Welcome to the Charles C.W. Cook podcast, episode 27.

I went to England last week for my mother's birthday. It was a surprise.

My going to England, that is, not my mother's birthday, which is on the same day every year.

And, well, which has been in the card since she turned 69.

It was a terrific time.

And I realized on this trip just how rural the area I grew up in really is.

There's a pub that we walked over to from my parents' cottage,

and at various points along the way,

you really could be in 1750.

The houses are pretty much all older than that.

The river is full of wooden boats.

The landscape is completely unspoiled.

It's charming.

And except perhaps for Ireland, there's just nowhere else in the world that is quite like it.

And it's a guy who now lives in, well, in not that. I was transfixed by it for a while, even though I grew up there. My guest today

will be Toby Young, who's technically Lord Young.

I only have lords on this show now.

If you're not a lord, you can't come on, unless you're a Viscount or an Earl or a Baron or a Marcus or a Duke.

But that's it.

So if you are listening and thinking, one day i'd like to be on the charles c w cook

podcast where you can't be unless you can get yourself ennobled between now and then sorry i don't make

the rules but before then i thought i'd share an exciting email I received this week, which reads,

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