Bloomsbury Press’s four ‘Readers’ all think my new project – A Patriotic History of Modern Britain – is good and ‘timely’, so you may see it out early next year. It won’t of course be ‘patriotic’ in the usual sense; the word in the title is meant to fool ‘patriots’ into buying it. And then to school them in what true ‘patriotism’ should consist of: i.e. wanting to make your country better. Bloomsbury by the way are good to work with, unlike a number of publishers I’ve entrusted my babies to. They tell me the hardback will be £20. So save your pennies up.

I’ll be finishing it after our holiday in Värmland (on the Norwegian border). We’re off on Monday, after the England-Ukraine game. I feel sorry for Sweden, by the way, who played out of their skins last night, but lost in the final seconds of extra time, so dashing my hopes of a quarter-final match between my two nationalities. But that might have tested my own dual ‘patriotisms’.