Concrete Pencil: Country-phile
Dan Bourke longs for green pastures - but doesn't want to share them with Tory Dave
Who doesn't want to give it all up and live in the country?
It's a pretty universal dream, I've always thought. And it's certainly been an often and over-stated theme of this column: work-based city life is to be got away from. The rustic is where it's at.
I've been a keen fan of it all: slow food, slow travel, organic, locally sourced whatever, The Idler - from Jerome K Jerome to Tom Whatever-his-name-is. Clouds. Crap jobs. Camping. Henry David Thoreau. Paul Theroux. The lot.
I have cheerfully romanticised the simple life, and lusted after smallholdings and clifftops and where the woods meet the sea.
But now I'm not so sure. Doubts are creeping in. Firstly, it's because of a horrid realisation I had on the way to the farmer's market the other day. Namely: these dreams are Tory dreams.
I don't know how it happened, or when, but suddenly I find myself sharing aspirations, hobbies and passions with David Cameron's shiny-faced chancers.
Organic steak. Cornwall. Rural holidays. Outdoor clothing. Well-made boots. Camping. Village cricket. Real ale. It's what they all talk about all the bloody time.
They even like Radiohead. And George Osborne has got a thing about Billy Bloody Bragg, of all people. This dream of bucolic loveliness - how much, I now wonder, does it stem from a dislike of people? Of, you know, the masses?
In the words of The Smiths (a favourite of mine and David Cameron): Has the world changed or have I changed?
Have I become a Tory at heart? Has Conservative Central Office polled the dreams of urban 30-somethings and put me on their message matrix? Neither of those are good.
But even if I get past this horrid It Appears I'm A Secret Tory unpleasantness, there are still other reasons to dismantle my dream of a life in the country. I have friends who have done it. They don't seem much different except in one respect: suddenly they have seemingly endless time to talk on the phone.
There's something in the line, you can hear it before they speak. Telegraph wires across frosty stubbled fields slowing the neurotransmitter releases both ends.
You can hear them settling down on the stair for a chat. It's 9pm, I've just got home from work and I need to clean the flat before an irate Mrs Me returns from her own trip to the wilds. And I'm listening to a very good friend just witter on and on:
"The thing is Dan, I've decided to boycott the news. Decided about three months ago because Today covered one particular story. Or was it the World At One? I think it was the World At One."
Don't ask which one, don't ask which one. I have to clean the flat, then I need to cook. "Er, which one?"
City living, clearly, has made me an impatient pillock. I'm just unsure now if I don't want to be one.
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