`Yes, it was be there or be square as, clad in the slum chic of the hipster, he issued the slang anthems of the zip age in the desperate esperanto of the bop. John Cooper Clarke: the name behind the hairstyle, the words walk in the grooves hacking through the hi-fi paradise of true luxury'Punk.

From Blenheim and Waterloo to 'Up Yours, Delors' and 'Hop Off You Frogs', the cross-Channel relationship has been one of rivalry and suspicion. This book tells the complex story of the relationship, from the beginning of the great struggle for mastery during the reign of Louis XIV to the second Iraq War and the enlargement of the EU.

'I can think of no finer writer to have beside me while Italy explodes, Britain burns, while the world ends' Salman Rushdie From the age of twelve, the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondo makes his home among ash, elm, magnolia, plum and almond, living up in the trees.