I've long had something of a fixation with "Last of the Summer Wine". Partially it's a love of the landscape where it's filmed, partlally it's because I've always had a fondness for comedy perfomers of yesteryear (something that the show has always delivered on) and partially because Roy Clarke is surprisingly sometimes a beautiful writer of dialogue. Simon Armitage in "All Points North" rather demolishes the sub Alan Bennettisms of a lot of Clegg's dialogue, but funny as that is it does rather underestimate some of Clarke's skill with words. The prose in this otherwise predominantly photo book demonstrates this wonderfully. Ostensibly it's extracts from letters from Clegg to his Polish pen pal Tad and there's a lovely, melancholic beauty to some of it. I was actually rather moved by it at times. Clegg has always been the quiet heart of the series and this book allows Clarke to move away from the usual bossy Seymour/ foolish Compo plots of the time and to the lyricism of some of the earlier episodes. Read the sequence where Clegg tells Tad about his relationship with his long dead wife and then try and dismiss the series as merely three old men falling down a hill. I *dare* you... ( )