Boris Johnson compares himself to a jar of honey found on a supermarket shelf – ‘the product of many countries’. He thinks he is part Jewish, part French, part English, part American, part pterodactyl and, unpredictably, part Turkish.

Boris’ half-French grandmother, ‘Granny Butter’, had always claimed to be of posh stock. Although Boris and his siblings have always been suspicious of this claim, they do recall their grandmother teaching them to eat crisps with a knife and fork.

Boris sets off in search of the truth about Granny Butter’s background, and follows an intriguing family trail that leads him to a surprising conclusion.

In the first episode of this two-part series, Boris Johnson travels to France, Spain, Egypt, Israel, Syria and Turkey to investigate the early beginnings of what some people now call ‘the clash of civilisations.’ This is the idea that the two historically opposed religious cultures of Christianity and Islam are locked into a never-ending cycle of mutual antipathy, distrust and violence.

Boris Johnson tries to discover how the ancient Romans managed to run a united empire, and why the European Union seems to find the same task so difficult.