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“... for putting small change on, the tram paraded uphill over the brown coins, with us in the gateway ready to scatter if the tram stopped, the conductor got out! Coins squashed flat and now bigger than English pennies, often flattened and twisted, no elk on them then but the good old king. Tramlines and cycling! I once went flying in front of the teacher, it was ...”

“... There​ is a striking photograph of Ambassador Maisky, elegantly dressed in a three-piece suit, balding on top as distinguished diplomats often are, standing in front of a life-size portrait of Stalin, who is wearing a simple army jacket. The photo is from the late 1930s, probably taken after Maisky was rebuked by Moscow for not keeping enough Stalin icons in his London embassy ...”

“... in a two-thirds majorityover the whites, their only democracy.It’s unjust, but they’re not ready for any other.As Miss Marguerite Roby said in her recent book:‘It is conceivable that the coloured man in Central Africawould be happier if left entirely to himself;but the march of progress is not to be arrestedand when the conquering white enters a ...”

“... attitudes and values. It appears that, like the concept of public service itself, they were ready for decent burial, so that their place could be taken by people and ideas younger, classless and professional. As one worked with Greene on the problems that crowded in day by day, it didn’t seem as simple or as dismissive as that. He had close Tory ...”

“... before they’re due to open at the Grand Theatre, Weston-Super-Mare, and they’re nowhere near ready. Act Two (or, as the script has it, the second Act One, since we don’t see any more of Nothing On) takes place backstage halfway through the run; Act Three, on stage again, is the calamitous last night in Stockton-on-Tees. It’s a virtuoso piece of ...”

“... acquaintanceship is in dispute. The most tender of Flaubert’s affairs? Or a non-affair? Hermia Oliver believes that Juliet was ‘almost certainly’ Flaubert’s mistress: but the present book, a record of indefatigable research and meagre revelations, is stuffed with ‘probably’s’, ‘may’s’, ‘if’s’ and ‘just possible’s’, a case of ...”

“... enviable knack of turning problems into solutions.’ About William Temple he writes: ‘a jovial, Oliver Hardy figure, with an appetite not merely for carbohydrates, but for social martyrdom’. About the Bloomsbury group: ‘the influence of Bloomsbury had reached upwards and downwards by the 1930s to embrace almost the entire political nation. Among the ...”

“... who share local radio time with country-music strummers, all thump out the message: Be Rapture Ready and, if you are left behind, be sure to be on God’s side in the great battle to come. American evangelicals, with their congregational instinct, have been alert to the usefulness of the World Wide Web. On his site, www.raptureready.com, Todd Strandberg ...”

“... says. Weeds follow the spade and the plough and flourish under open skies on broken soil. Oliver Rackham, in his History of the Countryside, says that many weeds ‘could not survive in the wild: they cannot withstand shade and have little power of competition’. They are, in the most general sense, unwanted plants, an uncultivated horde that invades ...”

“... with a ‘properly compiled list’. Buy orange-label, go to Lidl instead of Waitrose, avoid ready meals, BOGOF, nasty things like economy mince (even the Sainsbury’s copywriters couldn’t think of a nice thing to say about theirs). Eat seasonally: ‘it’s fashionable, it’s thrifty.’ ‘Bottled water has had its day.’ Other bits are sensible ...”

“... exotic disease and, not unnaturally, employed and exploited it in various ways. He had not been ready to give up his Tourette’s and (I cannot help thinking) might never have been ready without those three months of intense preparation, of tremendously hard and concentrated deep analysis and thought. The past nine ...”

“... both when Frank died of TB in 1918. Fowler didn’t create the need for Fowler; its niche was ready-made. He knew the public craved a dictator to lay down the laws of usage. Bad grammar had always been construed as a sign of bad character, since grammar shades into linguistic style and from there to etiquette and even morality. McMorris quotes a review of ...”

“... too? In one respect Gwyn’s scepticism about faction is well-founded. Historians can be too ready to explain the promotions and demotions of politicians by reference to their connections or opinions rather than to their capacities. Kings and ministers need able men to work for them. Government can function only if men of opposing interests can learn to ...”

“... By what authority do you ask me these things?’ Richard (‘Beau’) Nash was at a loss for a ready reply. The ‘King of Bath’, as he liked to be known, was the gamester son of a Swansea bottlemaker, a heavyweight playboy whose abundant assurance, or chutzpah, had qualified him to act as arbiter of elegance at a rowdy Bethesda not yet marked out for ...”

“... whose execution in 1724 drew a crowd of two hundred thousand people. Nor is there any testament to Oliver Cromwell, whose remains, along with those of two other regicides, were disinterred after the Restoration, and hanged at Tyburn in a posthumous execution. The Tyburn Tree plaque seems even more modest when compared with the elephantine public sculptures ...”