Ian Black

And the other thing that was very much in the back of my mind was the events of October 2023, uh, in, um, Israel, the terrible attack, um, by Hamas, and then the Israeli response.

And my greatest friend, uh, at, at university was my roommate, was a guy called Ian Black.

And Ian became a massive expert on this, and wrote one of the definitive books about it.

And he explained to me on, on my very first day at university when I was 18, Ian was Jewish from, uh, Leeds, but he'd been on a kibbutz.

"The Promised Land, I just wish it hadn't been promised to so many people."

Yeah.

The, n- o- one of Philip's main, the main character, one of his great friends, uh, is the padre, uh, who's attached to the battalion, who's a very jolly man called Matthew.

And they have a wonderful time zooming around.