"I feel European,” says Jeremy Clarkson, the presenter of Amazon’s The Grand Tour, in an interview with the Daily Beast website a few days ago. “When I go to America and people ask where I’m from, I say I’m from Europe.”
Most people will surely understand what he means – even if not all will agree with his characterisation of Brexit supporters as “a few coffin-dodgers in Barnsley deciding that they don’t want to live next to a Syrian”.
There are various layers of identity. For example, when I visited Memphis, Tennessee, some years ago I felt more of an alien than I would have done in France, Italy or Spain. The Southern culture was more radically unfamiliar, as were the cheap and tacky outskirts – miles and miles of broken tarmac punctuated by boxy motels, fast food outlets and billboards.
