I Should Say So

by Bernard Levin

I Should Say So

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Henry Bernard Levin, CBE (London School of Economics, 1952) was described by the London daily The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". As political correspondent of The Spectator under the pseudonym "Taper", he became "the father of the modern parliamentary sketch," as The Guardian's Simon Hoggart put it. He went on to work as the drama critic for The Daily Express and later The Daily Mail, and appeared regularly on the satirical BBC programme, That Was The Week That Was. He joined The Times as a columnist in 1970, almost immediately provoking controversy and lawsuits, and left when the paper was taken over by Rupert Murdoch.

Reviews

[Keresaspa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll hold my hands up, I came nowhere near finishing this book as there was only so much of this self-satisfied old fart's pontifications I could bear before losing the will to carry on. An opinion on everything regardless of his lack of knowledge (he apparently believed "lager louts" to make up the bulk of Nirvana's following, for instance), Levin comes across as a man who would have happily used his own shite as toothpaste, although instead he was content to spill his intellectual diarrhoea over the pages of the fine old English Tory Times. In his day he might have been worth reading and, as already pointed out, Alzheimer's had already taken hold when he was writing these, but by the time I abandoned this load of old twaddle I found myself toasting Desmond Leslie for the hiding he dished out to Levin on That Was the Week That Was.

[Flash Sheridan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mr Levin was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease during the period covered by this book, and I’m afraid it shows in some of the later columns. Some of them show the old fire and wit, e.g., a denunciation of the repression of Tibet, but many of them are below his usual standard.