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“... MPs to 14. It was clear that the death of Liberal England had been prematurely foretold. As Chris Cook reminds us in the latest edition of his History of the Liberal Party, it was Jo Grimond who turned round the depleted Liberal ranks and marched them towards the sound of gunfire. It seemed a risible endeavour, with Lady Violet Bonham-Carter and remnants of ...”

“... than the Book of Revelation. Orwell had Eton and the military police to draw on for 1984, and Alan Moore (V for Vendetta) had Orwell. What’s interesting is that for this ‘entirely new departure’ James stayed so close to the sense that runs through all her work of the horror of human intimacy, of touch (‘a collection of bones loosely held together ...”

“... in the metropolis. Guilt is at a minimum, and sensualists can get on with it – i.e. drink and cook at the same time. Olive oil is essential; instant potato has its place; lump-fish roe is caviar, if you think about it. Children get properly treated – special recipes for them (but not hot curried spam, surely, not even in Beckham). And they get extra ...”

“... tidiness as he was for punctuality he would never have had his pinny off. Chester was an inspired cook, though wasted on Auden, who preferred good nursery food and lashings of it. A toilet innocent of Harpic, a sideboard barren of Pledge, the New York set-up on St Marks Place was not an apartment for the fastidious. Those who are not as other men are often ...”

“... to provide such posthumous attestations of one another’s genius. It happened when Peter Cook died and with the same maudlin affection. ‘Dear Cooky’, ‘Dear Spike’. The necessary element of suffering, the cost always sought for in the deaths of comics, and which in Peter’s case came with the drink, is here supplied by mental illness (‘No ...”

“... the world since Mrs Thatcher in that gritty hard little word. 2 May. Several of the obituaries of Alan Sillitoe who died last week mention how, when as a child he was being hit by his father, his mother would beg ‘Not on his head. Not on his head.’ My father was a mild man and seldom hit my brother or me but when he did my mother would make the same ...”

“... she would surely be more open to the ‘new politics’ than the paper would have been under Alan Rusbridger. It hasn’t worked out that way. What started with denial, as the unions and constituency Labour Parties came out for Corbyn and people registered as supporters in their tens of thousands, soon turned to horror, and finally to stunned ...”

“... is another – that the British seem almost to revel in, even to gain strength from. As Peter Cook said in Beyond the Fringe, ‘we need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war.’ The general verdict today is that it could never have worked. The strategy was foolish and hopeless. One major of the Gurkhas thought that this ...”

“... a sort of political bible with Sir Richard Scott in the role of the Yahweh/ Saviour and Robin Cook and Ian Lang fighting it out to play St Paul. In fact, the occasional double negative aside (these alone have been enough to drive our illiterate media into hysterical denunciations of prolixity), the Report is a model of clarity. Its narrative is compelling ...”

“... eventful. Not only do I hardly drink and Rupert neither, but I don’t know anyone who does, Peter Cook about the only drunk I’ve ever known. In New York in the 1980s I used to like a screwdriver. Two was my limit, with three making me tipsy, which I found delightful. Had I been able to remain in that intermediate state I suppose I could have been a ...”

“... as Leon Edel remarked was ‘not at all intellectual’ himself. Sturgis had an exceptionally good cook, and the dyspeptic Henry James complained of a sense of ‘repleteness before (even) dinner’. Still, he clearly enjoyed the Qu’Acre atmosphere of gossipy companionship mixed with intense reverence for himself. It was an indulgent contrast to the lonelier ...”

“... Unsurprisingly, this left my mother perpetually anxious lest we catch it. Mrs Sherwood was a good cook and often invited my brother and me to sample her dishes, which we were strictly forbidden to do. On one occasion, though, I succumbed (Yorkshire pudding) and foolishly saying so at home it was as if I’d signed my own death warrant.TB was to blame for ...”

“... interests. Here is the entry for one relatively minor character, Albert Creech: The Jenkinses’ cook (formerly hall-boy to Jenkins’s grandmother) at Stonehurst in 1914: ‘Albert, fleshy, sallow, blue-chinned, breathing hard, sweating a little, fitted an iron bar into sockets ... Rolled shirt-sleeves, green baize apron, conferred a misleadingly ...”

“... Bletchley Park to enable the British to regain the upper hand in the cryptographic struggle is not Alan Turing, however, but a neurotic Cambridge mathematician who fancies girls: Tom Jericho’s heart has been broken by a cruel, icy blonde who has mysteriously gone missing from Bletchley. Investigating her disappearance, Jericho also finds time to solve the ...”

“... of curates and Edwardian ladies; prisoners of conscience; Anaïs Nin; Richard Crossman; Tony Benn; Alan Bennett. But on the whole, no. And yet we can’t stop ourselves. These days, if you’re a young writer and you don’t do your own weblog you’re something of an exception, and even for the amateur, the ‘journaler’, there’s now a whole industry ...”