However, I’m afraid that early on I found Menzies' style rather irritating, as he seemed very full of himself and he struck me as likely to be the sort of old sea salt that it would be wise not to get cornered by in a bar. Obviously his thesis involves dissing all of the more famous explorers including the Portuguese, Pedro and Gonzalo Cabral. And it is given extra strength by the author’s nautical knowledge of knots, longitude and latitude that are not easy for a lay person to critique. It’s fascinating because of the wealth of material presented in favour of this thesis, including DNA where it couldn’t be ancient maps carvings fauna and flora in the wrong place etc, etc.

It is the fascinating theory of the writer, then a retired Royal Naval officer, that Columbus never “discovered” America in 1492, but was effectively a thief and a fraud who went there using a map based on the earlier visit by the Chinese in 1421.

Sadly he has since died, in 2020, aged 82. “1421: The Year China Discovered America” was kindly donated to the library some years ago by Jerome Lynch KC, when its author, Gavin Menzies was still alive. So good for Rishi Sunak and let's hope it's not just flannel but might actually happen. I confess that I had no idea of the international political influence of Hayden’s TCI SUN, or indeed of this column, but I was delighted to see that within only 6 days of my “The Last Colony” review the UK has finally agreed to let the illegally dispossessed Chargossians return to their homes, reversing nearly half a century of previous intransigence, from inter alia Thatcher, Blair and Boris Johnson.

Gavin menzies theory