\vspace*{1cm}
\title{Snippets}
\author{}
\begin{article}
\section{\TeX\ consultant sought}
The Wellcome Trust is interested to hear from \TeX\ experts who would be
willing and able to provide technical support and consultancy to one user
on an ad-hoc basis. 

The project concerned aims to catalogue several hundred Arabic manuscripts
and software used at the moment is MS Word, em\TeX, emTeXgi and Arab\TeX\
under MS Windows 3.11. This tool-set might change with an imminent move to
Windows NT4 or could be changed if recommended.  It is foreseen that there
will be telephone inquiries as well as on-site visits. 

Interested parties should apply to The Wellcome Trust by submitting a
resume of their relevant technical experience, details of other
commitments and expected payment mode.  To find out more about the
project, please e-mail Dr Nikolai Serikoff
(\url{n.serikoff@wellcome.ac.uk}) , to apply please send the requested
information to Ms Dagmar Jeschin (\url{d.jeschin@wellcome.ac.uk} or Dagmar
Jeschin, The Wellcome Trust, 210 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE) by the
middle of August.
\section{Committee members sought: a message from Philip Taylor}
 Having now served as Chairman of \uktug\ for about nine months, I can
 without hesitation confirm that it is both an incredibly rewarding
 yet frequently frustrating experience.  Rewarding, because at first
 hand I get to see how hard the various members of the Committee work
 to make \uktug\ a better organisation; frustrating, because I see how
 much time gets wasted on the minutiae of committee work.
 
 Yet despite the frustrations, work gets done: \BV\ is edited,
 formatted, printed and distributed; new editions of the \TeX\ Live CD
 are prepared, pressed and sent out; and meetings and workshops are
 researched, planned, organised and announced.  But who does this
 work, and why?  The answer is `the members of the Committee' (aided
 and abetted by willing volunteers such as Martyn Johnson of the
 Cambridge Computer Laboratory).  And why?  Only they can tell you!
 It's hard work, and the only reward is an occasional letter from a
 member expressing his or her thanks for the work which has been done.

  But each year, a number of the Committee have to stand down.  Some
 because they have served their time, and our Constitution (blessed be
 its name) ensures that no Committee member may serve more than his or her 
 allotted time without standing down for at least one year.  Some because
 pressure of `real' work prevents them from spending the time on \uktug\
 activities that such activities demand.  
 
 And who is to replace them?  That, dear Member, is where you come in!
 Do you care about \TeX?  Do you care about \uktug?  Do you have the
 energy to attend some four to six meeting a year, and to receive some
 two thousand or more electronic mail messages a year (and to send about
 1/12 of that number yourself?).  If you do, then this is the time to
 step forwards.  A number of the present Committee will be standing
 down or retiring at the Annual General Meeting in September, and the
 remaining members of the Committee are very concerned to ensure
 that those leaving are replaced.  If you are willing to stand,
 then \emph{please} complete one of the nomination forms which accompanies
 this issue of \BV.  Beg (on your bended knees, if
 necessary) two people to propose and second you.  And canvass all
 your friends in \uktug\ to vote for you, because this is going to be
 the hardest fought election in the history of \uktug!
 
 Do all this, and I look forward \emph{very much} to seeing you on the
 Committee next year.

\end{article}
\title{Introduction to \Lftrou}
\author{Malcolm Clark}
\begin{article}
I started my \TeX-life with `plain' \TeX\ in about 1984. Being younger
and more set in my ways, I truly believed that \LaTeX\ was an affront
to family values and represented yet another downward step in the
sorry decline of moral and ethical values. If not actually the spawn
of the devil, \LaTeX\ users were at least beyond the pale. This view
managed to sustain me for many years, until in 1989 Katherine
Butterfield persuaded me to teach \LaTeX\ to a research group at the
University of California, Berkeley.  \textit{\Lftrou} (or
\textit{\LaTeX$^\prime$} as it was then) was born. At first I thought
(quite arrogantly) that I could merely adapt my existing \TeX\ course
to \LaTeX.  \LaTeX\ requires a much more subtle and mellow thought
process. Unlike \TeX, where you really can do exactly what you want
(whether or not it is a good idea), \LaTeX\ requires that you relax
and go with the flow. Trust it, and all will be well: remember \LaTeX\ 
can smell your fear. Looking back, I have to say that the average
dedicated \LaTeX-er is a much less stressed individual than the
average dedicated \TeX-er.

When I published my \textit{\TeX\ Primer} in 1992, I planned to follow
it shortly after by \Lftrou. I was overtaken by the euphoria of
\LaTeX3, which eventually became the muted excitement of \LaTeXe, and
had to start re-writing whole chunks. At the same sort of time, some
excellent \LaTeX\ books, like Goossens, Mittelbach \& Samarin's
\textit{\LaTeX\ Companion}, Kopka \& Daly's second edition of their
\textit{Guide to \LaTeXe}, Goossens, Rahtz \& Mittelbach's
\textit{\LaTeX\ Graphics Companion}, and then the second edition of
Lamport's own \textit{\LaTeX: A Document Preparation System} appeared
on the scene. We were awash with good quality stuff (at last!). My
enthusiasm for the project waned, but it was revitalised by the last
course I taught, at the Technical University of Malaysia, where I had
one of the biggest and best classes I have ever had the pleasure to
teach. They helped me get things pretty close to their present state.

We are presenting this as a serialisation, though perhaps not quite in the
same long and honourable tradition which includes Hardy and Dickens. What is in
your hands represents about the first quarter of the text. The next quarter
will be out later this year (we are aiming for \BV\ 8.5), and the other half
should appear next year sometime, although precise dates and editions for 1999
are but figments of our collective imagination (neither the present editor nor
myself are likely to be on the UK TUG committee next year, and our loyalty
could be stretched\dots). There are also questions embedded in the text. Once
all  the text has been finished, solutions to these questions will be provided.
This probably means yet another chunk of \BV, but since I haven't yet written
the solutions, I don't know quite how much space they will take up. 

All being well, and if our enthusiasm stands up, we're very tempted to
create a pdf (Adobe Acrobat) version with tons of hyper-links. That
would be available electronically (and maybe even as part of one of
these magnificent \TeX\ Live CDs that Sebastian Rahtz keeps
producing). I love the idea of a hyper-\LaTeX\ electronic book. The
\LaTeX\ source will of course go up as part of the \BV\ archive files
on \CTAN, where anyone may obtain it for their own pleasure and
delectation.

The UK \TeX\ Users Group will hold copyright. If anyone wishes to use
the text of \textit{\Lftrou}, in part, or entire, they are welcome to
do so. I merely ask that they should acknowledge me as the `original'
source, but if they make any commercial advantage they should arrange
with the UK \TeX\ Users Group to make any appropriate royalty payment.
I'd really prefer they gave it away. In spirit I would like to be
fairly close to the GNU copyleft declaration. But I'm not against
crass commercialism: I'm just against someone else making loads of
money out of my efforts, and \TeX\ not benefiting in some way.

There are too many people to thank to be able to do so individually,
but I will always be grateful to Katherine Butterfield who provided
the initial impetus.  I gratefully acknowledge the many students from
Santa Barbara to Johor Bahru who have been exposed to versions of the
\LaTeX\ courses I have given, and who have therefore unwittingly
contributed to this project. I am especially privileged to have
Sebastian Rahtz as editor, and David Carlisle as reviewer.

There will likely be errors in the text. I expect them to be errors 
of fact, omission, opinion or interpretation. I would be happy to 
hear of them, but except for errors of fact, I may choose to ignore 
them. Don't be surprised if I appear to lie or mislead in the initial chapters.
This trait has a long and honorable tradition in books on \TeX. Sometimes
the truth takes a little longer to tease out. I've never believed that it was
appropriate to tell all the truth in all circumstances. You won't find
details of how to install \TeX\ and \LaTeX\ in \textit{\Lftrou}. This is
quite deliberate since I believe it to be a non-problem, especially for
members of this group, who all have a copy of the \TeX\ Live CD.
\end{article}