Dear JD Vance, here are a few Cotswolds gems that might spice up your holiday
After a busy weekend, including an on-the-clock bilateral meeting and off-the-clock angling session with David Lammy, the US Vice President is now able to kick back and relax with his family.
Until tomorrow, the Vances are basing themselves at Dean Manor in the tiny settlement of Dean, not far from David Cameron's digs in Chipping Norton.
If JD feels the need to explore more of the Cotswolds – while also escaping the demonstrators threatening to hold up memes of his face – there's plenty nearby to enjoy.
Here are some of the treats that could be in store.
Jeremy Clarkson is having a rough time on his farm at the moment.
Recent updates on his X page reveal there has been an outbreak of Bovine TB among his cattle and he's expecting this year's harvest to be 'catastrophic'.
Who better to cheer him up than the author of Hillbilly Elegy and former senator from Ohio?
JD, his wife Usha and their three kids are staying less than a five-minute drive away from the Hawk Stone that gave its name to Clarkson's beer, and less than ten minutes from the Diddly Squat farm shop.
There's no doubt watching them come in for a packet of crisps would make an enthralling episode for season five of the Amazon Prime show.
It can be hard to get the proper sense of a place when you're confronted by a full-scale version of it.
Perhaps that's why JD Vance has previously blasted his holiday destination as an 'Islamist country' and a place where the 'basic liberties of religious Britons' are 'in the crosshairs'.
Half an hour in the car from Dean will take him to beautiful Bourton-on-the-Water, where the charming Model Village might help him get some perspective.
Film fans may also recognise the site from the climax of much-loved cop comedy Hot Fuzz.
So the Veep might want to look out for any wayward model Somerfield trucks lying around.
Nothing much to say about the Painswick Rococo Garden, which is rated 4.2 out of 5 on TripAdvisor.
It just looks quite nice.
It's not just the English countryside Vance appreciates – he's also a big fan of English fantasy literature.
In a podcast interview from 2021, just as he was starting out on his political career, he was asked for his favourite author.
Vance replied: 'I would have to say Tolkien. I'm a big Lord of the Rings guy, and I think, not realizing it at the time, but a lot of my conservative worldview was influenced by Tolkien growing up.'
He might be interested to learn JRR Tolkein was a regular visitor to the Cotswolds while he was teaching at Oxford University.
This stunning door at St Edward's Church in Stow-on-the-Wold is rumoured to be the inspiration behind the Doors of Durin from the Lord of the Rings, and whether or not the story is true, they certainly have a Middle Earth feel.
It is a big few months for US leaders in the UK.
Vance's boss Donald Trump was in Scotland last month, and the President will be returning for his unprecedented second state visit in September.
If the VP is feeling a little left out in anticipation of Trump's sumptuous royal feast next month, he might want to pay a visit to Highgrove House.
King Charles took over control of the place when the Duchy of Cornwall bought it in 1980 and he still pops over with Queen Camilla from time to time.
The monarch is up in Balmoral for his summer R&R and the general public isn't allowed in Highgrove Park, but the Vances would get to check out the fine job he's done with the gardens.
Berkeley Castle in Gloucester is associated with King Edward II, widely criticised as a short-tempered and incompetent ruler who had a terrible relationship with his country's neighbours to the north.
So, it might make a nice change from the White House..?
In fact, the association is pretty grisly – Edward is believed to have been murdered at the castle in 1327, perhaps on the orders of his newly crowned son.
A nice reminder that no matter how backstabby things might get in the modern corridors of power, we're not quite as brutal as the past.
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