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“... indeed she was). Then the door opens and Mr Chamberlain is announced, at which everybody rose, amidst, she says, a general feeling of discomfort. Beatrice’s father, with marked discourtesy towards his guest, promptly retired to play patience, ‘utterly disgusted with the “supposed intentions” of that guest’. At dinner, ‘after some ...”

“... of him abound. Documents relating to his life and work make mountains. And English readers have Norman Del Mar’s massive trilogy to satisfy their doubts as to whether he has been thoroughly described. But Strauss was a deeply reserved man, good at deflecting attention from his inner life; and Del Mar, for one, was content to have his attention ...”

“... Another incentive may have been the chance to depict a monstrous mother: Everything’s coming up Rose! Everything’s coming up roses! … For me! For me! FOR ME! It’s a telling moment for Sondheim: the drama queen exulting in her daughter’s triumph on stage, yet nearly breaking down at the same time because she wants attention too. Sondheim has always ...”

“... No one talking about anything else. The Speaker gave a right bollocking to Kate Hoey and Norman Baker for allegedly colluding with our oppressors in the media. A good five minutes’ worth. I’ve never seen him so worked up. Actually, it was way over the top. Gave the impression he is rattled, which I imagine he is.  Then to a jam-packed meeting ...”

“... adopted the Queen Anne style. But the churches that he and his contemporaries, Bodley, Sedding and Norman Shaw, built alongside them still tended to be Gothic. This was Gothic with a difference, however. Pugin in the 1840s had hypnotised Sir Gilbert’s generation into supposing that moral perfectibility depended on a universal Gothic architecture. The younger ...”

“... unknown to the cartographers of Islam, a Saxon king who defeated a king of Norway is defeated by a Norman duke.’ Khayyám’s work on cubic equations remains fundamental. It seems it was a sideline, versifying. Composing quatrains was a cultured pastime, just as the Heian Japanese a century or so before amused themselves in idle moments by writing blazons to ...”

“... shoes – frowning as she walked without hesitation across the room and introduced herself to Norman Mailer, whose book was being launched. At other parties I saw Angus Wilson, Kingsley Amis, Stephen Spender and others, writers whose work I knew but whose faces (like those of most other writers) did not resemble the photographs on their book jackets. I ...”

“... his youth among a generation of thrawn poets with their country expansiveness: I’m thinking of Norman MacCaig in his Assynt mode; Iain Crichton Smith of the Highlands; George Mackay Brown in his Orkney remoteness; and Hugh MacDiarmid, always in among the fields and dykes, metaphysical or real. None of these men gave much quarter, and, next to them, Morgan ...”

“... professional humiliation. In the 1999 production of Antony and Cleopatra at Stratford the curtain rose with Antony on his knees pleasuring the Egyptian queen of Frances de la Tour. Even the jaded eyebrows of Stratford went up a bit at this and just before it transferred to the Barbican Alan rang and began without preamble: ‘I’m sure you will be relieved ...”

“... was no stomach on either side of the House to legislate against the abuse of union power. As wages rose, there was more in the shops to buy. An unstoppable army of mod cons marched onto the domestic scene, promising to transform life, especially for women, in the newly built houses that were replacing the Victorian slums. That the future was brightening was ...”

“... wife, Carol, has her bag stolen during a lunch with the extremely dapper Said. Said immediately rose to the occasion. Did he chase down the thieves, or summon the cops? No. He took her shopping. At once, he was at her service, not only suggesting shops in the vicinity where a replacement might be found, but also offering to be her guide and adviser until ...”

“... will. Hubbard (Hubby), hastily putting up storm windows, smashed his thumb and needed stitches. Rose was overcharged for an oil change. Fred’s neighbours called the police over his big slobbery dogs. Franny, not looking, backed her car into a hydrant. Floyd lost his new girlfriend, not to mention his credit cards, to a complete stranger. No piece of ...”

“... concern for the disadvantaged has not exactly endeared him to the Conservative Central Office. As Norman Tebbit replied, in words reminiscent of Walter Bagehot, it is not surprising that the Prince is so sympathetic towards the unemployed: he is by way of being one of them himself. All this is indicative of a deeper change in perceptions of royalty that has ...”

“... French language to get away with iconoclastic pornography – that is, if you take it seriously. Norman Mailer gets away with it by clowning; so does Burroughs. Acker makes the mistake of taking herself seriously here, as though ‘ultimate outrage’ were not a commodity being peddled by her agents and publishers as assiduously as ‘towering ...”

“... After listening to over an hour of complaints against the Police, the Deputy Chief Constable rose and said: ‘We are not on the side of the Government or the NUM. We are in the middle and we don’t wish to be there.’ He asked the villagers whether they would not admit that there were wrongdoers among them. He then gave an apology and promised to ...”