My first lesson in American history was delivered by the fist of an older boy in the playground of Lafayette Elementary School in Washington, nearly 40 years ago. He wanted to put me right about my namesake Benedict Arnold, an enterprising colonial who offered to betray the fort at West Point to the British in 1780. As the new kid, I was to understand that the locals had long memories about the perfidious English, especially those with funny names. I was too busy studying the tarmac pressed against my face to point out that our school was named after a Frenchman – the cheese-eating surrender monkey who bailed out George Washington and his ragtag revolutionaries. But I remember wondering why these Yanks were not as friendly as they first appeared.
That painful discovery came back to me as I studied last week's photograph from the US of a hairy biker standing on the Union flag at an anti-BP demonstration. We are so used to hearing here about the uniqueness of our bond that these moments of Brit-baiting jar. Mud smeared across BP garages in Manhattan, lurid threats against Tony Hayward's family, and the venom dripping from every syllable when Barack Obama and his chums refer deliberately to "British" Petroleum: just how special is this relationship?
