Hugh Massingberd made obituaries into oddities during his decade as obituaries editor at the Daily Telegraph, and this selection, the fourth to be published as a separate volume, won't disappoint fans of this eccentric little institution, as British in its own way as the sub-post office. Here lie Liberace (a "chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit flavoured, ice-covered heap of mother-love", according to the Cassandra column, whose harsh verdict won the flamboyant pianist a heap of damages from the Daily Mirror in 1959), Frank Zappa (when his group was rehearsing with the London Philharmonic in 1967, one of the orchestra's string players "became nauseous and wept") and Dizzy Gillespie ("the grimacing Grimaldi of jazz"): all reduced to a couple of snappy pages apiece. Personally, I find it all rather sad - and not just because the people concerned are dead.
