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“... When Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth was published in 1933 it struck a deep chord among those in England who felt, as she did, that their youth had been ‘smashed up’ by the Great War. Nearly a million men of their generation lay buried in Flanders and Gallipoli; many of those who remained felt condemned to hollow lives, haunted by loss and grief ...”

“... and no longer retainers; sometimes the retainers of someone else and one indeed of Gaunt’s enemy Bishop Henry De-spenser whose ‘crusade’ of 1383 caused such a row. So I left the library on Wednesday evening with a mind wholly at peace. Then a quick change into a dinner jacket and a gin-and-lime before going to the victory feast in Hall. Put on at the ...”

“... put up his candidate before the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, where, you will recall, the bishop advances his case based upon the life and the writings; a Promotor Fidei is then required to step forward and suggest why these might be a barrel of (expletive deleted). It is not a role to which I warm. Since the ...”

“... even if she does call him ‘that nasty misogynist’. Helena has three sons: Oscar (played by Alan Edwall), the actor who loved his little world and father to the preteens Fanny and Alexander; Gustav Adolf (Jarl Kulle), the noisy restaurant owner; and Carl (Börje Ahlstedt), who constantly has money troubles, and at one memorable moment wonders: ‘How is ...”

“... Lynch rather regretfully admit, has not yet been superseded, despite numerous subsequent studies. Alan Stewart is a lively writer, but heavily (and uncritically) reliant on the established published sources and liable to turn reported into direct speech to keep the narrative flowing. His bibliography is impressive, but appears to have been only partially ...”

“... accounts, the ancient record is thin. Historians rely on five sources: the letters of Synesius, a bishop who studied under Hypatia in his youth and remained in contact with her throughout his life; the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus; another church history by Philostorgius, also written shortly after her death; the Life of Isidore by the ...”

“... programme about new films. One night, without any warning, it showed the naked fight scene between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in Women in Love. I was pretty interested in the clip, but I knew to keep quiet afterwards. Modesty was a primary virtue at the school: there were doors on each shower and we all slept in cubicles. In the debating society everything was ...”

“... The Apostles – the semi-secret society that George Tomlinson (a future Bishop of Gibraltar) and II of his friends at St John’s College, Cambridge founded in 1820 – occupies a distinctive niche in British social mythology. Or, rather, it occupies several niches, according to the taste of the mythologiser. In the eyes of many of its members, looking back in later years on the friendships of their youth, it represented human relationships at their most perfect ...”

“... him away. How long after this it was that Bowie had his breakthrough I’m not sure.15 January. Alan Rickman dies. In the first week of The Habit of Art at the National in 2009 Michael Gambon, playing Auden, was taken ill and rushed to St Thomas’s. He recovered quite quickly, and indeed got out of the ambulance saying: ‘I know what they’re all doing ...”

“... life had openly censured Mr Cecil Parkinson and suggested he should resign: two Tory MPs, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the Mayor of Potters Bar. Ranged against this lone and motley quartet were the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, most of Fleet Street, 70 Tory MPs, 62 per cent of the British public, Bernard ...”

“... a Rangers game. My uncle was distressed. He called me a Blue Nose to my face (strong words for a bishop) and when we arrived at the ground he made me walk behind him. He said that if Rangers scored and I made a noise he would throw me to the Animals (the stand in Celtic Park where men peed and drank Bovril was affectionately known as the Jungle). When Celtic ...”

“... England and Ireland. The books can be said to stand at opposite ends of a spectrum of emotion. Alan Bell’s is cool, elegant, efficient, eminently printable, while the other smacks of excitement, adrenalin, and of an oral tradition. Smith is present in the Burke book, as an ideological partner of the Whig advocates who were briefed in the legal ...”

“... as well as ambition, with a premium on stealth as well as wealth. When Nigel, nephew of Roger, bishop of Salisbury, took on the job in 1126 (or thereabouts) he was simply called ‘the treasurer’. He resigned when made bishop of Ely in 1133 – not the sort of career progression to be expected these days. But the ...”

“... on which the Soviet Union seems seriously to have considered releasing him was in 1974 when the Bishop of Berlin suggested that he be replaced by an anti-Fascist museum designed and operated by the same four powers who run the gaol. Hess has been alone since October 1966. In that month his last two companions, the former Nazi armaments minister Albert ...”

“... the boy is later released. The ludicrous Mr Kenneth Baker blames the Church, and in particular the Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard, probably because he’s the only socialist in sight.22 February. A large crowd gathers outside Bootle Magistrates Court, to jeer as the vans carrying the two ten-year-olds accused of the toddler’s murder are driven away. One ...”