After watching the first episode of Good Omens it was hard to relate the vision of England that the show embodies with the angry and divided Brexit nation that lies outside it.

Pratchett always wrote about a nostalgic country that was already a myth by the time that Good Omens was written. This Economist piece about its tweeness is just part of the story.

Pratchett seemed to have a belief in the essential goodness of the “yeomanry” that flowed right from Churchill and Tolkien. The Antichrist, raised in Oxfordshire, playing in the woods like a latter-day Swallows and Amazons, would discover an essential righteousness in their love of family and country.

There’s no analysis of all the factors that would have to be true to make this happen, the qualities of Adam’s parents, the true nature of the bonds that would have to tie village life together.

The result feels complancent and self-congratulatory.