I felt the need to defend the text. In addition, many prominent and non-Muslim people had joined forces with the Islamist attack to say what a bad person I was, John Berger, Germaine Greer, President Jimmy Carter, Roald Dahl, and various British Tory grandees among them. Commentators such as the journalist Richard Littlejohn and the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper said they wouldn’t mind at all if I was attacked. (I’ve outlived Trevor-Roper, but I assume Littlejohn is feeling pretty satisfied now, wherever he is.)
