In Europe, you can find Forvik, a tiny Shetland Isle founded by an Englishman (from Kent) to promote transparent governance, Sealand, off the British coast, and Christiania, an enclave in the heart of Copenhagen. The latter country was formed by a group of squatters occupying a former army barracks in 1971. On 26 September that year, they declared it independent, with its own “direct democracy”, in which each of the inhabitants (now numbering 850) could vote on any important matter. So far, the Danish government has turned something of a blind eye to the activities; smoking cannabis, for instance, is legal in Christiania, but outlawed in the rest of the Denmark (though the Christianians themselves have decided to ban harder drugs).

Despite these more eccentric examples, Middleton wouldn’t consider trying to set up a country himself. “Having trawled through so many serious stories of yearning and oppression, I don’t think it’s appropriate to take it too light heartedly,” he says. “For so many people it’s a matter of life or death.” Despite their efforts, he suspects that only a very few will eventually gain wider recognition. “If I had to plump for any, it would be Greenland,” he says – the autonomous region of Denmark that already has self-rule, often considered the first step to formal recognition.