For the first time, probably, since the age of the Atlantic slave trade, the majority of black Britons or their parents have come to this country directly from Africa

As well as losing sight of the more distant past our focus on the post-war story has meant that, at times, we have been slow to recognize more recent changes. Since the start of the 1980s Britain has undergone a second great wave of black migration, one that has largely gone unnoticed. This new influx lacked a single iconic moment, comparable to the docking of the Windrush in 1948, and it took place in the far less romantic settings of Gatwick and Heathrow airports, but it was in those great hubs of modern air travel that thousands of Africans arrived – despite ever stricter immigration laws. At the turn of the century West Indians still made up the majority of the UK’s black population. But, as the 2011 census revealed, between 2001 and 2011 the British African population doubled, through both migration and natural increase. For the first time, probably, since the age of the Atlantic slave trade, the majority of black Britons or their parents have come to this country directly from Africa, rather than from somewhere in the Americas.

D. Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten History (2016), loc. 9,380

Wilberforce and his supporters ... shared the pews of their little church with their greatest and most effective enemy

With funds collected from the slave owners, traders and others who had financial interests in the continuation of slavery, Hibbert built a war-chest with which he funded his activities. In our traditional telling of the history of slavery, which is so heavily focused on the abolitionists and their struggles, the men against whom the abolitionists struggled have, bizarrely, been written out of the story. With our national gaze fixed firmly on the saintly figure of William Wilberforce, George Hibbert remains a forgotten figure. Yet his association with Wilberforce runs deep, and without him this history is incomplete. Both Wilberforce and Hibbert lived in homes overlooking Clapham Common and both men worshipped at Holy Trinity, an elegant Georgian church that stands under the shade of some broad trees in one corner of the Common. Wilberforce and his supporters – the pious men of what was called the Clapham Sect and sometimes the Clapham Saints – shared the pews of their little church with their greatest and most effective enemy. There are no records of services being disrupted of passions spilling over. While the names of the Clapham Saints are engraved into a stone plaque fixed into the walls of Holy Trinity, George Hibbert is notably absent. Whereas the home that Wilberforce shared with his cousin Henry Thornton is proudly and rightly stamped with a blue heritage plaque, the elegant town house that once belonged to George Hibbert is unmarked and anonymous.

D. Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten History (2016), loc. 4,044

Philip did not invoke the so-called ‘Salic Law’

Even so, the assembly’s decision was not unreasonable. Made to choose between a little girl of dubious parentage supported by the lord of a far-off territory, on the one hand, and an adult man of certain pedigree who was now anointed with the heavenly chrism, on the other, they understandably approved Philip accession. But they also recognized Philip’s eight-month-old son Louis-Philip as heir to the realm. That act transformed what might have been a one-off decision into an enduring principle. ‘And so,’ concluded the chroniclers at Saint-Denis, ‘it was declared that women do not succeed in the kingdom of France.’ A verdict of monumental importance, the consequences of this flat denial of a woman’s right to rule France have echoed down the centuries, even to the present day. But opposition lingered, for Philip’s claim, said a chronicler, ‘could not be easily proven’. Indeed, there was no proof. Philip did not invoke the so-called ‘Salic Law’, a long-defunct sixth-century legal compilation which had little relevance to the case at hand. The first such reference to the Salic Law did not come until forty years later, and it was rarely cited until the fifteenth century. Unsubstantiated as well as unprecedented, Philip’s power-play worried some people and angered others.

J. Firnhaber-Baker, House of Lilies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France (2024), loc. 5,495

He outlawed using torture ‘even against poor people’

Louis’s approach to justice was undoubtedly advanced for his time. He outlawed using torture ‘even against poor people’ in Languedoc because it induced false confessions, and he forbade deciding cases through judicial duel in his own lands, instructing his officers to consult witnesses and documents instead of having the parties square off. But Louis made these changes not only because he wanted his courts to use a better standard of proof, but also because he abhorred violence (between Christians anyway).

J. Firnhaber-Baker, House of Lilies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France (2024), loc. 4,171

Fifteen men had sworn it was the truth, even if ten of them were suspect witnesses

‘Mala Francia! Mala Francia!’ (‘Wicked France! Wicked France!’), cried the Danish princess.1 Having spent only three months in the kingdom, Ingeborg of Denmark had as yet little French and had to fall back on Latin to express her pain and anger. Her interpreter had just translated the sentence of the bishops and barons who had assembled in the royal hall at Compiègne in November 1193 to investigate her genealogy. They had said that she could not be married to King Philip for they had found her too closely related to his first wife somehow. They were a little vague about the ‘how’ – and later they had to admit they’d made it up – but fifteen men had sworn it was the truth, even if ten of them were suspect witnesses.

J. Firnhaber-Baker, House of Lilies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France (2024), loc.2,653

The first European heretics ever to be burned alive were executed by his order and in his presence

Educated in the liberal arts by Gerbert at his mother’s direction, he knew Scripture and canon law so well that he presided over Church councils and passed judgement alongside the bishops. The first European heretics ever to be burned alive were executed by his order and in his presence. Robert was also twice divorced, constantly at war, and once tried to burn down a monastery because it was in his way. His heart was tender and his disposition kindly, but the times were less hospitable to lovers than to fighters.

J. Firnhaber-Baker, House of Lilies: The Dynasty that Made Medieval France (2024), loc.899

I tried to recall all the information I knew about love

I tried to recall all the information I knew about love. Unfortunately this information didn’t amount to much. Although more than thirteen years of my life had passed, up to that moment I’d never seen anyone in love. At that time very few books about love or descriptions of the condition of people in love had been printed. Besides, they wouldn’t have let us read any of them.

Iraj Pezeshkzad, tr. D. Davis, My Uncle Napoleon (1973), loc.248

As the D-Day landings were hitting the beach, only 36 per cent of the British people thought the government could be trusted

Even in the summer of 1944, as the D-Day landings were hitting the beach, only 36 per cent of the British people thought the government could be trusted to put the country’s interest above their own individual or party’s interest

B. Duffy, The perils of perception (2018), loc. 3,228

Countless experiments show that around 10 per cent of the public don’t understand simple percentages.

MRI studies of the brains of humans (and monkeys!) indicate that we have an inbuilt ‘number sense’, but we are particularly attuned to the numbers one, two and three, and, beyond that, to detecting large (not small) differences in comparing numbers of an object. We often fall back on these evolutionary number skills. But much of life involves calculations that are more complex than comparing the relative size of small numbers. A century ago the great science fiction writer H. G. Wells said: … endless social and political problems are only accessible and only thinkable to those who have had a sound training in mathematical analysis, and the time may not be very remote when… for complete initiation as an efficient citizen of one of the new great complex world-wide States that are now developing, it is as necessary to be able to compute, to think in averages and maxima and minima, as it is now to be able to read and write. Wells’s reference to how important mathematical understanding is to ‘endless social and political problems’ seems made for our times, but we’ve got a long way to go before we’ll completely satisfy his vision. Countless experiments show that around 10 per cent of the public don’t understand simple percentages.

For example, if you spin a coin twice, what’s the probability of getting two heads? The answer is 25 per cent, because there are four equal-probability outcomes: two heads, two tails, heads then tails and tails then heads. Worryingly, only one in four people in a nationally representative survey got this right

B. Duffy, The perils of perception (2018), loc. 325 & 340

It is not every one who has the courage to bring dogs into an expensive private hotel

It is not every one who has the courage to bring dogs into an expensive private hotel; to bring one dog indicates that you are not accustomed to deny yourself small pleasures for the sake of a few extra shillings; to bring two indicates that you have no fear of hotel-managers and that you are in the habit of regarding your own whim as nature's law.

A. Bennett, The old wives' tale (1908), 422

Chirac, like most men who have once found a woman weak, imagined that he understood women profoundly

Chirac, like most men who have once found a woman weak, imagined that he understood women profoundly. He thought of women as the Occidental thinks of the Chinese, as a race apart, mysterious but capable of being infallibly comprehended by the application of a few leading principles of psychology. Moreover he was in earnest; he was hard driven, and he was honest. He continued, respectfully obedient in withdrawing his arm:

A. Bennett, The old wives' tale (1908), 334

In pastry-making everything can be taught except the "hand,"

Constance could make good pastry, but it was not her mother's pastry. In pastry-making everything can be taught except the "hand," light and firm, which wields the roller. One is born with this hand, or without it. And if one is born without it, the highest flights of pastry are impossible. Constance was born without it. There were days when Sophia seemed to possess it; but there were other days when Sophia's pastry was uneatable by any one except Maggie. Thus Mrs. Baines, though intensely proud and fond of her daughters, had justifiably preserved a certain condescension towards them. She honestly doubted whether either of them would develop into the equal of their mother

A. Bennett, The old wives' tale (1908), 28

You cannot eat a meal in decency without the aid of the Five Towns

They are unique and indispensable. From the north of the county right down to the south they alone stand for civilization, applied science, organized manufacture, and the century—until you come to Wolverhampton. They are unique and indispensable because you cannot drink tea out of a teacup without the aid of the Five Towns; because you cannot eat a meal in decency without the aid of the Five Towns.

A. Bennett, The old wives' tale (1908), 2

And if you have no word for blue, how can you see it?

Since then a more sober explanation has taken hold as the orthodoxy. Analysis of the way in which languages produce words for different colours has revealed that the process is surprisingly consistent, throughout the world and throughout history. In 1969, linguist Paul Kay and anthropologist Brent Berlin published Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution. It offered, among others, one pertinent hypothesis. If a language had only three basic colour categories, they were almost always words for black/dark, white/light and red. If it had four or five categories, then the additional words tended to refer to green or yellow. Only once a language had six or more basic colour categories did you begin to see more complex colours given their own word. Among those was the colour that we would call blue. In the view of Kay and Berlin, Homer’s Greek didn’t have a word for blue. Colour exists on a spectrum; what isn’t obvious is how you break that spectrum down into different categories. Where does one colour stop, if you don’t have words to describe the two colours either side of the barrier? And if you have no word for blue, how can you see it?

N. Leamon & B. Jones, Hitting Against the Spin: How Cricket Really Works (2021), loc.4,454

Standard deviation ... has fallen steadily year on year and decade on decade

You can see a very clear example of this in baseball. Scoring levels have stayed relatively constant in baseball for 100 years. A good batting average in the 1930s is still a good batting average. But if you look at the standard deviation (a measure of variance, of how spread out the individual scores are) of players’ batting averages by season, it has fallen steadily year on year and decade on decade. Players have collectively averaged the same, but the averages of the best and the averages of the worst each year have got closer and closer together.

N. Leamon & B. Jones, Hitting Against the Spin: How Cricket Really Works (2021), loc.2,338

In county cricket, 81 per cent of balls are bowled at slower than 82 mph

In county cricket, 81 per cent of balls are bowled at slower than 82 mph, and almost no deliveries are above 88 mph. Compare that to Test cricket, where over 60 per cent of the balls bowled are over 82 mph and 17 per cent are over 88 mph. We also move from bouncers making up 4 per cent of balls bowled in county cricket, to nearly three times that many in Test cricket (11 per cent).

N. Leamon & B. Jones, Hitting Against the Spin: How Cricket Really Works (2021), loc.827

You should not be allowed to remove a rule or a tradition unless and until you fully understand the reasons why it was first put in place, and all the effects that its presence has

There was once a man who had a long way to walk to work, and every day he had to go well out of his way because a large hedge blocked the most direct route. Every day he walked over a mile further in the morning, and again on his way home in the evening because the hedge was in his way. Day after day, he looked at the hedge and thought, If that hedge wasn’t there, I could save myself an hour of walking every day. Eventually he had had enough and decided to make a hole in the hedge so that he could walk the shorter route and save himself time. And that was the day that the bull who lived on the other side of the hedge killed him. Chesterton used the story to illustrate his principle that you should not be allowed to remove a rule or a tradition unless and until you fully understand the reasons why it was first put in place, and all the effects that its presence has.

N. Leamon & B. Jones, Hitting Against the Spin: How Cricket Really Works (2021), loc.159

We took a Germanic language and enfolded it with Norman French and a bunch of Latin and ever since we keep building out

I miss being at home in a culture. Using English with other native speakers is what I might miss most. For nuance and verve, English wins. We took a Germanic language and enfolded it with Norman French and a bunch of Latin and ever since we keep building out. Our words, our expanse of idioms, are expressive and creative and precise, like our music and our subcultures and our street style, our passion for violence, stupidity, and freedom. The French might have better novels (Balzac, Zola, and Flaubert) and they have better cheeses (Comté, Roquefort, Cabécou). But in the grand scheme that’s basically nothing.

R. Kushner, Creation lake (2024). loc 2,808

Having a good accent is nothing. It’s a consolation prize for people who aren’t fluent

I started working in Europe, in the private sector, taking advantage of the fact I speak French, Italian, Spanish, and German. I’m fluent in all those languages, although I speak them with a strong American accent. (People think fluency is about having a good accent. It isn’t. Fluency is about how well you understand the language, and how well you are able to speak it. Having a good accent is nothing. It’s a consolation prize for people who aren’t fluent.)

R. Kushner, Creation lake (2024). loc 699

Reading in bed is a precision art

Reading in bed is a precision art – knowing the right wattage, high enough to read by, low enough to fall asleep with the light still on, choosing books not for their content but for their size and weight, knowing the right position in bed so the book won’t slide off and hit the floor and wake you again.

A. Michaels, Held (2024), loc. 1,059