Book excerpt: This final compilation from James Lees-Milne's celebrated diaries covers the last fourteen years of his life, when he was living on the Duke of Beaufort's Badminton estate. Old age and infirmity have not dimmed his sharpness, literary skill or interest in the world around him, and his reflection on people, places and experiences are as vivid as ever. A tour of the Cotsworlds makes him ruefully aware of the yuppy trends of the Thatcher era, while he predicts that the New Labour victory will bring 'a descent into American-style vulgarity and yob culture'. Witty, waspish, poignant and candid, James Lees-Milne's last diaries contain as much to delight as the first, and confirm his reputation as one of the great commentators of his times.