The truth about journalism is that almost none of it keeps

Unless I am much mistaken, obituarists and tribute-writers have this week been poring over the Fleet Street archives, beset by a difficulty as unexpected as it has been puzzling. We have been looking for brilliant, extended passages of the late Bernard Levin’s writing to offer modern readers a sample (and older readers a reminder) of the work of a man who we all agree was one of the 20th century’s greatest British columnists.

We remember his greatness. We recall the thrill as Bernard laid into the idiots and idiocies of the age. How we wished we’d said that! How we wished we had his courage, his effrontery, his learning, his mental treasury of quotation, his gift of language. Time and again Levin found the words to say what, once we had read him, we knew we thought already but had somehow failed to express.

What was it — jog my memory — he wrote about the Gas Board? It slips the mind but it was spot on.