Give them 10 minutes with the historian and the Atlanta police will find out. Yes, that was it: to proclaim the glory of American imperialism.

On BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour on Sunday, British historian Felipe Fernandez-Armesto described his feelings about being jailed for jaywalking in Atlanta in January, an incident that became a short-lived but sensational international news story.

The professor's 15 minutes of fame began when he crossed the road in the wrong place during a history conference. He was wrestled to the ground by five police officers, suffered cuts and bruises, and spent eight hours cooling his heels in the slammer before the charges were dropped at a court hearing next morning. During his detention, Psyops must have been sent in to reprogramme him, as he is now at pains to make it clear that he thinks nothing but good thoughts about law enforcement, American-style.

Despite what you might expect from his name, Fernandez-Armesto speaks like a BBC continuity announcer circa 1942. Think stuffy, clenched, unAmerican. Think Westminster Hour. He said he had been brought up to be anti-American in his halfEnglish, half-Spanish family ("femleh").

"Like all intellectual snobs, we thought American cinema, pop music, junk food and GIs were polluting.

Then I grew up. I began to realise that, on balance, the US had been a pretty magnanimous force in world history in the 20th century, " he said, no doubt causing many listeners to roll their eyes like teenagers. He said his experience had shown him "the best and the worst of American justice" . . . though really, as he's not a black man with the IQ of a child, he's unlikely to have seen the worst of it now, is he?

It was what happened afterwards that made him stand up and pledge allegiance to the stars and stripes. "The media love the bad news, " he said. (That again. Honestly, if people only want good news, they should read the Zimbabwe Herald. What should the headlines have said? 'English twit saved from imaginary road accident by Atlanta's finest'? ) In the US, he said, he got the blame for stirring up anti-Americanism. He began to get hate mail saying 'Alien, go home', but he's not going to take that advice.

He finds the growth of anti-Americanism "distressing".

He said the government is "detestable, but I do not blame Americans for George Bush's shortcomings", as if the rest of us were not intellectually sophisticated enough to identify with those millions of luckless Americans who didn't vote for Bush.

He said the US "accepts the cost of being the world's policeman reluctantly because no one else will do it". He actually used the term 'world policeman'. A historian. Eye-rolling wasn't eloquent enough for this.

Listeners will have been developing dreadlocks and bad teeth and dogs on a string.

Speaking of the United States, Backchat, the panel show presented by Fiona Looney on RTE Radio 1 on Tuesdays, revealed that only 30.6% of Americans are obese, to the panel's amazement. There were gasps and sniggers, what with fat-arsed yanks being a timehonoured focus of effortless mockery.

It's a recurring problem with satirical panel programmes modelled on Have I Got News For You:

Everyone wants to be Paul Merton; no one wants to be Ian Hislop. But it's Hislop . . . the nice one, the knowledgeable one, the one who isn't as funny . . . who raises the tone.

Anyway, whatever its shortcomings, it's important not to say anything bad about this programme as it's RTE Radio's gesture towards satire. So when it comes to Backchat, this column is Pravda.