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“... of theoretical routines cried up as novelties. The series edited by Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield under the title ‘Cultural Polities’ has some twenty volumes in store already, covering popular fiction and music as well as canonical literature. Of these, the first four published titles present a mixed impression in which the more ...”

“... admission may sometimes be unavoidable. This is my sentiment as I contemplate the four novels of Alan Warner. He has been highly praised (‘dazzling’, ‘classic’, ‘significant’, ‘vastly gifted’, ‘a genius’, ‘one of the most influential literary mould-breakers ever’), and I’m sure none of these eulogies, understandably preserved on the ...”

“... the Necrocard, a joke organ-donor card for supporters of ‘sexual liberation’, is reproduced on page 23 of Matthew Collings’s Art Crazy Nation (2001). The volume of work is enormous, and always growing; the volume a central aspect of the challenge the work presents. It’s difficult to describe Home’s oeuvre with any real precision. It’s much easier ...”

“... included contributions concerning European history from Norman Cohn, Peter Brown, Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane, all professional historians. They were fully integrated with the contributions of the anthropologists. Since that date it has become increasingly common both in this country and elsewhere for historians and social anthropologists to emphasise the ...”

“... that Garland has not given us his least favourite cartoons to illustrate this diary. On the first page is a direct comparison of Michael Heseltine with Sidney Carton (Eh?), with the stock quotation incomprehensibly appended as a caption. On page 127 we discover Pickwick’s old lady confronting the fat boy who wants to make ...”

“... that is to say, if the addict feels like contemplating real people rather than fictitious ones. Alan Pryce-Jones’s recollections – ‘autobiography’ would be too pompous a word for them – are incredibly readable. Page after page is turned in utter fascination to see who will ...”

“... lunatic League of Rights to the Fascist wing of Russia’s Pamyat movement.’ On the same page of the Age Demidenko could be read, putting her case with a debater’s zeal. She did not sound, it must be admitted, like a card-carrying Fascist, but she did sound like a person of overweening self-confidence and historical naivety. ‘Individual ...”

“... that is unremittingly superficial, uninspired and hollow. This is to be regretted because, on page 98, he finally goes back to the starting post, and his report on selection for Sandhurst and Other Ranks is informative journalism at its best. We are taken behind the scenes at Leighton House and St George’s Barracks, and an interesting tapestry begins to ...”

“... whether they get through ‘more than ten a month’). These stories, in the view of the sapient Alan Boon, can be compared to Valium for women. But the Mills and Boon operation is such a high-powered one that the worldwide propagation of the attitudes it fosters perhaps ought to be worrying the anti-globalisation lobby. In 1998, according to McAleer, the ...”

“... transmission from the Invincible while its reporter on the spot sent back stories about naked Page Three girls being sent to the troops. It was the paper that marketed ‘Stick it Up Your Junta’ tee-shirts. It was the paper that accused other papers of treason and treachery when they expressed doubts about the course of the war. The Sun is a tinyish ...”

“... and he would regale me with the details of the latest murder he had been called on to snap: ‘By, Alan, I’ve seen some stuff.’ The stuff he’d seen included the corpse of the stripper Mary Millington, who had committed suicide. ‘I can’t understand why she committed suicide. She had a lovely body.’ To someone as prone to embarrassment as I ...”

“... Corb snubs​ the queen,’ ran the headline on the front page of the Sun on 16 September, in response to Jeremy Corbyn’s tight-lipped participation in the singing of the national anthem at a commemoration of the Battle of Britain. The Times led with ‘Veterans open fire after Corbyn snubs anthem,’ the Telegraph with ‘Corbyn snubs queen and country ...”

“... not at all the jovial lady smiling, if Osborne is to be believed, an almost unique smile to face page 144. Other people’s mothers are always easier to swallow than one’s own and Nellie Beatrice is funnier than her son will allow. He conned her into going to see him in Hamlet: ‘I’ve seen it before,’ she remarked to her companion. ‘He dies in the ...”

“... concerned writers and artists. Under 4 July 1802 was recorded the birth of Alexandre Dumas. On one page was an account of his life, with a list of his best known works, while opposite was a section from The Count of Monte Cristo. By browsing through such a mishmash of fact, fiction and brief biographies I became familiar, after a fashion, with both literature ...”

“... affectionate. Unashamed of his emotions altogether, as I sat next to him at the funeral of Alan Bates’s son Tristan when he wept throughout. I haven’t always felt so kindly, as when he wrote plays in the 1970s I was very jealous of him (as, I believe, was Pinter). He could run up a play in a week or two, generally when he wasn’t getting anywhere ...”