A Little Light Reading

I have been an inveterate reader since I started reading the corn flakes box on the breakfast table. Then I moved on to the HP Sauce bottle which in those days had a French version on one side- "cette sauce est une melange..."

Diaries are amongst my favourite forms of reading, whether political, military, diplomatic or social or preferably a mixture. I like the personal details which they add to the general story.

Not all diaries are equally informative. King George V's tells us more about the weather than himself. On the 14 July,1789 the French king, Louis XVI wrote in his journal only one word "rien". This was surely taking sang froid too far.