When Benjamin Zephaniah was a teenager, he sprinted for England. The 100m was his thing, and he always won. But his promising athletics career ended one day when, on the way to the home internationals in Germany, "I had this big debate about ? it wasn't called Britishness then ? [could I] really be English? And then, when I won, they gave me the flag to carry, and I wouldn't carry it. I was, 'OK, on the way here, you were telling me that I can't be English, and now you're telling me that I've got to take it and do my lap of honour?' I just walked out. And that was that."

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