The 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 cards since she turned 69.

But 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 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.

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