I’m gratified and not a little relieved to learn that the consensus amongst those who have read the manuscript of my forthcoming autobiography, Race with the Devil: My Journey from Racial Hatred to Rational Love, is that I “knocked it out of the park”. As an Englishman, and as I’ve already confessed on the Ink Desk, I don’t really understand baseball terminology but in cricket-language I believe that “knocking it out of the park” is the same as saying that I “hit it for six”!

On the eve of the Fourth of July, it’s good to be reminded that the British and Americans are two peoples separated by a common language!