Extend the right to roam, but not the right to drone on about wild swimming

An all-party parliamentary group is calling for everyone to be given the right to go wild camping and swimming across our green and pleasant land (and, I suppose our blue and hopefully non-besewaged waters).

- Lucy Mangan

Apparently we only have the right to roam across 8% of England at the moment, a situation that strikes me as so perfectly us that it should be submitted to the Unesco Intangible Cultural Heritage List immediately.

But anything to do with land rights and rules in this septic isle always throws up a delight or two - usually around the vision always conjured of furious, red-faced owners shouting impotently at paddling peasants (or, should your mood or Norman ancestry prefer, shooting at them non-impotently with the family's Holland & Holland).

Born and raised in Catford, I was 30 before I realised that people owned the countryside - that fields could be rented like flats and vegetation could have a landlord. The idea that you can own a tree still blows my mind.

Obviously, as a pleb, I fully support the push to give us access to the wonders of the remaining 92% of the place that is still forbidden to us. Not least because as a kind of reverse Dick Whittington I sort of think there must be gold lining the hedgerows and things. All I would ask is that when the rights to wild camping and swimming are bestowed, they be accompanied by stringent legislation against people talking about it. Enjoy your activities by all means. But do not make it 92% of your personality and conversation. You know what I mean and you know who you are. Think on.