As unwelcome surprises go, the tweet from Nick Boles, parliamentary under-secretary of state for planning and MP for Grantham and Stamford, that pinged onto my computer at 9:47am on Tuesday 1 April was particularly vexatious.
It read: “At 12 noon today I will be unmasking my namesake and nemesis @GeneralBoles.”
I was stunned. Devastated. Was my reign as the anonymous king of planning commentary and Photoshopping at an end? I knew that speculation about my identity was a big thing in Westminster and among the property fraternity, but I thought I’d covered my tracks.
In desperation, I tweeted renowned libel law firm Carter Ruck in the hope of getting a restraining order against Boles. Surely there was something in the European Convention on Human Rights to protect my privacy and if not, there damn well should be.
Unfortunately, no reply was forthcoming and it seemed that short of switching off the internet, my options were not good.
As the seconds ticked down, I resigned myself to the inevitability of online exposure and on the stroke of midday, the fateful event came to pass.
“I can now reveal that @GeneralBoles is none other than multiple homeowner Simon Jenkins – his housekeeper Raul is a wiz with Photoshop.”
I know that this revelation will have come as somewhat of a shock to people. How was it that a green belt-loving establishment worthy and former National Trust chair such as myself could be the man behind General Boles who, lest we forget, has been the driving force in the War on the Countryside?
Well, as Oscar Wilde once wrote, “Each man ?kills the thing he loves” ?and the truth is that I have become somewhat of a ?self-hating nimby.
For the past few years I have been leading a conflicted, duplicitous life. On the one hand, I have been writing books about England’s 100 best views (£16.75 on Amazon) while all the while secretly harbouring wicked thoughts about building tower blocks on the Chiltern Hills. For a time, I could content myself with the marvellous pictures that Raul would do for me on Photoshop but eventually that wasn’t enough and I yearned to see the real thing: conurbations in the Cotswolds, housing estates on Hampstead Heath and such like.
Following my outing, I feel that it is probably best for Raul and me to leave the country(side) for a couple of months. Intelligence reaches me that the National Trust and the CPRE are outraged about my betrayal and they’re a vicious bunch when riled. Andrew Motion is probably writing a cutting limerick about me as we speak.
Also, I’m not 100% certain about Raul’s visa and as we’ve been meaning to visit his mum back in Cuba for a while now, this is probably as good a time as any to re-acquaint myself with Havana. Hasta la próxima vez, as they say.
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General Boles, supreme allied commander of the war on the countryside
