James Lees-Milne aficionados might blink at the title given to this last volume of his diaries: The Milk of Paradise. But its contents rapidly dispel any fears that this most entertainingly waspish of commentators succumbed to beatific mildness in his final years. Nothing escapes his suspicion that the times are becoming ever more toxic (I suffer from sore throat, which I attribute to the chalice yesterday morning). As he beadily surveys what he sees...