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“... year before Bonnie and Clyde; he will have been eight when Chinatown appeared, and ten or so when David Bowie recorded the song that gives this book its title. Specktor’s mother was a screenwriter whose career was short-lived; later she was a drinker who snarled at her son for asking her to stop. By then she was divorced from his father, who was a leading ...”

“... colleagues. They were horrified by the progress of philosophical scepticism, exemplified by David Hume, which they saw as corroding the foundations of Christian faith. Reid, in An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the Principles of Common Sense of 1764, argued in response that ‘there are certain principles … which the constitution of our nature leads ...”

“... Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat ...”

“... is that first step to be achieved? Among Palestinians there is unanimous condemnation of the Camp David accords and the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty that stems from them. They are seen as an attempt by Egypt, Israel and the United States, acting in concert, to trim down the question of Palestine and perhaps even to make it disappear altogether. In the ...”

“... hubris. He could have come to believe, along with Julie Burchill, who kicks in an Introduction to Vital Signs, Penman’s eclectic retrievals from time lost, that he had become a ‘signature’. A logo. A mark. A neon sign that culture buffs will chase without worrying too much what he is writing about. One of those elephantine Hunter ...”

“... is the story, told in Philip Hoare’s 1995 biography, of Coward’s visit to the Court to see David Storey’s grittily realistic Rugby League play The Changing Room. His attention having been drawn to the male genitalia on display in the bath scene, Coward remarked: ‘13 acorns are not worth the price of admission.’ ‘Not worth the price of ...”

“... on both sides of the Atlantic. Dressed in a carefully chosen series of gowns – by Deirdre David’s report, the wardrobe consisted of black or red velvet for the tragedies, white or pastel satin for the comedies, and dark green or blue brocade for the history plays – and with no props other than a large reading desk, some piled-up books and a pair ...”

“... mathematician John von Neumann. He was a helpless genius, who laid down principles that were vital in the development of computers, game theory and our understanding of evolution (he was a father to fathers), and in the decision at Los Alamos to use implosion for the Bomb. I don’t think Oppie understood that strategic shift: he didn’t have to, he was ...”

“... that Prince Charles is reflective or self-aware enough to have grasped this sad, simple and vital truth. To be sure, we are repeatedly informed that he is drawn to history, nostalgia, heritage and tradition. But the first of these is not easily reconciled with the rest. Despite having read history at Cambridge, the Prince’s sense of the past is, like ...”

“... the assassination attempt on the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge, held up planning and decision-making at a vital stage; the First World War brought building almost to a standstill; and the subsequent commissions of inquiry imposed further and drastic economies. As a result, the city took 19 years to build, and was occupied by the British for only another 16: by the ...”

“... is usually interpreted in the light of his subsequent assertion that it expresses emotions as ‘vital’ to him ‘in 1917, faced with the infinite and ineffable imbecility of the British Empire, as they were to Propertius some centuries earlier, when faced with the infinite and ineffable imbecility of the Roman Empire’.* These are virtual narratives, the ...”

“... whole seem to care, what is being kept from us. That is rather special; and a major factor, claims David Vincent in this path-breaking book, in our governance. It can have ludicrous effects. One was the refusal to acknowledge that we had any ‘secret services’: until recently, MI5 and MI6 had no official existence. Questions about them in Parliament were ...”

“... destroy them as a political force in the process. Up went tuition fees, and out went Nick Clegg. David Cameron was the salesman, Clegg was the punch-bag, but Osborne was the one pulling the strings. Whenever he became the focus of attention, as he did after his ‘omnishambles’ budget in 2012, his lack of presentational skills came close to being his ...”

“... life. None of the judges seems to have been able fully to grasp the force of an argument made by David Harris QC on behalf of Rosie: ‘John Locke’s assertion that "every man has a property in his own person. This no body has any right to but himself” . . . is difficult to apply in the case of conjoined twins.’ I have looked again at the photograph on ...”

“... him to the end of his days, it earned him the rank of Lieutenant-General and – the truly vital point – brought him into personal contact with Tsar Alexander for the first time (at Memel in April 1807). The Tsar was impressed by the forthright views of this unknown soldier, and sent his personal surgeon to tend his wounds. After the fresh disaster ...”