Exceedingly good writing

On the eve of the centenary of the First World War, I rather like Andrew Lycett's piece on Rudyard Kipling in the Telegraph. I re-read a fair bit of Kipling earlier this year, when I was working on a book about The Last Post, and it's still remarkably good stuff.

I would note, though, that it's not true that Kipling 'personally paid for Last Post to be played every night at the Menin Gate at Ypres'. He paid for a bugler to sound the call every night at the cemetery in Loos, where his son was killed.