Natural England, what a very odd thing to call it.

On Sunday Natural England took over all the functions of English Nature together with some of those of the Countryside Agency and the Rural Development Service. As a result, the brass plates on either side of the doorway of the rather fine John Dower House in Cheltenham, past which I'm wont to walk on the way to mon petit travail, were covered up on Friday and have now been removed and replaced. Urgent vital rebranding it seems.

Now I’m sure that setting up this new agency is an absolutely spiffing idea because a Labour Secretary of State was responsible for it being done.

But what a very curious name to give it. My friend John and I can’t think of one square mile of England that is ‘natural’ in the sense of being unchanged by human hand. Can you? We think England is possibly the most ‘unnatural’ country on the planet. Do you?