The Pendulum Years: Britain in the Sixties

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He became an important figure on BBCs late Saturday-night satire show, That Was The Week That Was, and later on its less renowned successor, Not So Much A Programme More A Way Of Life. He and Cyril Ray used to shout abuse at each other across the office, with such insults as "little Jewish runt".

He concludes by touching on mystery and spirituality, and the things, whether they be natural or man made, that make you catch your breath and 'provide a momentary glimpse into the infinite'.

Levin's regular pieces in The Times and later the Spectator commenting on everything, from the latest Royal Opera House production of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutti to milk jiggers in motorway service stations, made him the literary equivalent of Boxer. Alan was forever arguing some involved point; Bernard, always capable of doing two things at once, would be contesting the point while correcting proofs. Born in London into a Jewish family of Lithuanian extraction in 1928, Levin was educated at Christ's Hospital and the London School of Economics, where he later became an honorary fellow. Levin was invited to appear regularly on BBC television's new weekly late-night satirical revue, That Was the Week That Was, where he delivered monologues to camera about his pet hates and conducted interviews, appearing as "a tiny figure taking on assorted noisy giants in debate".

For a man of such erudition who took so passionate an interest in literature and had so consuming a feeling for music, he had surprisingly little visual taste. Levin reviewed television for the Manchester Guardian and wrote a weekly political column in The Spectator noted for its irreverence and influence on modern parliamentary sketches. Macnutt was a strict, even bullying, teacher, and was feared rather than loved by his pupils, but Levin learned Classics well, and acquired a lifelong fondness for placing Latin tags and quotations in his writing.

The prosecutor, Mervyn Griffith-Jones, famously made himself look foolish by asking the jury if they would want their wives or servants to read the book. Briefly, after graduation in 1952, he worked as a guide on coach tours, doubtless providing the passengers with more diverse and arcane information than they had any right to expect.