Glad you enjoyed it Chewbacca. My favourite of that year’s speakers.
I agree Galaxy. The soapy confines of a small, rural parochial community would have little appeal or prospects for an aeronautical engineer or an Oxbridge PPE graduate. As few (meaning none) are allowed to leave or have a life outside the Ambridge electrified fence, writers have to fall back on the tired old angst and relationship tropes usually involving drink, drugs, gambling or having babies.
As for the reweeding, the writers stole the story of the Knepp Castle Esate and tried to plonk it down in the middle of an entirely unsuitable landscape. They had it spearheaded by three people who were writing their plans on the back of a Bull beermat. At the time I switched off, Justin was twirling his Machiavellian moustache trying to take control of the scheme to use it as a greenwash for some deeply dodgy Damara development elsewhere.
Did I read somewhere that brash Brummie wheeler-dealer Vince Casey had got his leg over Elizabeth Pargetter? How the heck did that happen? As unlikely couples go …
eGJ. I long argued (in my head) for an entire new family to be introduced as smallholders instead of cardboard peripherals; Philip, Natasha, Lee, Joy etc. Strange that people can get into Ambridge but anyone with Archers blood can never get out.
Did anyone ever find Dr Locke? Last seen years ago sloping off from a party with Debbie Aldridge and never heard of again (I think Shula and Elizabeth were both mooning over him at the time). Who has been giving the Covid jabs? Jakob the Aspie vet? Jazzer McCreary?
LullyDully. I’d completely forgotten about Lily. Did she ever go back to university or is she still in thrall to the terminally indolent Russ? Or Freddie and his scheme to pedal an energy-generating bicycle to light up an art installation at St Stephens?
I’m off to join the Hassett Hills insurgents plotting to overthrow the writers.