Dear Sir,

Bermudians set great store by Mark Twain, and rightly so.

It occurs to me that they may be interested to know the great man’s thoughts on the America’s Cup boat race: “The race for the America’s Cup is in some small sense an international matter, but in an exceedingly small sense.

“It interests the 100th fraction of 1 per cent of the population of England and America — these being rich, sporting men — and stops there; it inflammatorily interests nobody else, and is of not the least value in any substantial way to our nation ... it is nothing but a “freak” race, and a quite trifling matter.”

He dictated those words on September 26, 1907 and they appear at page 143 in the third volume of his autobiography, as published by the University of California Press in 2015; a series that, incidentally, I highly recommend.

JONATHAN LAND EVANS