Free to enter, focused on anything but consuming, and gloriously unsurveilled, they are survivors from a lost world. Their Gothic and Perpendicular exteriors give a village something monumental, a witness to centuries and communities. Their interiors – the whiff of damp or incense, the glint of silver, the creaky pews – are, for some, a flashback to childhood, Confirmation and Sunday School.

Many people, in the “matting, seats, and stone, and little books”, find themselves feeling like Philip Larkin in Church Going: wondering, at a loss, awkwardly reverent.

It is an extraordinary gift to humanity in a clamorous and phone-twitching world to provide a safe, dry, special, almost magical, space in which to spend half an hour.

Our old parish churches pip so much other heritage and allow a solemn silence often impossible in great city cathedrals. Without them British villages would be ghostly and quite hopeless, unworthy of the visitor’s patience and time.

Chris Moss

10. Plugs

Sitting under my desk is a grim little Tupperware box, full of the saddest souvenirs of world travel. Travel adaptors are often the last thing I pack before setting out overseas – unlike sunglasses or swimming trunks, packing them comes with no foretaste of fun. I have a small alphabet’s worth of the things – the two-pronged Europe Type Es that droop out of sockets: the American Type Bs that – considered from one particular angle – look like a disappointed face.

All of which make me long for the British Type G, widely considered by sparkies I’ve spoken to as one of the best in the world for their stability and safety credentials. Though, to be fair, they are not totally exclusive to the UK. Years ago, needing to charge my toothbrush in Kuala Lumpur, I searched for a socket, saw an old friend above the skirting board, and immediately felt earthed.

Oli Smith

Honourable mentions

What else do we do better than the rest of the world? How about silly place names (step forward Nether Wallop, Great Snoring, Crackpot and Llanfair­pwllgwyngyll­gogery­chwyrn­drobwll­llan­tysilio­gogo­goch). And quizzes, from the Monday night triumvirate of Mastermind, Only Connect and University Challenge to those held in pubs up and down the land – or on Zoom during the pandemic.