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“... me? The fields are mined and the night is long; Stick with me when the shooting starts. Richard Murphy is not a reckless poet. Those who rate him surely rate him much too highly. Ted Hughes compliments him with the anti-reckless word ‘classical’ and with ‘the gift of epic objectivity’, and Seamus Heaney praises his ‘poised and appeased ...”

“... There were many wonderful running jokes in the first few years of ‘Cruiskeen Lawn’, the Irish Times column written, on and off, for almost a quarter of a century by Flann O’Brien (or, if you prefer, Myles na Gopaleen, or Brian O’Nolan). My favourite has always been the catechism of cliché. When things are few, what also are they? Far between ...”

“... Dan Quayle, blamed that eruption of violence on the eponymous heroine of the television sitcom Murphy Brown, who was ‘mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another “lifestyle choice” ’. In the next episode of the show, Candice Bergen, playing the fictional ...”

“... like the idea that people have to be tricked into reading poetry – or bribed. According to Neil Astley, the volume’s editor, the second pivotal cinema moment for the renaissance of poetry in the popular imagination is the bit in Four Weddings and a Funeral when John Hannah reads Auden’s ‘Funeral Blues’ over Simon Callow’s coffin. Astley ...”

“... was seen in the sky over West London for the first time in late June 1969. Less than a month later Neil Armstrong stepped from Apollo 11 onto the moon. The future had arrived. It was tangible, it was thrilling, it was now. We came to believe that we were all part of an adventure without end. This was just the beginning, the new beginning. What we didn’t ...”

“... a hope rather than a reality. Even at its most functional, Corbyn’s office was chaotic. Karie Murphy, to whom Corbyn eventually outsourced much of his decision-making, is said by one staffer to have declared: ‘This is a left-wing collective. There’s no one leader.’ Murphy insists that she never exceeded Corbyn’s ...”

“... Motors could buy Delaware if DuPont were willing to sell it,’ Ralph Nader said. As Tim Murphy wrote last year in Mother Jones, ‘the state’s centre of gravity began to shift from the world of chemicals to the big business of other people’s business – banking, accounting, law and telemarketing.’ Delaware is suited for this: a chancery court ...”

“... destined to go down in infamy – and sneered at the ‘Kinnock dynasty’ and ‘their ilk’ (Neil opposed the Bennites as Labour leader in the 1980s and has supported the moves against Corbyn; his son, Stephen, was one of those who resigned from Corbyn’s shadow administration). Christine Shawcroft, a member of the NEC, attacked the decision to suspend ...”

“... with many writers, especially Mordecai Richler; now Moore became friends with Philip Roth and Neil Simon. They divided their time between Manhattan and Long Island. Moore won prizes, sold movie rights and began to achieve a sort of fame, but he lived in those years in a world he grew to distrust: ‘I lived in Greenwich Village ... and I noticed that the ...”

“... travelled from there into the common areas and the stairwell. In Flat 111 on the 14th floor, Denis Murphy, 56, dialled 999 and was told to stay inside his flat and that firefighters would soon reach him. He called his brother at 1.30 and left a message saying there was black smoke everywhere. People could have made for the stairs at that point, but they were ...”