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“... mentions only in passing, though he describes it as important. This was the prosecution of Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant for republishing Charles Knowlton’s 1832 book The Fruits of Philosophy: An Essay on the Population Problem, which advocated birth control. A sixpenny reprint had been seized and condemned as ...”

“... with their own incontrovertible forms of authenticity – Compton-Burnett, J. C. Powys, Powell, even Henry Greene. But when Greene extracts himself from artifice and writes of places and people, and of himself in the two books of autobiography, the feel of a personality at once natural and formidable compels the reader without any show-off at ...”

“... technological sophistication than making laser bombs that enter through the front door?’ asked Charles Krauthammer, for whom the Gulf War refuted the myth that the US was being overtaken by Japan. Censorship is too negative a term to describe the government’s relation to television and press: far from being, like the old Hollywood Hays office, a mere ...”

“... with Sweets Edison, Stuff Smith and Juan Tizol), Ralph Stanley and his Clinch Mountain Boys, Ray Charles. And towards the end of the day, with the setting sun doing something wonderful with the sandstone in the precincts of Lake Powell, we had a medley that included Clarence Williams (‘You’re Bound to Look Like a ...”

“... novel, seemed briefly to herald recovery. Here, the camaraderie was conjugal. Nora and Nick Charles, based on Hammett and Lillian Hellman, joshed and drank their way through a murder mystery, and in the process launched a thousand scripts: films, radio and TV series, distant derivatives such as Hart to Hart. Impersonated by William ...”

“... other lengthy attempt by an English novelist to handle part of World War Two as a theme. (Anthony Powell’s three relevant volumes in The Music of Time are too closely woven into the rest of the series to be considered.) The characteristic English novel of the past half-century has been marked, not only by realism rather than fantasy, but also by the quality ...”

“... the ‘areal’, as proposed by the geographer Carl Sauer (a great favourite of that poet of place Charles Olson). Sauer, like Seabrook, deals in awkward particulars, grit under the eyelid. Areal is what you finish up with when there’s no way out, economically, emotionally, spiritually – with Connex and Railtrack operating the only escape chute. With ...”

“... and fixers like traditional brides’. I suppose this and meeting the tragic pianist Bud Powell in his Paris hotel room, catatonic except when at the keyboard, are the most vivid memories of my jazz years. It soon became obvious that there was a notable gap both in taste and context between those of us – most jazz writers, but also successful ...”

“... where he dined with President Jefferson, met various notables, and had his portrait painted by Charles Willson Peale. Often arduous and sometimes extremely dangerous, Humboldt’s American adventure became one of the new century’s most famous journeys, the foundation for his own extraordinary celebrity and an inspiration for many other scientific ...”

“... took some nerve. Baxter remarks that he had thoughtfully said ‘monarchy’ rather than ‘King Charles’ for prudential reasons: ‘I was fain to speak of the species of government only, for they had lately made it treason by a law to speak for the person of the king.’ Really, C.H. Sisson ought to have appreciated Baxter’s useful skill with ...”

“... the generally liberal Washington Post: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab states Powell hopes to recruit for the bin Laden posse have long been part of the problem, not part of the solution to international terrorism. These states cannot be given free passes for going through the motions of helping the United States. And European allies ...”

“... modernity of contemporary England and the apostasy of its people from the Anglican faith of Charles I and Archbishop Laud. Given the chance, he would restore in modern dress the divine right of kings and the doctrinal authority of a state church preaching supernatural Christianity. Wright and Cowling have much in common in their alienation from society ...”

“... art that owes much of its power to never quite spelling things out. My own list would include Powell and Pressburger, Nic Roeg, Paul Nash, Derek Jarman, Anna Kavan, as well as under-celebrated British surrealist painters like Ithell Colquhoun and Emmy Bridgwater. This art revels in the threshold places, the hidden rivers and eerie copses of the British ...”

“... is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.’ In February 2001, I heard Colin Powell say that Saddam Hussein ‘has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.’ That same month, I heard that a CIA report stated: ‘We do not have ...”

“... Hughes. On the other side of the argument were the bogeymen of British politics – from Enoch Powell, who was by then, scarier still, an Ulster Unionist, to Tony Benn and Michael Foot. With a sly coyness that sits oddly with her later reputation, the newly elected leader of the Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, operated, like Wilson, on the sidelines ...”