‘305. ARGUMENT FROM MONTY PYTHON
(1) Graham Chapman appeared in a film that made fun of Jesus.
(2) Graham Chapman died of a horrible, incurable disease.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
(3a) And has no sense of humor.’

‘I think today’s comic books are perfect reflections of their times: conservative, unambitious and self-congratulatory. A howling lack of imagination or direction runs through the mainstream, but that’s about to change. It’s easy to sense the upcoming wave. Reading most comics today is like wearing dad’s slippers and smoking his pipe – it’s an illicit thrill to be sure but not much of one…’

• Independent Obituary: ‘…she certainly did not mind discussing with me her relations with Hitler and his various henchmen, and her time in prison. She knew Hitler intimately as a friend, describing him, almost with tears in the eyes, as a man of unusual sensitivity and tenderness (“You should have seen his hands, the delicacy, the beauty of them, and, oh Jim, his blue eyes . . .”), who hated cruelty (“He cannot have known what went on in the concentration camps” and “I know for an absolute fact that he never watched the films taken of the deaths by hanging with piano wire of the abortive putsch on his life in 1944”).’
• Diana Mosley, Unrepentantly Nazi and Effortlessly Charming … ‘The death of Diana Mosley brings to an end one of the most curious questions of British upper-class etiquette: how does one deal socially with an unrepentant Nazi?’
• The Myth of the Mitfords … ‘A starring appearance at a Nazi rally might be thought a difficult thing to live down, but Lady Mosley – or “Lady Diana Mosley”, as she somewhat oddly insisted on calling herself – contrived to manage it. Much of her later life, in fact, consisted of a stalwart defence of the indefensible – or rather not, as she seemed never to have experienced the slightest qualm that she had anything to be ashamed of.’

‘[Flagg!] succeeded because it was worth the work. The complex subplots involving Brazil, Chicago, and Mars built to a series of meaningful major storylines, which drove home the moral points of the series. The characters were interesting, layered, and mostly likable, even if they were hard to keep straight sometimes. And the whole series added up to a complex commentary on patriotism, greed, and the flawed nature of heroic human beings, all of which became clearer the more you read (and reread). The first year, in particular, still functions as a terrific novel when read in one gulp — all the plot threads build to a harsh, violent climax.’