Graham Stewart

When, in 1825, Harriette Wilson began her Memoirs with 'I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of 15, the mistress of the Earl of Craven' an avid readership settled down to revel in what was clearly going to be the work of an old pro. So perhaps it is as well for Eleanor Berry's personal reputation that at the end of Cap'n Bob and Me the reader feels somewhat short-changed. Many, of course, taken aback that the 'Bouncing Czech' could be an object of wild sexual desire to anyone, will be relieved that the wilful Miss Berry spares us the details - if details there were. It is enough to know that time has not dimmed her adoration for the man who threw her into his swimming pool on their first encounter and 23 years later took the plunge into altogether deeper water himself.

In the first two volumes accompanying his History of Britain television series, Simon Schama had a clear framework in which to work. Essentially he told of the dynastic struggles of kings, queens and pretenders, adding a little bit of plague here and a touch of religious fervour there as and when it became necessary to discuss lesser mortals. In Professor Schama's hands, the technique worked well, but there was no prospect that he could sustain such an approach in this third and final volume, covering the period between the dawn of an independent America and midnight's false bonhomie on the Greenwich peninsula. Instead, Schama had a few options.

There is doubtless some passing pleasure to be had in making it into the Royal Enclosure or, failing that, the 'Sunday Times Rich List'. But for those in political and media circles the last opportunity has passed for gaining immortality in the pages of the Pepys of our times now that the final volume of the Alan Clark diaries has been published. Part of the pleasure was the risk that inclusion entailed. A mention in the Alan Clark diaries is like playing Russian roulette with posterity. One need only think of the late Peter Morrison who, thanks to Clark's account, is now remembered as the man who slept when he was supposed to be running Margaret Thatcher's leadership campaign. Ken Clarke is, it seems, destined to share a sentence with 'pudgy puff-ball'.

Perhaps it is not a good idea to call Dervla Murphy 'redoubtable'. She is a strident anti-militarist and might not enjoy being given the sort of name that could so easily belong to an old dreadnought or hunter-killer submarine. But the 71-year-old cycling grandmother can hardly be thought of as anything less. While half the population of her age retreat into a world of sheltered accommodation and televised snooker, she has opted instead to pedal against the steep mountain inclines of the Balkans. Needless to say, the terrain proves to be by no means the most arduous or dangerous part of the odyssey. Like anyone who has witnessed the humanitarian disaster of that part of the world over the last decade, Dervla Murphy has some strong views about the politics that underscored it.