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“... For God’s sake bring me a large Scotch. What a bloody awful country.’ Visiting Northern Ireland as home secretary in 1970, Reginald Maudling, whose mellow moderation verged on a slothful desire for an easy life, was understandably exasperated by the Ulster problem – but no more so than a long line of politicians, before and since. Churchill – not so easily depicted as a faint-heart – lamented in the aftermath of the First World War that, while the cataclysm had transformed the rest of Europe, the Ulster question remained as intractable as ever and politicians would once more have to pay attention to the ‘dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone ...”

“... on the US being willing to sacrifice, say, Chicago for Birmingham. The belief was borne out by Kennedy’s decision during the Cuban Missile Crisis to modify the US/Nato nuclear command and control system: he insisted that should the US attack Cuba and the Soviets retaliate with nuclear strikes on Europe, the US could not retaliate in turn without ...”

“... asked for it, no? I take these examples from the cases of Ludlow (the first two), Sulkowicz and Liam Allan respectively.† Each opens a door into the murky world of sexuality, where all bets are off, where desire can flare up and be followed by a change of heart in the space of a single breath. Such moments may indeed give us pause. But it is the elation ...”