The next night is happier. I am in Aldborough, North Yorkshire, for Any Questions? The sun is out: we record in a perfect English church on a perfect English evening in a perfect English village. The Labour MP gets booed, the Respect party representative gets heckled and the Conservative MP David Davis and I get cheered to the ancient and very attractive rafters. On such an evening it strikes me that civilisation just might survive after all.

***

It also reminds me that I have drunk as much abroad as I can for a while. Summer is my time to write. From now I shall sit in the country, attempt to turn my thoughts into gold, and in my few spare moments reflect, Hobbit-like, on the strangeness of travel and the pleasures of home.