One of the more startling aspects of living abroad is adjusting to the reduced importance of things considered very important back home. I remember the moment I realised that little below the level of a change in prime minister or an act of terrorism would make the news list in the US. It was like the first time you see one of those maps produced by countries that aren’t Britain and in which Britain isn’t at the centre of the universe. (The Australian one really blew my mind on this front.)
In the US, nobody cares who Suella Braverman is – to be fair, a sentiment shared by a great number of Britons at home – or who’s in and out at the BBC. I once heard an American publishing executive refer to Britain as a “small foreign market”, triggering a similar out-of-body experience, plus some apparently unshiftable residual jingoism. As they say, how very dare you.
