POST SCRIPT

Forgot to put this bit in yesterday. McCall Smith also delved on sentences, paragraphs and the like.

At one point, he spoke of excessive words often without pauses. Referring to Marcel Proust he pointed to the joy of lengthy sentences. He uttered these words with such conviction that it has to be tried to be believed:
"You can print out a Proust paragraph and if you were to cut it without pausing you could actually wrap a wine bottle twice."

I haven't tried it, but the next time I'm out of gift wrapper, I know I only have to reach out for my Proust. Enlightenment all round.