The broken-backed "f "

"One of my most loved books -- I return to it again and again -- is that classic of bibliographical detection, a thousandfold more exciting than anything Agatha Christie and her kind ever penned, the majestically entitled An Enquiry into the Nature of Certain Nineteenth Century Pamphlets by John Carter and Graham Pollard, which nailed one of the greatest bookmen in British history, Thomas J. Wise, as a forger, a swindler, and a thief.  The detection, however, was only made possible because the detectives were versed in every detail of bibliography, printing and the book trade; a lover of books and books' integrity can find tears in his eyes when contemplating the plate between pp. 58 and 59 of An Enquiry, in which the famous 'broken-backed f ', with its missing kern, brought nearer the solution of the mystery."

"Going by the Book"  The Times Saturday Review  Bernard Levin

Farming with the Goughs

"In lazy sweeps, the crow-like chough
Returns to nest across the lough.
The farmer with asthmatic cough
Walks down the pathway, sometimes through
A valley where the wind may sough
Its music over many bough.
His wife prepares the Sunday dough,
While Bert, their son, whose hands are rough,
Gets ready to hitch up the plough."

attrib. George Bernard Shaw?
(quoted by Mr John William in a letter to The Times)

The duty of the artist

"to face the void without flinching, to declare that the world will yet be saved, and to weave their single strand of the great rope that holds the universe together."

Bernard Levin,  The Times, 17 December 1983.

A greedy Alphabet

 "To the enjoyment of the pictures, appreciation of the text was soon added, as thanks to the brilliant educational methods of my mother I learned to read at a very tender age.  Her system, simple as it was effective, was based on a chocolate alphabet.  This was spread out twice a week on the dining-room table and such letters as I recognised I was allowed to eat; later, when my knowledge of this alphabet was faultless, I was entitled to such letters as I could form into a new word.   Although never strong in arithmetic I soon grasped the simple fact that the longer the word the more the chocolate, and by the time I could spell 'suffragette' without an error this branch of my education was deemed complete and a tendency to biliousness had become increasingly apparent.

Once  my ability was firmly established I read everything on which I could lay my hands,  from The Times leaders to the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer."

All Done from Memory  Osbert Lancaster