How do artists make self-portraits? When we look in a mirror the image is laterally inverted and we do not see ourselves as others see us. So are we seeing a true image of the artist?

Speaking as an artist, your question doesn't make much sense. An artist will have some kind of technical ability to be able to produce work, but the creative process also comprises their own taste, style and experience. A self-portrait would involve a combination of all these factors; but, most importantly, you'll find artists aren't interested in what others see, only what they themselves see. Many artists use two mirrors (one reflects into the other) and therefore can see themselves the right way round if they so wish.

chickenelly

There is the practical problem of literally seeing oneself, but these days it is relatively simple to view a photo that shows you as others see you. Whether you are seeing a "true image of the artist"is an entirely different matter. You might just as well ask: "If two artists create a representation of a particular object, which is the 'true image?'"

torinesi

When you look in a mirror your left hand is on the left side of your reflection. When someone else stands facing you, your left hand is on the right side as they look at you. So when you look in a mirror the image is not laterally inverted, but when you are facing a person you laterally invert them by the action of turning around to face them. But perhaps one is saying that the image in the mirror is laterally inverted with respect to how someone would normally see you.

ThermoStat

What is the best last line of a novel?

"They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and in shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted, and chafed, and made their usual uproar."  Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit.

David Amery, East London

For me it would be hard to surpass this, from Samuel Beckett's 1953 novel The Unnamable. It is succinct, poignant and filled with pathos, yet is an exhortation of the need for survival. It is a profound metaphor on human existence: "I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on."

Brian Mendes, London SE23

My all-time favourite is: "Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out", but it's from a short story by Arthur C Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God.

jno50

Great and depressing last line: "But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." George Orwell's 1984.

Jbrag

"It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan." Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.

DoctorKie

One of my favourites is from Charles Bukowski's Post Office: "In the morning it was morning and I was still alive. Maybe I'll write a novel, I thought. And then I did."

catrionalexy

"Phew – what a day!" James Joyce's Ulysses [perhaps].

bennetmarco

Who discovered clams are happy?And why aren't cockles?

It's an Americanism and the full saying is "happy as a clam at high tide". At low tide one goes gathering clams, but at high tide they are safe from being harvested. Cockles, on the other hand, are a British thing. In America the only cockles we talk about are the cockles of one's heart, and we really have no idea what those are. "Clam" is the American term for any edible bivalve mollusc thingy. (Sometimes we call them mussels).

hepkitten

I always thought clams were happy because they have such a big smile when their shells are closed.

hamletsghost

Any answers?

I was amazed to hear that Worzel Gummidge will be starring in a film. Which other TV favourites are ripe for the Hollywood treatment?

Jane Reynolds, Manchester

In August 2010 I dropped a message in a bottle into the channel halfway between Plymouth and Roscoff. Where is it likely to be now?

Richard Bates, Penzance

Is there a finite number of recipes?

Joan Bakewell, London NW1

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