Remember the excellent book Parting Shots, in which valedictory despatches by all sorts of former British ambassadors are published for your enjoyment and edification?

Here the BBC looks at some of them who just got things wrong.

Former Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd reviews it in the Spectator and is unimpressed with the gormlessness of Margaret Beckett when she held that high office of state:

The motives of the valedictory dispatch varied. Some ambassadors concentrated on summarising the country in which they had last served; others attempted to sum up the whole period of their service. Some took the opportunity to deplore the present state of Britain; others told amusing stories; almost all thanked the staff who had supported them, and in particular their wives. Some seemed mainly anxious to display the glitter and elegance of their own prose style.

This agreeable tradition was brought to an abrupt end by Margaret Beckett during her time as Foreign Secretary. She took exception to a particularly brusque description by a departing ambassador of British foreign policy under Tony Blair as ‘bull-shit bingo’. Not notorious for her sense of humour, she used a single exaggerated phrase to cripple a tradition which had given mild pleasure.

Go ahead. Buy this fine book now as a delightful Christmas present for your friends and relatives or (in the absence of either category) yourself.

If you buy it through this link, there’s a bonus: I’ll earn some Amazon groats. 

You can buy a Kindle e-edition too, but this time round it’s better to buy the book as I get no groats that way, chiz.

Anyway, don’t get muddled up and order a movie by the same name instead. You may be disappointed.