly touched with sweete compunction, that I was ashamed of mine ...”

“... of a major new artist’, but the Observer sees nothing but ‘duff bravura and blank poise’. Peter Fuller, editor of Modern Painters, fears for the hyped Conroy. The Times Literary Supplement: a ‘sinister portent’. The Financial Times critic describes the paintings with care, but fetches up with ‘a scumbled emptiness’. The Tablet concedes ‘a ...”

“... ironically, starting with the jackalopes and the women who love them.And who, precisely, is Agnes Martin? Her semi-obscurity is exactly the point. True, her paintings now reside in all the fabled modern collections and sell for millions of dollars. True, like O’Keeffe she lived near Taos and Santa Fe for much of her life. But she remains a cult figure ...”

“... the fridge. A strong reminder that where a writer lives can be powerfully significant is given by Martin Bell (1918-1978): ‘Why, Leeds is Hell, nor am I out of it.’ Unfortunately, this sort of browned-off tone does for a good deal of the verse in Bell’s Complete Poems. Peter Porter writes that Bell ‘knew more about ...”

“... stick out at right angles to her head, as do all her children’s. On the other side of Gustav are Martin and Bernhard. I know nothing about Martin; maybe he died in the First World War like my grandmother’s brother Leo Kolodziej, whose head was blown off at Verdun. Bernhard, too, fought in the war: he put on his first ...”