A movie festival, visits to the USA, Afrikaner refugees and Donald Trump

“Americans are much more old-fashioned than the chattering classes overseas realise. They are enormously hospitable and charming, and very courteous to one another in real life. In general, almost everyone I spoke to seemed pretty calm about Trump, and hardly ever mentioned his name, preferring instead to talk about ‘the president’ if it came up at all, in the context of where they stood as Republicans or Democrats.”