"We have vaccines, some kind of road map, and spring. English asparagus has arrived!"
"She got up at the end and – wiping tears from her eyes – said it was the best day of her life"
"Spoots - you've heard of them, right? Don't lie, you haven't"
"Eurovision parties, the kind an erstwhile partner hosts every year, complete with scorecards and flags, are an acquired taste"
"Beatific nymphs pose beneath the stained-glass ceilings, floral floor ceramics and peacock wall panels sing in harmony"
"This is the 50s. The real thing, not a pastiche"
"When told, drop everything and get the hell out, fast"
"Dinner starts proper with the world's oddest signature dish …"
"There's a shimmer in the wallpaper that speaks of a more familiar, outré Soho, than secret wartime plotting"
"Not that long ago, all this would have been the stuff of fantasy, the area's origins lost and gone, strangled by squalor"
