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“... to. In 1987, in the catalogue published to accompany an exhibition about the Harlem Renaissance, David Levering Lewis referred to Larsen as ‘the mysterious and lovely Virgin Islander’. Eight years later, in When Harlem Was in Vogue, Lewis relayed the (unsourced) information that Larsen was looked down on by ‘some of her fellow Virgin Islanders’ for ...”

“... travel. It is the internal passport, an instrument of state control like the identity cards that David Blunkett is planning for us. Until 2002 it recorded not only your name, age and address, but your ‘nationality’ as well. Our word ‘Russian’ does duty for two distinct adjectives, rossiski and russki. The Russian Federation, like the Russian Academy ...”

“... core which has increased in relevance with the passage of time. Such, at any rate, is the theme of David Reisman’s two volumes of intellectual biography and analysis – the most careful and thought-provoking exegesis yet to appear. Crosland was a man of contradictions, as Reisman shows, a hedonist who was also a puritan, and so on. Perhaps the biggest ...”

“... ceiling tiles and shiny IBM typewriters. Not to mention the lush costuming: party dresses, skinny brown ties, angora cardigans, vivid blue suits and ruffled peignoirs, captured in the pure dark hues and wide lighting ranges that Technicolor never committed to film. Sooner or later, though, unless you watch the whole series with the sound off, you will have to ...”

“... bogeyman years, regularly invoked by politicians of all parties as the nadir of postwar Britain. David Cameron (though it could just as easily have been Gordon Brown) read out the charge sheet at a Demos meeting in 2006: ‘economic decline . . . inflation, stagnation and rising unemployment . . . deteriorating ...”

“... they moved to Vienna, where Eric’s sister, Nancy, was born in 1920. Family connections and the sterling Percy brought from Egypt allowed a comfortable existence for a time, but the move was a disaster. How was an English clerk to find work in inflation-ridden Vienna? Eric was never clear quite what his father did (Evans isn’t clear either), and the ...”

“... the consequences were ruinous for Major’s strategy, with the Bank of England unable to defend sterling, despite putting interest rates up by two points in a single day. The German rate rise was a consequence of the decision to exchange the relatively worthless Ostmark for the rock solid Deutschmark at the deeply patriotic rate of 1:1, thereby absorbing ...”

“... of internationalism had led to the SFWA invitation in the first place. A younger writer like Bruce Sterling, a founder of the cyberpunk movement and very much part of this next wave of possibility for the genre, could afford to view the tiff with comic detachment:Lem was surgically excised from the bosom of American SF back in 1976. Since then plenty of other ...”

“... salmonella’). Then there is the long line of sex-scandal casualties: Cecil Parkinson, Tim Yeo, David Mellor (greatly exaggerated, but not his only alleged misdemeanour), Hartley Booth, Michael Brown (though he is a borderline case, since he resigned from office while denying allegations that he had had a homosexual ...”

“... ever in a one-day game (867); highest ever individual score in a one-day game (268 by Alistair Brown, in 160 balls). It gets a mention in today’s papers, but barely. World Cup news has been on the front page of the Guardian almost every day; the victory over Sri Lanka was on the 12th page of the sports section. As for tomorrow, I’m calmer than for any ...”

“... the hostility to the euro of the Murdoch press that had helped elect him, soon faded. But Gordon Brown’s firm refusal to abandon sterling, made from his position of strength at the Exchequer, maintained the status quo bequeathed by Major. London would sign up to the Social Chapter that Major had sidestepped, but despite ...”

“... the fatal tendency of the Conservative governments to which Britain has been subjected since 2010. David Cameron’s declaration in January 2013 that, if the Conservatives won the next election, they would offer a referendum on membership of the EU – which wasn’t a significant concern, never mind a priority, for British voters – is a fine ...”

“... 12 June, the arrows indicated that the German army was twenty miles from Paris. (Not on the map, David and Wallis Windsor leaving France in a convoy of cars loaded with their luggage.) Harriet and Clarencesaw that the illuminations had been switched off in the Cismigiu. The park, where people walked in summer until all hours, was now silent and deserted, a ...”

“... Sister Josepha showed me some old registers and school photographs of Anthony. His hair was light brown and the headmistress remembered the way he suddenly just burst out of his shell and became popular. ‘But he wasn’t the sort of boy you had to check,’ she said. Listening to her talk of her fears about Iraq and compare the loss of young men to the ...”