Reasons to be cheerful: gardens, Ben Stokes and cold wine

‘The Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.’ Is there a more charming passage in the Bible? It makes God sound like an English gentleman, vastly superior to Baal or Ashtoreth or any other rival. But at the end of his stroll, Jehovah would condemn Adam and his descendants to the penalties of original sin. Gods are kittle cattle.

In the heat of the day, there is much to be said for gardens, as long as one has shade, a book and cold wine plus, perhaps, the temptation of a pool. I can unstintingly recommend one book. It might seem paradoxical to describe Tim Bouverie’s Appeasing Hitler as enjoyable, for he is dealing with another fell episode in the history of original sin. But there is a sure command of narrative and judgment in faultlessly lucid prose, with subtexts of pathos. As late as August 1939, Neville Chamberlain fishes for salmon with the Duke of Westminster and still hopes to help the Duke of Buccleuch cull his grouse.