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“... of such encounters because Smith’s admirers often treat her as something of a pet. Although Larkin’s review of Selected Poems in 1962 drew attention to her achievement, he called her drawings ‘cute’ while noting that some of her phrases, though not ‘full-scale’ poems, hung around in one’s mind ‘long after one has put the book down in ...”

“... where it relates specifically to the personality of the poet, always has a teasing quality. Philip Larkin, who admired Housman officially and also less openly, had many of the same characteristics. Housman can be brutally exclamatory and immediate, though always poised. When the bells justle in the tower       The hollow night amid, Then on my tongue ...”

“... in English literature – for example, in the poetry of Hardy, Stevie Smith and especially Philip Larkin: Only a numbness registered the shock Of finding out how much had gone of life, How widely from the others. It may be that England is now becoming a cheap and nasty place, but Raban allows us no consolation in nostalgia. Emma Tennant is less bitter, more ...”

“... enthusiasm for banning books was waning by the time The Dark appeared, novels by Edna O’Brien, Maurice Leitch, Brian Moore and J.P. Donleavy were banned in the same period, as was Catch 22. (Ulysses, oddly enough, never was. And while the original Irish version of Brian Merriman’s 18th-century poem ‘The Midnight Court’ was freely in ...”

“... George Fenton tells me of a memorial service he’s been to at St Marylebone Parish Church for Maurice Murphy, the principal trumpet of the LSO, who did the opening trumpet solo in the music for Star Wars. The service due to kick off at 11.30, George arrives with ten minutes to spare only to find the church already full, the congregation seated, silent and ...”

“... might infect what comes after with their banality. In this sense Orton (and to some extent Larkin) is exceptional, Orton’s early diaries written with the same peculiar slant on the world as his mature writings.1957 was the year I should have come down from Oxford but didn’t and one thing I think reading this tosh is that if I hadn’t got a First ...”