Do you fancy playing God? Well now’s your chance. This week I’m offering one of you a unique proposition: you get to decide what happens to the rest of my life. Not just my life but, more importantly, the lives of Girl, Boy and the Fawn. (But not the Rat: he’s OK, he has grown up and moved out.) You get to decide where we live, and, by logical extension, who our new friends are, what we do in our spare time and, ultimately, whether or not we die hideously in a pool of abject misery or go on to experience a modicum of happiness in this vale of tears.
Here’s the deal. We’re moving out of London; we’re looking for somewhere to rent in the country but we’re really not sure where or what or how. The only definites are that we have to have fast broadband (otherwise we can’t do our jobs), we need at least four bedrooms (otherwise we can’t have an office, or friends to stay) and it can’t be too hideously remote from London, Windsor or Malvern, plus, complicatingly, Folkestone for a one-day-a-week commute.
As you can see already, it’s going to be a challenge. But luckily I’ve been thinking hard about this and I’ve come up with some pointers to help you help us on our way.
1. Our new home will be incredibly conveniently placed for swift, cheap journeys into London with the best rail service you could possibly imagine, plus a good bus service and fast roads. But also so far away from London that it will have a proper rural feel, with none of that commuter-belt sense that you’re only here because you can’t afford to live in the big city (even though it’s true).
2. It will be near an attractive market town, with handsome Georgian/medieval/half-timbered/Cotswold stone buildings, a thriving weekend food market, an ace fish-and-chip shop, a Pizza Express, a first-rate (but non-rip-off) deli, an artisan baker, a superb butcher, an agreeable wine merchant, a gastropub and a shop a bit like Question-Air in Dulwich where I can buy clothes and jewellery for the wife at birthday and Christmas without having to slog into town.
3. At no stage will this market town give us any cause to regret that we no longer live in London. So there will be an excellent, affordable health club where the swimming lanes aren’t clogged by idiots who can’t swim; a cinema which shows the arthouse stuff as well as the blockbusters; nearby tennis courts; and a golf course would be quite nice even though I don’t really play yet. Theatre you can keep: we don’t need a theatre. See how easy we are?
4. The centre of town will be chav- and hoodie-free. The outlying countryside will be devoid of pikeys waiting to steal our stuff or concrete over our garden; a local bylaw will allow scrap-metal thieves to be shot on sight, meaning the war memorial still has its plaque and the trains don’t break down suddenly because all the tracks and copper wire have been nicked.
5. There will be no wind farms — nor planned wind farms — within a 30-mile radius. The landowner who tried to get planning permission for one will long since have been stoned to death by outraged locals who are under no illusions about the evils of wind farms nor the unutterable, rent-seeking selfishness of those who seek to profit by them.
6. The local hunt will be in fine, not-too-trappy country but will be small and welcoming and tolerant of crap riders. If bombproof hirelings aren’t available at very reasonable rates then my aristocratic patron — see below — will probably lend me one of his because he likes me so much.
7. Aristocratic patronage. I’m not saying this is essential but my fantasy has always been to live on a great estate surrounded by oak-studded parkland with grazing deer and maybe the odd cep in the woods. If you’re a toff/filthy-rich arriviste/landowner prepared to offer such an opportunity at peppercorn rates, we will happily in return agree to play the shabby chic, quite-famous writer/journo types for you to show off at the occasional dinner party. We will also play bridge with you; Girl will happily exercise the horses in your stables; we will come with you on your hunt. But I refuse point-blank to play the role of decorative hermit in your lakeside grotto.
8. We like playing German-designed board games — Settlers of Catan; Carcassonne — and it would be nice if we could find like-minded country folk who did too.
9. Church. Yes, we can probably do this, but only if the vicar believes in God rather than ‘climate change’, isn’t happy-clappy, says ‘which art in heaven’ and hunts.
10. Walking country. This is seriously important. Walking in beautiful countryside makes us perhaps happier than anything else on earth. So clearly it would be pretty pointless our moving to the sticks if our new house isn’t in nice walking country.
Well, there’s a list to be getting on with. Can any of you help? I recognise that it may not be possible for you to satisfy every one of the ‘essential requirements’, being as what we basically want is London but in the middle of nowhere and for no money. But please don’t let that put you off contacting me if at all you think you might be able to help. Obviously we’re really excited about this incredible adventure we’re about to begin, but we’re also trepidatious and horribly aware how easily it could go wrong. You could be the saviour who helps us make sure it doesn’t. My email’s
james@jamesdelingpole.com. Over to you!
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