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“... to his cost, was not his strong suit. Hamilton’s obituarists were not timid in their assessment: Richard Dawkins called him ‘a good candidate for the title of most distinguished Darwinian since Darwin’. His most important contribution was a Darwinian explanation of altruism, a problem over which Darwin himself admitted to having had sleepless ...”

“... aprons. Two of these were fashioned and the remainder of the skin hung as a partition wall in a public house in Keighley. Barely edible, often immobile, these were not so much animals as living monuments to man’s will to domesticate. But even within such bloated, breathing carcases, the wild boar remains. The differences between domesticated and ...”

“... circumvented the King-quota limit by bringing out five surplus horror tales under the pseudonym ‘Richard Bachman’. Unfortunately the Bachman books’ disguise was eventually penetrated. But, more significantly, their appeal was drastically altered when their true authorship was publicised. As King observed, Thinner sold 28,000 by ...”

“... If you are not among the chosen, you can get yourself shot just by standing too close to the wall. In New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, Klein found poor evacuees living in ‘desolate, out-of-the-way trailer camps’ where private security companies ‘treated survivors like criminals’. In stark contrast were the gated communities built in the ...”

“... of former colonies turned offshore tax havens: on its own the City of London is neck and neck with Wall Street as a financial centre, but if you include the offshore zones it’s estimated that a third of all international deposits and investments flow through Britain and its satellites. Moreover, according to the Financial Conduct Authority, most UK banks ...”

“... already fading hopes of an egalitarian and communitarian alternative to capitalism once the Berlin Wall came down, he might more aptly have labelled him a non-violent intellectual descendant of Babeuf, executed in Paris in 1797 as leader of the Conspiracy of Equals, who believed that when anyone is starving it is a crime to have more than enough. An ...”

“... set for European unity. An early version of the EEC was dubbed the ‘Union Charlemagne’ by Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi in his 1950 speech accepting the inaugural Charlemagne prize, awarded by the city of Aachen every subsequent year to those who have advanced the cause of European unity. Receiving the award in 2018, Emmanuel Macron employed a ...”

“... Diane Sawyer, as she moves from ‘Henry K’s lap’ to the former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke to her current husband, Hollywood director, Mike Nichols. Sawyer, also circulating from the Nixon White House to CBS’s 60 Minutes to ABC’s Prime Time, earns almost as much in a single day as is earned in a year by the mother she berated on ...”

“... anachronistic, antiqued model of “good literature”’; he quoted the naturalist Richard Mabey, who, like Fisher, had known and loved that coast for years. To read Sebald, according to Mabey, was to watch the belittlement of ‘a very close friend’.Fisher’s first book, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? was published towards the ...”

“... or the magical or any such claptrap. I despise myths and legends and their ilk. I believe that Richard Dawkins does not go nearly far enough when he says that astrologers should be prosecuted for fraud. Instead, priests and imams and monks and rabbis from every religion should be thrown into prison, unless and until they can prove the truth of their ...”

“... offending. ‘Rat Boy’ was small enough to hide in the ventilation shafts of Newcastle’s Byker Wall estate; ‘Spider Boy’ once escaped custody by squeezing between the bars of the dock. Night after night, Sunderland’s sprawling postwar housing schemes echoed to the screech of tyres and the blare of sirens as joyriders performed handbrake turns and ...”

“... of ‘contemporary art’: Nicholas Serota (at the Tate), Charles Saatchi, Sarah Kent (Time Out), Richard Dorment (Daily Telegraph, oddly enough). Against: Modern Painters, Brian Sewell (Evening Standard), Giles Auty (Spectator), Glynn Williams (at the RCA) and any number of Johnsonian or Waugh-like commentators who throw themselves into the breach on wet ...”

“... CIA. The Senate had convened an inquiry into CIA misconduct, and even the fanatical cold warrior Richard Nixon had promoted détente with the Soviet Union and opened a diplomatic door to China. One could be pardoned for hoping that a reorientation of policy was underway.But almost as soon as the last helicopter left the roof of the American Embassy in ...”

“... a disappointment, just huge hunks of stone which could be gateposts from the end of any dry-stone wall, and I imagine that is where other similar tombstones have ended up. Much more interesting is the lychgate (restored c.1989): a single broad gate, attached by a bar and chain to an ancient pulley in the thickness of the ...”

“... paintings (begun in 1967 and 1972 respectively). The result of accidental sightings (a patch of wall spotted in Harlem, a pattern on a car glimpsed on a highway), these engaging series involve found images but also foreground traditional devices not often noticed. The flagstone shapes, in red, black and white, are glossy in a way that lifts them slightly ...”