Harry Mount, the bestselling author of Amo, Amas, Amat and A Lust for Window Sills, returns to the Festival to tell our national history in a series of wonderfully arcane facts and astonishing stories. From hedgerows to Heathrow, the English have been shaped by the land’s unique geography, geology, climate and history. Mount explains why we drive on the left, the distinctive tint of kerbstones, the narrowness of our train seats, why we drink too much, are bad at speaking foreign languages and are particularly shy with the opposite sex.