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“... writer, a ‘notorious and shameless poof’ married a street woman and fathered two sons with her, both of whom followed in their father’s professional footsteps. A male prostitute known as Fair Eliza kept a fancy woman in Westminster who, McKenna writes, did ‘not scruple to live upon the fruits of his monstrous avocation’. Female sex workers might ...”

“... the glorious letter he wrote to the queen at the end of January. Its immediate purpose was to ask Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament in order to prevent Remainers from frustrating Brexit. That might seem chutzpah enough, but his follow-up was more ineffable still: ‘Your Majesty’s Ministers were gravely in error and ...”

“... blighted rather than fostered scholarship. ‘Dame Isobel’s well-meaning effort to keep alive her husband’s flame has had the perverse effect of threatening to extinguish it.’ In particular, it has meant that those with whom Cripps served have all had their ‘versions’ published long before. Of the big five of the 1945 Labour Government ...”

“... On the wall behind him: a colour portrait of the Queen of England – 007 at the service of Her Majesty.The sentences have the involuntary, palpable beauty of snowflakes. He follows Rilke’s almost Oriental prescription that one must have seen and experienced many things in life, and then forgotten them. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine a less ...”

“... translation of Murasaki’s Diary renders one passage by the words: ‘This is not to say that her women are always so genteel; if they forget themselves they can come out with the most indiscrete verses.’ Perhaps, in becoming conversant with Japanese to a degree he makes plain even to me who know not a syllable of the language, Richard Bowring has ...”

“... out, and stunk out by a virtuoso farting guerrilla attached to the ERP underground army.   Her address was designed to be simple and moving.   ‘To those of you who have lost your children in this disaster, I can only say...’   It rumbles out over the mikes on TV... my God, what a sound. The Queen turns pale but continues:   ‘... that ...”

“... In 1871, when Queen Victoria was in the tenth year of her widowhood, and when even the great British public was becoming increasingly irritated by her continued seclusion at Windsor, Osborne and Balmoral, a young, clever, radical MP named George Otto Trevelyan published a pamphlet which had the effrontery to ask: ‘What does she do with it?’ Where, Trevelyan wanted to know, was all the money going which the Queen was paid by the Government for the sole purpose of maintaining the duties and dignities of her position as head of state? Instead of being spent as it should have been, on court ceremonial, public appearances and regal display, he believed it was being improperly applied to the creation of a new and essentially private royal fortune ...”

“... I suppose some bucks were made (think Felix Dennis: distribution manager of Oz and now higher than Her Majesty on the richest people list; and Ed Victor – ex-editor of Ink and currently mega-agent), but only by a few, and generally not until life had got more sensible again. Some made writing careers for themselves which developed smoothly enough from ...”

“... file were consulted, however, they had a different view. Their choice fell, almost unanimously, on Her Majesty the Queen, and they made it clear that if she were not invited, they intended to strike and to picket the ceremony. On this occasion, at least, Ken Livingstone had no difficulty in acceding to the wishes of the rank and file. But the incident ...”

“... and orders kept piling up. At the time of his surgery, Wedgwood styled himself ‘Potter to Her Majesty’ Queen Charlotte and was on the way to becoming one of the most famous manufacturers in Britain. He quickly began investigating the wooden prosthetics that would allow him to get back to work at his Staffordshire factory, resuming a life spent ...”

“... a vaulted corridor (Broughton Castle) and bursts in on a sleeping lady-in-waiting and demands her chamber pot. ‘Do it, England,’ he adjures himself. ‘Do it.’ But time and the budget put paid to much of the rest: no back corridors thronged with courtiers, still primping and titivating themselves as they hurry down to the opening concert; no shot of ...”

“... it should have been banned for ever from public use. PETE: Do you know, at this very moment, Her Majesty is probably exercising the royal prerogative. DUD: What’s that then, Pete? PETE: Don’t you know the royal prerogative? It’s a wonderful animal, Dud. It’s a legendary beast, half bird, half fish, half unicorn, and it’s being ...”

“... at his Surrey establishment, Cherkley Court, and there would open the interconnecting door between her bedroom and his in the hope that she would signify consent by leaving it ajar. Once, when he was talking about a woman with whom he (rightly) suspected Pincher was having an affair, he ‘puckered his face into a leery smile’ and declared: ‘I bet she’s ...”

“... When the Archduchess Joanna of Austria made her official entry into Florence on 16 December 1565 as the bride of Francesco de’ Medici, one of the first things she saw, at the gate of the city, was a painting showing the famous artists of Tuscany. In the distance was Cimabue holding a small lantern, and nearby Giotto with a larger lantern, surrounded by his immediate followers; towards the foreground there were two groups of 15th-century artists, and finally, at the very front and in the full light of day, Michelangelo and his companions, the great masters of the modern period from Leonardo da Vinci to the immediate past ...”

“... every version of The Dunciad, the Goddess Dulness visits Georgian London and views with delight ‘her private Academy for Poets’ where, in a cave next to ‘the Magnific College of Bedlam’, modern bards incubate their strange creations. It is a dark place of nightmarish fecundity: Here she beholds the Chaos dark and deep, Where nameless Somethings in ...”