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“... is history for? What do we want it to do? In 1731, an obscure Kentish schoolmaster named Richard Spencer offered some answers. Properly to ascertain his position in geographical space, he reasoned, required not a single map, but access to a global atlas, one that would allow him to ‘see what London and the adjacent parts are in the kingdom; what the ...”

“... Andrew Motion’s book is intended to portray a family’s rich self-destructiveness. He begins with Larkin’s famous quatrain: Man hands on misery to man.   It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can,   And don’t have any kids yourself. The Lamberts – painter George (1873-1930), composer-conductor Constant (1905-51), and manager of The Who, Kit (1935-81) – got out as early as they could, and of the two who had kids neither showed paternal enthusiasm or skill ...”

“... yes: fork-bending no. The question is not this simple, however. In the books by Dr Finucane, by Andrew Mackenzie and by Susan Blackmore, there are countless contemporary experiences of ‘psychic’ phenomena. They are all very carefully classified: out-of-the-body experiences, psychokinesis (the ability to move objects without physical contact or any known ...”

“... forms of celebrity – sacred and secular. ‘Not only did she capture the spirit of the age,’ Andrew Morton writes on the last page of the most recent edition of his famous book, ‘but more than that the manner of her life and death formed part of a religious cycle of sin and redemption, a genuinely good and Christian woman who was martyred for our ...”

“... influential essay ‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ was given as the Herbert Spencer Lecture at Oxford on 21 November 1963. Hofstadter’s subject was the irrational underside of American political culture, where ill-defined fears gave rise to the populist scapegoating of particular groups, whether Jews, Freemasons, Communists or ...”

“... unfounded. The issue was, however, destined to blow up in his face with the publication of Andrew Morton’s book on Diana which, though itself outside the Commission’s field of activity, was almost certain to be serialised in a newspaper and would in any case generate comment in the press. Once again McGregor was betrayed by his own ignorance and ...”

“... Nottinghamshire miners’ decision not to strike are put forward: the influence of the breakaway Spencer union, which collaborated with employers during the 1926 miners’ lockout; traditions of local and national NUM democracy; and the comparative economic security felt by Nottinghamshire miners. Gildea acknowledges that large numbers of Nottinghamshire ...”

“... Profumo, Lord Dilhorne, George Weidenfeld, Maurice Oldfield, Victor Rothschild, Lord Porchester, Andrew Parker Bowles: ideally they should be highlighted in bold type, as was the way in the Hickey column. The author lets us know a little about each. Mountbatten may have had an affair with Barbara Cartland; Prince Michael of Kent worked for British ...”

“... began to make an important contribution to steamboat revenues, though, as the marine historian Andrew Clark notes, ‘it was the enthusiastically reported visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1847 that glamorised and popularised the West Highlands for the wider world, opening up the region’s commercial potential for keen-eyed ...”

“... also possesses a remarkable capacity for shooting himself in the foot. And in marrying Lady Diana Spencer, he thought he had chosen the ideal bride, yet it turned out that he had made the most terrible mistake of his life. The most important thing that a Prince of Wales has to do is to choose the right wife. Neither George IV nor Edward VIII managed it, and ...”

“... Asian pharmacist is a bit nonplussed and as he serves me I offer to go next door to Marks and Spencer for their security man. But the blonde assistant is pluckily standing her ground. The young man has a really mean face and the pharmacist thinks the best thing is to wait until he goes. Which he is doing when he spots a small woman in her sixties at the ...”

“... schooling assistance, for example – can underline the inferiority they are supposed to redress. Andrew Lattas sees white settler Australians as internalising a sense of not being at home with themselves: ‘The experience of the self as lacking in subjectivity, as lacking in spiritual form, is one of the most powerful images of the self our society has ...”

“... votive spectre, sentimentalised, inflated, patched into every available blank space, was Charles Spencer Chaplin: ‘London’s world famous star’. Child vagrant. Global-franchise tramp. Swiss domiciled millionaire guardian of his own archive. Author of a myth-making autobiography exploiting the nexus of these streets. The fable of Chaplin’s heroic ...”

“... reviews I’ve seen have been pretty much raves. ‘Whooooosssh! What a trip,’ says Charles Spencer at the Telegraph: ‘it is an absolute blast. Over more than 500 pages, its narrative only rarely fails to grip.’ According to John Walsh in the Independent, ‘the 500-plus pages of Life throb with energy, pulsate with rhythm and reverberate with good ...”

“... hit a lung and the heart, causing massive internal bleeding. He had no chance of survival. Captain Andrew Cox dispatched a helicopter to pick up the injured man and bring him back to base. The helicopter carried him to camp Abu Naji where he was ventilated, but his pupils became fixed and at 00.50 hrs on 2 May 2005, surrounded by medical officers, Guardsman ...”