"Inside the fabulous world of the super-rich Cotswolds set" (Debate)

Mon 18 Mar, 18:04 (last edited on Mon 18 Mar, 18:22)

Could somebody make it stop? 

Well, somebody who knows Simon Mills could have a go at doing so, I suppose; but probably the mythology is now so embedded in estate agent and car dealership sales that even that wouldn't work. 

After all, Simon Mills who wrote this "report" in The Times is correct to say that 2024 sees the launch of a new Range Rover 4.4 P615 V8 SV Burford Edition, costing nearly £275,000. I suppose we should be grateful that it's not called the Charlbury Edition ... 

Up to now I had supposed that these weird articles about Charlbury and West Oxfordshire were all written by fantasists who live in Notting Hill or thereabouts, and who can't be expected to know much better. But a little bit of research shows that Simon Mills lives -- and has lived for nearly 15 years -- around 5 miles away from Charlbury in a rural location -- in what was originally a small cottage. After being flooded, his cottage was -- fairly recently -- extended and also tarted up, with the help of a newish girlfriend who is an interior designer.

This is not very difficult to discover since Simon Mills has written at length about life in rural West Oxfordshire for multiple newspapers -- The Times, Sunday Times, Telegraph, Mail -- over the years. As far as I can tell (as somebody who doesn't read any of those newspapers), it is his primary stock in trade. 

To start with, his columns charted the difficulties of rural living in a rundown cottage, in an unfashionable rural area and commuting to London by train and/or bus. But evidently his girlfriend's social connections have given him access to the world of the super-rich and endlessly partying "Cotsies" who live in the Burford, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Great Tew and Witney areas. You know, those chaps who use slang, and say "Butlin's" when they mean "Soho Farmhouse", and “Just going for a quick Asthall” (Asthall Leigh being rhyming slang for "pee"), etc.

Never heard this "Cotsy" slang? -- no, me neither. But Simon Mills is evidently well acquainted with Charlbury and mentions several of its inhabitants, as well as its two recently refurbished pubs, by name. 

How depressing is that! Simon Mills probably reads this website, so here's a plea -- yes, you probably are making a good living out of these columns. But enough is enough ...