Nations cultivate images of themselves that they successfully foist on others but that are sometimes the exact opposite of the case. Nothing is more amusing than the contrast between the supposedly laid-back, easy-going Americans and the uptight, hidebound English. Maybe a new book is needed, an answer to Flaubert’s Dictionary of Received Ideas, a catalogue of unrecognised truths. One might begin, for example, with this: the Americans have better manners than the English, but they are much more snobbish.

And more restrained. When told that my countrymen are essentially reserved or even repressed, it is tempting to ask: Have you ever seen the London tabloids? For that matter, have you ever seen British boys and girls on a Saturday night spree? Not so much in desolate inner cities or ethnic ghettos as in the most genteel cathedral cities and county towns, they can be quite a sight; drunken 18-year-olds shrieking and vomiting as they stagger out of pubs and clubs.