This witty book, arising from the author’s long and odd life, is cosmopolitan and politically incorrect. It is a personal memoir suspended from a family history and runs from mediaeval Prussia to the England of 2005. He makes no bones about anything: the vast distinction of his ancestry, the scenery of Bavaria and Granada, the Blitz, Churchill, the deplorable British educational system, sex, the 1930s degradation of France, besides counter-espionage, Belgian social habits and his own six careers. There is much on Winchester, Oxford and Army life, occasionally hilarious, and Venice comes in for the usual enthusiasm. There are off-beat illustrations. If you put it down, you will not do so for long. The title reflects the author’s eighteen brilliant broadcasts in 1992 on Radio 4. He also wrote, published and with his own hands sold his tour de force, The Companion to British History and was a professor of Law and Architecture.