BS: The Archers - time to turn off.

Subject: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 03:28 AM

Alright, I've sat through years of gross, class-ridden story-lines, revolting snobbish characters, appalling scripts written by someone who appears never to talk to real people, and the worst acting of any soap since Crossroads (the award this week goes to Elizabeth, Helen and David), but this is the final straw – the unspeakable Charlie Windsor's equally unspeakable missus is about to make an appearance, with all the attendant sycophantic arse-licking. If this is a ploy to increase the audience, it hasn't worked with this long-time listener. I'm reaching for the 'off' switch before I puke or kick in the radio.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Darowyn
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 04:27 AM

Chill out, man!
You can take a twelve year break from listening to the Archers, and still catch up in a single episode.
Having lived for ten years in Borsetshire (or the real world equivalent) I find the class divide pretty realistic. I've been in a pub full of grumbling Grundys, and a restaurant full of Elizabeths and Nigels, talking at 90dB about horses.
I've even seen the various Royals drive past my window.
That's the way it is.
It will be the same in a couple of years. Just take a break, it will all be over by Easter.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 04:29 AM

What a little class warrior you are!
Let me tell you, that while you get hot under your grubby little collar about these people, who wish you not one whit of the ill you wish them, they are oblivious to your bile.
Which shows their good manners, and highlights your boorishness.
Maybe you are trying to do an Arthur Scargill?

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 04:48 AM

No they can't turn it off, that is the only time on Sunday morning that I can take time out and tune into the omnibus program and escape. A few of the characters might be snobbish but as I am unlikely to come into contact with any of them in my 'real' world it is no problem. I am not a completely devoted follower not missing a single episode but if I do miss any it doesn't take long to catch up with what's been going on which is great.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 04:56 AM

Thank you, John, for that incontinent and incomprehensible rant. Personally, I don't give a shit what the so-called 'Royals' or their apologists like you think. I just don't like it when their PR machine uses their influence to further ruin a programme paid for by licence-payers.

Just heard some good news, though - I can start watching Gardener's World again now that they're getting rid of the awful Tony Buckland and Irritating Alice (sorry, Alys)and bringing back lovely Monty Don and Carol Klein. Hurray!

Right, off to see what's new on the 'Rebublic' website.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 07:10 AM

If the Archers were turned off what should it be replaced with, another soap? Would something new work?

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 07:12 AM

More Monty Don - good (though I find Carol Klein's enthusiasm a bit taxing).

I stopped listening to the Archers for years because I couldn't stand Aunt Laura. When I started again Jennifer had a different husband but, other than that, little had changed.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 07:27 AM

'what should it be replaced with?'

Bring back Listen With Mother!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 07:33 AM

It'll improve when Vanessa Whitburn forgets about the "Stages of Grief" article she read in the Readers Digest.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Doc John
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 09:39 AM

Bring back Dick Barton I say! And Dan Dare Pilot of the Future while we're about it; although, come to think of, it that future's already passed us(and past for good measure). But they were having a world food shortage then too which triggered off the visit to Venus and meeting the Mekon. Happy days! Jet Morgan? Big Bill Campbell? The Man in Black? Not Mrs Dale's Diary though.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: gnomad
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 10:35 AM

How about a folk programme?   Then I could dive to switch on at 7.00pm, rather than off as at present.

OK, I know Radio4 is supposed to be a speech station, but it is also supposed to be the quality station. I reckon a couple of tracks and a few minutes background from someone knowledgeable (c'mon Lester, it is made for you) could make a formula that might bring in a convert or two, cost very little, and still fit the time-slot.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: JHW
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 11:03 AM

I haven't listened since the fall. Fine; except I often forget Front Row

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 11:10 AM

A plan to please everybody:

7 p.m. Dick Barton, Dan Dare, Jennings, Toy Town, the REAL Wurzel Gummidge etc.

2 p.m. Listen With Mother - it always used to be at 1.45, followed by Woman's Hour at 2 o'clock.

Sunday morning - A decent folk programme.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 11:16 AM

What an excellent list topsie! By the way, Billy Connelly suggested the music for The Archers as our National Anthem, it's much more cheerful! What about Children's Favourites with Uncle Mac for another suitable programme?

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 11:17 AM

And what, pray, is wrong with Mrs Dale's Diary?

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 11:48 AM

Children's Favourites was a must on Saturday morning - 'Uncle Mac', who presented it (Derek McCullough) was in reality a grumpy old sod who wasn't very keen on kids! ToyTown was also a must and I still quote Dennis the Dachshund's very severe "It oughtn't to be allowed" on special occasions.

As for Mrs. Dale, when Ellis Powell - the first Mrs. Dale - died, she was replaced by Jessie Matthews, who was very glamorous even then. In fact, my little Radio Buffs, Mrs. Dale's Diary was the first broadcast programme on radio or TV to have a gay man as a character. Quite something in those days.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 12:12 PM

Oh Will, do you remember all those old 'favourites' with Uncle Mac? The Runaway Train, Robin Hood, The Toothbrush Song, Gillygillyossenpeppereetcetc, The Three Billy Goats Gruff... Two or three bars and I'm back there. The radio had valves and had to heat up a bit first!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 12:13 PM

I mean, bars of music, not the other sort!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Penny S.
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 12:21 PM

I've got a full set of Jet Morgan... they do some good stuff on BBC 7.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 01:02 PM

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 01:04 PM

Sorry... clicked in wrong place!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 01:48 PM

Eliza - I actually bought a CD of all the children's stuff a year or so ago! "The Runaway Train", "The Teddy Bears' Picnic", "The Devil's Gallop" (Dick Barton theme), "Sparky's Magic Piano", "Tubby The Tuba".

And - to get back on topic - I actually love "Barwick Green" (the Archers theme)!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 02:31 PM

I'd love a CD of the Listen With Mother stories - Daphne Oxenford, Julia Lang, Dorothy Smith . . .

"Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin."


And I'd love a recording of David Davis reading - well, reading absolutely anything.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 06:50 PM

How can anyone suggest that The Archers should go when things are getting so mightily interesting? We've had Lizzie simpering this week that she tried to persuade the virtually-beatified-already Nigel not to go on that roof, and here's Guilty Dave bending over backwards to such an extent that he's not only disappearing up his own arse but he's also severely threatening, owing to sheer neglect, his own marriage to Ruth (Er, ner!!). Not that that would be much of a loss, of course. Possibly even a gain. But we all know that Guilty Dave actually encouraged Nige on to that roof, don't we? "C'mon, Nigel, are you a man or a mouse," remember? Either Guilty Dave will blurt it out to Lizzie pretty soon, or, much worse for him, a witness to that fateful remark will blurt it out (I'm guessing Freddie, or even Titcombe, who might at last find his tongue). It was a dark night, after all, and who knows who might have been listening? Give it two more weeks. You won't regret it.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 03:41 AM

Hey, I wasn't saying get rid of The Archers - just that it irritates me so much that I can't bear to listen to it at the moment. The worst thing is the terrible, stilted script that sounds more like a Jane Austen spoof or an ageing school teacher giving a lesson on how one speaks the Queen's English(enunciate, boy, enunciate!). Nobody (well nobody I know) actually speaks like that. It's especially cringe-making when he/she tries to make the kids sound 'hip'. A few lessons from the Corrie writers would work wonders. Might tune in again in 10 years' time.

And as for Mrs Dale's Diary - it was never the same when they updated it and renamed it The Dales. Right, off to hunt for some recordings of Journey Into Space.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 04:12 AM

All this talk of The Archers and Folk - and no mention of the national outrage caused when they updated the old Barwick Green Maypole Dance with a fuzz-folk rock cover version by Mudcat favourites Steeleye Span. I think it lasted a week before they changed it back. I believe The Abbots Bromley Horn Dancers often use Barwick Green, and have been doing so since time immemorial (pre-1954 revival anyway) though I once had a dream of them dancing in slow motion to Sailing By.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 04:19 AM

I once had a dream of them dancing in slow motion to Sailing By.

Ah - "Sailing By!" There must be hundreds of musicians who like me, drive back from a late gig with Radio 2 on the car radio. No matter how wired, sweaty, tired or ready for home we might be - lo! it's the Shipping Forecast and "Sailing By" drifts into the car - all is calm, all is peaceful. A great piece of music.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 04:26 AM

Somewhere I've got a digitised copy of the Book at Bedtime adaptation of Vivian Stanshall's Sir Henry at Rawlinson End Peel sessions broadcast over Xmas week around 1997 (?) featuring various edits of Sailing By, though they eschew it one night for a choral rendering of I Saw Three Ships. Alongside side such classics as Viv's Peristaltic Waves (featuring Danny Thompson & John Kirkpatrick) it's a surreal listening experience second to none...

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 04:39 AM

I see what you mean theleveller, I have noticed that the 'hipness' of most of the younger members of the cast does sound embarrasingly exaggerated at times so much so it sounds like they have all come straight out of stage school and as you say the script lately has become stilted. Perhaps that is why I am not as bothered as I used to be about missing a few episodes.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 05:10 AM

Ditch the risible Archers and repeat all the pieces Vivian Stanshall did for Radio 4. And all of the Just William stories read by Martin Jarvis. Then everything by Ivor Cutler.

By the way, nice to hear Andy Irvine admit to having been in Mrs Dale's Diary!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 06:19 AM

I often wonder what the audiences are for Radio Four in general. Minority programming for the elite stratas of upper-middle class England, exemplified by a kid's show we caught once in the car one Sunday afternoon (Go For It! - more embarrasing cool with an over-ethusiastic presenter who called everyone guys) in which Jack and Chloe (11 & 12 respectively though both sounding 20 years older at least) had just got back from a 6-week field-trip to the Amazon, probably on their own as an excercise in confidence building. Talk about surreal.

A couple of summers ago whilst browsing in a Norwich antiquarian bookshop off Tombland (seeking out M R James's book on Norfolk Churches if you must know) I was chuckling over an episode of Just A Minute which the shop keeper was listening to as he attended to his crossword. It was only after I'd left the shop (empty handed) that I realised it couldn't have been R4 because Kenneth Williams was one of the guests. Or maybe it was - and in that rarefied atmosphere I caught an echo of something ectoplasmic in the ether. Oo-er.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 06:21 AM

Soon as I post the above I note the new thread on Just a Minute immediately below! Spooky indeed!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 06:40 AM

The sadly troubled, and sublimely funny Kenneth Williams, was often to be found on Radio 4.
Why is it suggested that Radio 4 is middle class, maybe because it's a speech based channel, and doesn't go in for the poptrank of so many other channels.
After all the last thing we need in this world of the nanosecond attention span, is something to stimulate the brain of the listener, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 06:54 AM

(seeking out M R James's book on Norfolk Churches if you must know)

That just got me thinking of one my parents have had for years - HM Cautley. I see they have 3 copies on Amazon with prices from £40 for a 1979 reprint to £105.75 for what I guess is the 1949 version!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 08:23 AM

I am seriously peed off about the fact that Classic FM are always playing Sailing By at all hours of the day. That piece belongs to one time of the day only. I think it shouldn't be allowed to be played unless the full shipping forecast, truly poetic broadcasting, is played straight after it. Sailing By just sounds wrong with some inane voice following it intoning "Classic FM - now with more music." Eeek!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 08:32 AM

Don't even mention Classic FM to me. They've reduced classical music to the equivalent of sitting in a bath of warm, soapy suds - no challenges and hardly anything played all the way through. The programmers appeal to the masses and choose the softest, cuddliest, least difficult music, over and over again. Try listening all day for a week and you'll hear the same stuff ad nauseam. Still, appeal to the majority and rake in the advertising dosh, eh?

Blimey - I sound like Alan Bennett - he can't stand Classic FM either...

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 08:56 AM

Kenneth William on Just a Minute exclaiming "....well, I am a bit of a cult, you know!" LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 09:18 AM

Steve Shaw, what on earth are you listening to Classic FM for?
Either listen to something that doesn't annoy you, or just turn the radio off.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 09:23 AM

Was it ever time to turn on?

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Max Johnson
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 09:40 AM

I haven't listened to The Archers since the racially-motivated hate-fuelled acid attack on the Asian solicitor. The fact that I can't remember her name is proof that I've beaten the addiction.

Thank God for Radio 7. I've been listening to The Men From The Ministry and had forgotten how funny the pre-'70s episodes were. And 'Forbidden Planet' OOOooo-er! Scary!

A bit of a shame that the new R4 controller and her cruel henchmen are about to change it's target audience again. Apparently, there are far too many white, old, middle-class parasites listening, so they are going to appeal more to young people. And R7 is going to be a R4 'take-up' channel.

And don't get me started on Classic FM.

The bastards.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 10:10 AM

Ah, well, my main fix is Radio 3. But don't knock Classic FM too hard. Yes, they specialise in bleeding chunks and inane adverts but they do play complete works in the evening, and they're not always the old familiar stuff. If you're in your S-reg Ford Fiesta bombing down the A30 at 85, you've forgotten your CD case, Radio 3 is doing Stockhausen as Composer Of The Week and there's You and Yours on Radio 4, then Classic FM can occasionally come to the rescue. Apart from the bleeding chunks issue, I carry two grievances against Classic FM. First, they think Elgar's Cello Concerto is good music. Second, that awful, crude compression they apply which makes a flute sound as loud as the rest of the massed forces of the Berlin Phil put together. Mind you, at least you can hear that flute in the Fiesta.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 01:05 PM

It really is perfectly possible to drive down the A30 without listening to the radio, or a CD, or anything else other than the sound of the vehicle. It's not something dangerous that you might need to be rescued from. (Or if it really does terrify you, you could always sing.)

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 01:16 PM

Prince Charles is a good lad at heart..and he's done a great deal to help others. I've put loads of links into some of the charities he runs..Yup, he's a Royal, but he's one who cares about the planet and he's got a bigger dose of spirituality than the rest of 'em put together...

He's the one who promoted organic farming, long before it became fashionable. He's helped thousands start their own businesses, with his Princes Trust, changed many lives for the better in doing so. He cares about the biodiversity of the planet, about people living in lovely surroundings, because he knows that ugly, desolate buildings/housing breed angry minds, so often..

Camilla leaves me pretty cold to be honest, but she's done a great deal for osteoparosis, which her Mum suffered from, and I think she now does too.

At least they're happy together, and I wouldn't wish them ill for that reason, or for doing The Archers. I never listen to it anyway...find it all pretentious twaddle.

Monty Don, by the way, is the most beautiful writer. I've a book, somewhere, of the various articles he's written for newspapers over the years and they're all so evocative and filled with colourful images of beauty and nature..images created from his words, not photos. I marvelled at the way he writes...lovely man...very posh though, levels...are you SURE you like him????? ;0)

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,John MacKenzie
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 01:23 PM

Hee hee hee, ho ho ho ha ha ha.
Oh Lizzie, I love your sense of humour.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 01:26 PM

"very posh though"

good for him!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 01:44 PM

`Alright, I've sat through years of gross, class-ridden story-lines, revolting snobbish characters, appalling scripts written by someone who appears never to talk to real people, and the worst acting of any soap since Crossroads`



May I ask why you did?

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 01:46 PM

Excellent point, Monsieur....

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 03:05 PM

I don't believe there's anything to stop the Archers scriptwriters from killing off the entire British royal family in a crop-spraying accident, so that whatever happens in the real world, Ambridge can be a little corner of virtual reality in which they all stay dead.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 03:08 PM

You call The Archers pretentious twaddle, then you eulogise about Big Ears and Flopsie? Bwahahahaha! Oh, my bloody corset's gone again!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Feb 11 - 03:21 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 03:24 AM

"May I ask why you did?"

For the same reason I've been married 4 times - the triumph of hope over experience.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: theleveller
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 03:56 AM

Oops. Above was me without cookie.

Actually the real reason I listened to it was because my carradio is always tuned to Radio 4 and it happens to be on in the evening when I'm driving home from the station

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 04:27 AM

That is why I tune into R4 with the hope that I might stumble across something good and interesting. If I listen to the Archers it is usually the Sunday morning Omnibus one which encourages me to down tools and listen. Desert Island Disks is much more of a middle-class indulgence than the Archers (this is a programme which should come to an end) it is at this point that I switch off, a lot of nonsense about what famous guests would take with them on a desert island. Do I really care?

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 04:34 AM

You only need to listen if it's someone you like, who is the guest that week, that's what I do. I listen to a lot of Radio 7 on Sundays.
The radio beside my bed however, is permamnently tuned to radio 4, and is NEVER turned off.

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 06:46 AM

what famous guests would take with them on a desert island.

I feel a thread coming on!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 07:59 AM

The very last episode of Mrs Dale's Diary was broadcast on my 21st Birthday (sure that you needed to know that)

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 08:08 AM

I remember the day very well. I was having a lunchtime drink in the BBC Club (those days in the Langham Hotel building), and Jesse Mathews, the last Mrs. Dale, was draped in furs and sitting at the centre of a cast party. Champagne corks popping all over the place...

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: theleveller
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 12:00 PM

Oh, I really like Desert Island Discs. They get a good mix of people on, It's fascinating to hear their choice of music - either to applaud or sneer! The strangest one I heard was Norman Wisdom. Six out of the eight records he chose were of him!

Subject: RE: BS: The Archers - time to turn off.
From: fat B****rd
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 12:22 PM

Elizabeth Schwarkopf chose 7 of her own recordings on DID. I don't know what the eighth was.