To outsiders West Oxfordshire and the Gloucestershire Cotswolds are basically a tourist destination, however living here is another matter. Your description of Daylesford was spot on. I’ve been twice and spent £13.00 on a 100gram bar of chocolate and a packet of 8 biscuits!! but made sure I wore designer clothes otherwise you really do feel out of place.

I’ve never really liked Chipping Norton, find the people very aloof, the shops are rubbish & overpriced and the place is too hilly, it’s OK to look at, but is the ugly duckling compared to some of the other nearby Cotswold towns say like it’s Chipping sister – Chipping Campden which is stunningly beautiful.

Most people in the Cotswolds are posh (some very nice, some not) really the same whatever class you are.

So Sam this is the secret of Daylesford – Daylesford is a meeting place for the rich and famous, people who want to be famous and people who want to think their famous and want you to think they’re famous by having a cup of coffee alongside the “crowd”. The Hurley’s and the Winset’s who moved into the countryside thinking they are going to be an important member of the community and to show off to anyone their new lover/husband/someone else’s husband and no one’s going to bother them have come to realise that no one gives a rats-arse who they are, so they have to be seen somewhere, add to that the rich who are not famous but like to be seen in the company who are.

As Gerry mentioned nobody actually shops there, why on earth anyone would pay £16 for a breast fed chicken I don’t know, mind you people have been known to spend £50 on a few bits just to say they have rubbed shoulders with Samantha Cameron, which brings me back to Chippy while the “I shop where its posh” set go to Daylesford to rub shoulders with the likes Samantha and et al , in reality Dave joins the queue like everyone else in Chippy and shops in Sainsbury’s where nobody bothers him recognises him or gives a toss, that is the reason for him living here, personally if I want to catch a glimpse of Dave I wouldn’t spend 70 grand on a Range Rover to be “seen” at Daylesford I would wait until Dave’s in Sainsbury’s, plus I can buy a chicken for a fiver.

One other thing Sam, Chippy have had the famous and not so rich in our midst for years, Keith Moon the loon from the Who once owned the Crown & Cushion Hotel who after his hangers-on had gone was actually normal, on one occasion upon his arrival in town in his pink Rolls Royce parked in the car park full of birds with the music cranked up loud was told by a friend I was with ‘you can turn that f****** row down’ which he did, plus there are many others around from stage and screen who I can’t be bothered to mention.
Welcome to Chipping Norton Sam.

the album is worth a listen (called bud,sweat and bears)