One likes to be prepared when talking to Christopher Hitchens; he is, after all, one of the sharpest wits in fact or fiction, at least in Washington DC. So it was with a sinking feeling that I realised, just as my train was pulling out of New York’s Penn Station en route to this nation’s bosky capital, that I had left my diligently assembled list of questions concerning his new book, Blood, Class and Nostalgia (Chatto & Windus 398 pp £18.00), lying on the bed back at my apartment.

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