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“... washing sharing the basement, a desolate and grilling public garden, and the sea full of floating brown pennies of oil. This short passage shows a spontaneous poetic flair rarely equalled in Forster’s fiction, or elsewhere in the diaries: ‘those trudging squares and triangles’, both exact and subjective, the complex ...”

“... opportunity of designing buildings for an entirely new form of society. Peter Ahrends’s self-published book A3: Threads and Connections is an oblique telling of this tale, through three generations of architects. Peter founded the influential firm Ahrends, Burton and Koralek (ABK) in 1960s London, and his grandfather, Bruno, was one of the ...”

“... sports are by no means all boastful or complicit. The supreme text of recent years is James Fox’s account of Lord Lucan and his set, with their boffes de politesse. There is a touch of Lucanian zombiness in The Monument, and the peer himself takes part in The Passion of John Aspinall. Patrician insolence has quite often appeared to express a perception of ...”

“... in which she was played by Nancy Carroll with Helena Bonham Carter as Margaret. In the book’s prologue, she describes Bonham Carter, who ‘as it happens’ is a cousin of Glenconner’s late husband, Colin Tennant (Lord Glenconner), coming for tea and taking copious notes. It was at this moment, as she tried to ...”

“... detailing why it had come to this conclusion. When the coroner refused to include the jury’s note in his final ruling, Middleton’s mother began a campaign to secure a formal public determination that the prison service was responsible for her son’s death. The obstacle she faced ...”

“... If you had asked an 18th or 19th-century Englishman about his country’s constitution, you would not have got the baffled look you get today. The belief that a constitution is a document and that we do not have one is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Mr Podsnap was in no doubt whatever about the reality of a constitution that nobody could actually see: ‘And Do You Find, Sir,’ pursued Mr Podsnap, with dignity, ‘Many Evidences that Strike You, of our British Constitution in the Streets of the World’s Metropolis, London, Londres, London?’ The foreign gentleman begged to be pardoned, but did not altogether understand ...”

“... of English, and giggles. His English is probably good but he prefers to use interpreters. ‘I am so sorry to hear about your accident.’ ‘Shukran’ (‘Thank you’). ‘Are you feeling recovered?’ ‘Al hamdullilah.’ ‘What happened?’ ‘I was coming out of the mosque in the souk in Amara and two gunmen were waiting. It was dark because there is ...”

“... Anthony Blanche outfits he wore at Oxford, and, later, the poolstick collection of headmaster’s canes he kept handy to beat women’s bottoms. The cigarettes eventually killed him, but it is only with one in his hand that he looks fully activated, in character. In London, creating a sensation as a theatre ...”

“... became the way the 1920s were remembered, even though only a tiny proportion of the world’s population in 1925 drank hard liquor out of teapots in speakeasies; or danced – danced, danced, danced! – often in a cloche hat and with a long cigarette-holder pointed riskily at their partner’s crotch. It took thirty ...”

“... My father had no gun, or any land to shoot over. So when he decided that it was time for me, then aged 15 or 16, to learn how to shoot, he had to cadge. We borrowed an old 12-bore from a local farmer, a rickety weapon the lock, stock and barrel of which were barely connected, and my father then asked his neighbour, Siegfried Sassoon, who lived in the next village, whether we could loose off a few cartridges in his woods ...”

“... and dance in the era of African independence. It was the brainchild of Léopold Senghor, Senegal’s president, who saw the arts as a field of struggle. Two subsequent festivals took place, in Algiers in 1969 and Lagos in 1977, and their history bears out Senghor’s claim in a way he did not intend: they have faded into ...”

“... and pausing at the Iron Age fort on Battlesbury Hill, which looks out over the British army’s Wiltshire estate. Since then most of the army in Afghanistan had come back to Britain, and an item of furniture had been added to the Battlesbury ramparts, among the cow parsley and purple clover: a bench. I was glad to sit down, as my pack was heavy. But the ...”

“... Christmas because I was reading the greatest book I’ve ever read: the jazz musician Art Pepper’s 1979 autobiography Straight Life: The Story of Art Pepper. It knocked my former top pick – Clarissa – right out of first place. As Art himself might say, my joint is getting big just thinking about it. I realise there may be a few lost souls who’ve never ...”

“... as if in that moment – but only in that moment – it could neutralise their sting. It’s nice to think of your father hiding himself away because he was playing with toys, and not because he was a manic depressive, as Arthur proved to be. Nicer to be invited to join a conspiracy than to discover only after his death that your father had treasured ...”

“... This is a common enough tactic for politicians battling to stay on message, but in Corbyn’s case it reflects an abiding set of concerns to which he returns repeatedly. What we notice with him is not usually a change in content, but in tone. When in a good mood, he exhibits a good-natured, smiling patience, taking a breath before explaining, yet ...”