On the 3rd of October 1995, the retired US football star OJ Simpson was found not guilty of the murder of his ex wife and her friend. In 1997, the families of the dead couple won over $30 million damages in a civil lawsuit. British papers reported that the issue divided America with much of the white population saying he was guilty and many black people believing him to be innocent. In a way, this seemed to define the separation that still existed in the population of the USA. Except, for me, when I saw the reports of the civil case on the morning news, while staying at a Memphis hotel in January 1997.

I sat in an armchair eating my cereal and watching the telly. Behind me were 4 or 5 hotel cleaners, all of them middle aged black women. Towards the end of the news item one of them said "He did it. I knows he did it. We all knows he did it." The others nodded knowingly. And that put the lie to that generalisation. At the time, I felt that I had witnessed a reality moment and wished that some of the television crews had also been behind my chair instead of at the courts.