My Oxford Year: If only Britain was as nice as Americans make it look

There is a very long tradition of American television getting Britain wrong. One of my favourite abominations is the 1972 Columbo episode Dagger Of The Mind, in which – I kid you not – the scruffy but infallible LA detective is posted to London to learn from the policing techniques of Scotland Yard. He soon stumbles upon a murder mystery centring around a West End production of Macbeth.

The episode was mostly filmed on location in grey and grimy London, but then the action shifts to the country seat of the deceased Sir Roger Haversham, which has the unmistakable air of Beverly Hills – glorious sunshine and abundant orange blossom, one of those instant architectural wonders of Tudor England dropped on Hollywood in the early 20th century. Every character Columbo meets in London is either ve