The Archers

I have a guilty secret, please forgive me. I listen to The Archers Omnibus on BBC Radio 4 on a Sunday morning. I go out for newspapers, leave one with my beloved the other I take to Mass. I sit in the car for 15 minutes before Mass listening to Aled Jones and usually scan the sport section and read Rod Liddle. After Mass I go home, start the bacon and we settle down with brekkie, the papers and The Archers. But no more, I've had enough.

I grew up in Gorton, Manchester and I thank God every day when I listen in to daily life in Ambridge that I grew up in an inner city area rather than in the countryside. I had such an innocent childhood compared to rural Ambridge which is littered with illegitimate children, broken marriages, racism, violence, murder, arson and fraudsters going to jail. Not to mention the local landowner falling to his death from his own roof and one brother running off with the other brother's girlfriend and baby.

Anybody who has made a few bob seems to be shady at best, downright corrupt at worst. The local vicar married a Hindu but his first wife's mother-in-law, a Christian from the Carribean, was adamantly against the relationship, intolerant Christian you see.  The most loving, and currently enduring relationship, is the gay one, of course.

Of course the BBC claim that the show reflects life, which is what drama is all about supposedly. Bullshit! It represents life through the eyes of a white, pinko liberal, middle class nobhead from Islington. You know the kind I mean, the one who bangs on about race all the time and sees racism in everything. I think I have a wide cross  section of friends, with a wide variety of views, but the only ones who bang on about race to a tedious degree are the lefties. Droning on, and on and on all the time. And they usually look shocked if challenged and piously tell you that it isn't all that long ago that every house in the country had obligatory 'no blacks, Irish or dogs' notices in the windows. They are the kind of brainwashed people who are trying to brainwash us through The Archers and the TV soaps.

Drama doesn't actually have to represent life, as evidenced by The Archers which currently represents a jaundiced and cynical politically correct loathing of all that Britain represents and stands for rather than anything like real life. Life isn't really like it is in Ambridge thankfully. I happen to enjoy drama that is idealised and uplifting, it doesn't always have to make you feel like slashing your wrists or throwing the radio off the balcony.

So today I turned The Archers off and will not be listening in future. The drama of real life is much more uplifting and enjoyable.