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“... Dictionary of Troublesome Words starts with a refreshingly honest declaration by the editor, Bill Bryson. Mr Bryson suggests that the title might more accurately have been ‘A Guide to Everything in English Usage that the Author Wasn’t Entirely Clear about until Quite Recently’. Two points may strike the ...”

“... criticism has a distinguished history, stretching from Defoe and Cobbett up to Iain Sinclair and Bill Bryson. In the 19th century, such writing was overlain by a style of critique that was less topographical and more frankly ethical or existential: extended essays on what a few carefully chosen examples of contemporary crassness and complacency revealed ...”

“... In 1902, Balfour succeeded his uncle, Lord Salisbury, as Prime Minister and introduced the Aliens Bill, the first piece of modern immigration legislation, in order to prevent East European Jews from finding refuge in Britain. (Echoes of Balfour’s resistance to the Eastern hordes persist in Jack Straw’s ‘bogus asylum seekers’, Tony Blair’s call for ...”