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“... A major in the Royal Anglian Regiment talks to Tony Parker about battle: I’ve only been in that kind of situation where someone’s been shooting at me, a total of about twelve times altogether – in Ireland, in Aden, and we had a couple of dust-ups with the Eoka lot in Cyprus. You get a little bit of headiness out of the situation, you do, because that’s what you’ve been trained for ...”

“... Shipbuilders was created by the first Wilson government – the book has a treacherous preface by Tony Benn – out of the wreckage of the old Fairfields yard. In 1971 it was allowed to go ‘bankrupt’ by the Heath Government. The work-force responded with unexpected spirit, occupied the yards as a ‘work-in’, and mobilised much support throughout ...”

“... This is just to indicate that the books have not been ordered by the literary imagination of a Tony Parker (or indeed of Dinnage’s own writing). Particular contributions are well worth reading: in Houlbrooke, for instance, Lucinda McCray Beier on ‘The Good Death in 17th-Century England’, Jennifer Leaney on the emergence of cremation in the 19th ...”

“... whose victims have yet to be identified – was a much more modern serial killer than Sutcliffe. Tony Parker’s excellent book indirectly offers important insight into the phenomenon of serial murder. As Joel Norris remarks, it is the ‘weight’ of the crime that undoes most murderers – the weight of their guilt, and, in the vast majority of ...”

“... his memoirs. This allows Amis to parody the hard-man autobiographies turned out by the likes of Tony Parker and ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser (his acknowledged sources). The dictation device also allows him to crack such jokes as ‘I hadn’t been out for long when I was fancied for a murder [click] which I fucking done [click].’ Crazy ‘Jo’, it turns ...”

“... filled this kind of slot, beginning in 1947, when they commissioned the Labour MP John Parker and the Conservative MP Quintin Hogg, now Lord Hailsham, to produce books of a couple of hundred pages each. ‘When the manuscripts were received,’ the publishers were forced to reveal, ‘it was found that while Mr ...”

“... with Dickens and the Romantic poets, and it is now happening with Jane Austen. Not that Tony Tanner’s study is wilfully abstract or – except for his use of the unnecessary term ‘discourse’ – filled with modern jargon. It is, on the contrary, one of the most readable books yet to appear on Jane Austen, as well as the most interesting in ...”

“... Isherwood returned the tepid compliment, 12 years later, with a script for the Tony Richardson production of The Loved One. The movie regularly makes the lists of alltime turkeys. Would that my enemy had written a book and I might adapt it for the screen. The stock of the various members of the Auden Gang has fluctuated over the ...”

“... the T-shirt was, though he recognised the champagne. In his best moments, he’s a reverse Dorothy Parker, curving another déclaration folle into the back of the net. ‘We’re definitely going to get Brooklyn christened,’ he said, ‘but we don’t know into which religion.’ The laughter peters out though when you consider his blithe willingness to lend ...”

“... that Ronnie Kray did shock him. Just once. An unforgettable occasion. A motor eased alongside Tony at the corner of Blythe Street, Bethnal Green. Ron and Reg were inside, keeping company with a known associate, Dickie Morgan. Reg was nicely cased in a blue three-piece by Woods of Kingsland Road. Dickie matched him. (The Twins were very influential that ...”

“... over Latin verse, to produce objects which indicated a social setting of relative leisure. Rozsika Parker’s book, which sets out to show how feminine expression was channelled by the stereotype of the girl with her needle, never actually asks what the artistic purpose of the work was, but has much to say about how it came to be a demonstration of upper-class ...”

“... of The Sopranos, oral sex performed by a man on a woman is a shameful secret for the man, and when Tony Soprano jibes his uncle Junior about it, Junior mulls a hit on his nephew. The path from menacing comedy – for giving his secret away, Junior smashes a lemon meringue pie into his girlfriend’s face – to outright menace is braided with a parallel story ...”

“... and Charlie were driving £2,631,684 in mail bags to Leather-slade Farm on 8 August 1963, with Tony Bennett singing ‘The Good Life’ on the radio. When Buster Edwards hanged himself last year and I rang Bruce Reynolds for a comment (an explanation, if there can ever be such a thing) he referred me to Alvarez and The Savage God. Reynolds was always the ...”

“... for the arrangements. And overseeing the whole enterprise alongside Bowie was his manager, Tony Defries, whose taste and talent for theatrical gestures rivalled Bowie’s own. The metamorphosis couldn’t stop at Ziggy Stardust: butterflies, as Bowie realised but his friend and rival Marc Bolan didn’t, are ephemeral. Five years later, when Bowie made ...”

“... Social Exclusion Unit began to inject millions of pounds into the worst ‘problem estates’. Tony Blair pioneered the public-private partnerships that operate today, whereby estates are demolished and council tenants rehoused in ‘social rented’ properties administered by housing associations, while developers plug the funding gap for new houses by ...”