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“... of royal and aristocratic whim. Often they are stories of bizarre adoration, as in the case of George IV and his giraffe, which was captured as a calf in Sudan and sent north to Khartoum trussed up on the back of a camel. From there she was sent by boat to Cairo, on to Malta and then to England, where she arrived in June 1827 and was taken to Windsor. The ...”

“... 1772 (another piece of mystic and antique tradition, designed to prevent the ghastly offspring of George III from letting down the side) the Sovereign’s consent was required for a marriage of any member of the family who was younger than 25. After the quarter-century mark had been reached, things became simpler. All that was required was the consent of the ...”

“... anniversary has been taken calmly by his countrymen: with far less celebration than, for instance, George Eliot received in 1980. There is to be no British Library exhibition (although they hold significant manuscripts); no plaque in the Abbey (although Trollope was more devout than the other novelist); no portrait stamp, no commemorative pillar-box at Waltham ...”

“... that battle, he was adored as the saviour of Hanoverian Britain from Jacobites and papists. As George II’s soldier son, he was the ‘martial Boy’; for Drury Lane audiences, ‘The noble Youth, whom ev’ry eye approves/ Each tongue applauds, and ev’ry Soldier loves … Strength to his Arm, and Vict’ry to his Sword.’ Today, he is remembered only ...”

“... and disruptions: a heap of burning tyres, the insides of a hotel exposed by a wrecker’s ball, obliterated streets, broken glass and knotted durex. In a graphic metaphor Carson illustrates the impossibility of dissociating language itself from the live ammunition of the conflict. During a riot it rains not only nuts, bolts and nails, but ...”

“... guy. The Arkansas senator John McClellan was capable of a ‘kindness’ that few could notice, George H.W. Bush was (and remains) a gentleman and an honourable politician, Bob Dole could be ‘tough and mean in a fight’ but Clinton likes him. He would have liked more downtime with Tom DeLay, but DeLay did not believe in ‘consorting with the ...”

“... the introduction?’ ‘This is Nancy,’ Yvonne said. ‘This is Andy. This is Mildred. This is George. This is Isabella. This is Steve. This is Miss Lear. This is Remus and this is Caterina.’ She paused. ‘This is Peter,’ she said. Everybody laughed. One of the children threw a ball into the air and someone said ...”

“... origin than the dresser in question, including the spiralling walnut of 1700, the robust mahogany ball and claw feet of 1750, the more fragile members of delicately decorated satinwood which found favour later in the 18th century, and the massive scrolling rosewood of the Regency. This taste for antiques endured for a century, concurrent with the idioms and ...”

“... to the exercise of compassion). The need for sympathy in human relations had been central to George Eliot’s intensely moral interpretation of what art can do for us: ‘The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies,’ she wrote in her 1856 essay on ‘The Natural History of German ...”

“... review, signing a letter to Van Vechten, ‘Yours, for further violation of hospitality, or as George Gershwin (wasn’t it) put it Do it again.’ The ethnography of Harlem in Van Vechten’s daybooks is more valuable than the fiction he produced. Recording feuds, trysts and hangovers, they also provide the most detailed account we have of Larsen’s life ...”

“... picked by de Valera – led by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith – negotiated with Lloyd George and Churchill. It was the treaty that led to partition and Collins was fully aware that it would provoke a crisis for Sinn Fein and the IRA. Little in Coogan’s rendering of the convoluted story of the treaty is new (he has himself been over this ...”

“... patron, Frederick, Prince of Wales, the artists Hogarth and Hayman, the designers Gravelot and George Michael Moser, the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac and the composers Arne and Handel: ‘The brash light-heartedness, the unwillingness to follow rules, the energy, informality and experimentation that were intrinsic to Vauxhall are all typical of the ...”

“... cryste (1517) declares: ‘This boke Inprinted at London in Fletestrete at the signe of the George by Richard Pynson Prynter unto the Kynges noble grace,’ so the building was probably hung with the sign of George and the Dragon. As I enter the lobby of the current occupiers, Legalease, the security guard ...”

“... unwelcome foreign influence, while Queen Anne’s union with the ‘dull-brained, wine-bibing’ George of Denmark inspired little enthusiasm. Neither marriage was in living memory but Albert had arrived at a moment when the British were much preoccupied with reconsidering their past. In particular, in the wake of Catholic emancipation and with the Oxford ...”

“... briefly by an unregarded few. And so it comes about that the Victorians – Browning, no less than George Eliot – are back in favour, not just for their undemanding and verbally profligate forms but for their portentous preoccupation: how to lose religious faith and yet preserve all the psychological comforts which that faith had afforded. More than a ...”