Zoe Williams

Revolutions, earthquakes, famine, scandals and killings — the headlines keep coming relentlessly.

This is going to sound like a story I’ve made up to make a point. But it’s the truth. Last week I accidentally went on Iranian cable telly. I thought it was just AN Other cable telly station, and arrived to review Carl Bernstein’s book about Hillary Clinton. So we were sitting there, chatting away nicely waiting to start, when a woman ran on and said: "Can I just do your jacket up?"

It is easy to think the worst of Americans. Perhaps you have just read that they are indulging a new trend — that of separate sleeping quarters for married people. Aha! you think. They are craven, status-driven warthogs, who simply wish to flaunt their wealth by the incredible amount of space they can take up because their houses are so huge. Or maybe it is the snoring.