Books: Tribute to PG Wodehouse

• Lord Emsworth. The barmy old ninth Earl is a veritable delight.

• Angus McAllister. The castle`s Head Gardner, with his radical views on hollyhocks and yews, has some side-splitting face-offs with Lord Emsworth.

• Rupert Baxter. Can one love Baxter? Well, you definitely love that he always gets what`s coming to him.

• He had just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more.

• “What ho!” I said.

“What ho!” said Motty.

“What ho! What ho!”

“What ho! What ho! What ho!”

After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.”

• A certain critic — for such men, I regret to say, do exist — made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained ‘all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.’ He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.

• When you need to indulge in a spell of helpless giggles.

• When you need to run away from grim reality.

• When you need to read a master craftsman of words/sentences/ turns of phrase, a man who takes the most wafer-thin of plots and makes of it a rollicking read.