This is the allusionist in which I Helen Salzman, when a hamper full of language at the village

feet. On with the show.

The first time I heard of Grophology, the analysis of someone's character through their handwriting,

I was aged about ten and I had a charity shop book called the Complete Book of Fortune. I read

with interest and mild cynicism about how the layout of your moles reveals your personality,

about divination from egg whites who've left out for 24 hours, and that it's a portent of terrible

times ahead if you dream of a walnut. The Grophology chapter of this book didn't amount to much more

than if your line of handwriting slopes upwards, you're an optimist, if it slopes down, you're a pessimist,

if it goes up and down and up and down, you're unstable. So that was my first exposure to Grophology,

my second exposure was in tabloids every so often when they'd allowed a Grophologist to analyse

the handwriting of serial killers. Well, it was a bit of a giveaway when he signed his name Ted Vundy.

Let me warn you listeners, when you are revealed to be a serial killer, whatever your handwriting is like,

it will be interpreted to have been riddled with warning signs. So yeah, I didn't take Grophology

all that seriously. It's known as a pseudo-science. And perhaps Nordic Adam Brand, who has been a

Grophologist for 20 years. I mean, it goes back to the 19th century when I think it was a sort of

joke subject people did and it's had that image, therefore it's been difficult to be taken seriously.

How do you feel about that? Well, that doesn't worry me. I mean, if people find it a lightweight

subject, that's that's up to them, but there's so much more to it than people realise, it may not be

something they can absolutely nail down with a scientific test, but I think it's got tremendous value,

but to prove something is scientific is not easy. So I say it's a useful art.

A lot of countries do take Grophology quite seriously. Russia, Switzerland, Israel for instance.

As a practice, it's modern European incarnation first took hold in France. When in 1816, Edward Hocker

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