In 1986, just after returning to the UK after 11 years in the US and Japan, I played in some celebrity golf tournament. We drove off the first tee and a vast crowd followed us. Not being then or now a celebrity, I asked a spectator to explain and he said: “It’s our Tel, ennit?” He meant Terry Wogan, Britain’s most famous talkshow host and a member of our foursome. I felt like Rip Van Winkle because I had never heard of him.

Even in this globalised, internetted and YouTubed world of today I remain struck how parochial we still are, including in the media. I bet few outside France knew the name of Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, its most celebrated anchorman until cast adrift last year, or any foreigner quivered at the prospect of facing Jeremy Paxman, the abrasive TV interviewer, as British politicians do.