An Englishman in Verona

For the last twelve months I have earnt (or “earned”? Depends where you come from...) my living spreading the dominance of my mother tongue as the global language. And then, on Saturday evening, I found myself reading Jeremy Paxman’s The English, surrounded by twee couples enjoying picnics of wine and English raspberrries and awaiting the commencement of an summer evening’s open air performance of Shakespeare (The Comedy of Errors, if you wish to know, and I thought it very good, especially the performance of the female lead). It seems I am living a cliche in the shires.