Tea. Appropriated as the National drink it came from the Far East as a fresh green infusion requiring a light skilled touch with the blend of two simple ingredients, leaf and hot water. Made in delicate porcelain cups, it was served with fine ceremony. After a couple of centuries in rude English hands it’s become a quick pouring of water over a dingy little bag of desiccated leaf-dust in a mug. Due all the finesse of a truckers’ caf’ in its serving, a slug of cow milk and a dose of sugar is added and it’s greeted with low expectation, ‘As long as it’s wet…’.

Golf. Invented by the Scots as a sport of true skill manoeuvring a ball through all kinds of rough ground - hillside, dune, beach, through heather, marram, burn, lochin, sea and sand - to a pre-determined goal, what have the English made of it? And worse, exported? A lawn game played in Pringles knitwear ending up at a hotel bar. Pringles knitwear! Says it all; grey and pastel shaded, thin, machine knit with clunky diamond pattern panels. Adding insult to injury, Pringles originates in Scotland – thus are Wallace’s warriors brought down in shame, weakened, and subjugated.

Bread. All over Europe little bakeries on every other street produce a twice-daily delight of fresh baked breads for their neighbourhood. The generic English loaf is weekly-bought, plastic-bagged, mass-produced, processed-to-effeteness, preservative laden and ready sliced. Rules limit the addition of chalk. It can be bought in Europe - they call it Bimbo bread.

Alexander Dumas¹, that fine, colourful and much travelled Frenchman, said all this was due to cloud-cover. He was a great man indeed, much misrepresented by Hollywood's scavenging of his writings. Another Frenchman, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said 'Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are". Percipient guys, these French. I don't think they go in for much golf.