Ambridge Socialist

The Ambridge Socialist
The real Borsetshire Echo: 60 years of class struggle in Ambridge
20th February 2011 CONTACT KEITH FLETT 07803 167266

Camilla:Ambridge Socialist Welcome Censored by BBC
A sizeable number of the socialists of Ambridge gathered outside Grey Gables from 6pm on Wednesday 16th February to protest at the visit of Royal Scrounger Camilla to the village. Sticks were optional but numbers carried them as a sign of solidarity with student protesters. Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said ‘ The BBC coverage of the Duchess’s visit deliberately censored news of the protests following the usual Reithian principles’.

Whatever happened to the Archers Anarchists?
Originating in Tory Party Central Office, although apparently also including some genuine anarchists, for years the Archers Anarchists have claimed to be a left-wing grouping in the village. Their absence from the Camilla protests shows which side they are really on. Ambridge Socialist Editor Keith Flett said ‘Of course the Anarchists claim that the Archers is real and there is no cast and yet on the rare occasion when this is true, such as the visit of the Royal Scrounger they are silent. We suspect Dave Cameron called them off’. We understand the AA are meeting next weekend to review developments

Camilla visit: The principled & the flunkeys
The Tories of Ambridge grovel when a Royal such as Camilla shows up in the village, but what of the rest of the inhabitants? Ed Grundy proved that he remains a rebel as Twitter noted he was spending the day with the cows playing the Sex Pistols God Save The Queen. But flunkeys there were including turncoat lefties such as the Dawkinsite Professor Jim Lloyd and erstwhile eco-campaigner Lynda Snell.

Nicholas Lezard on the Royals & Ambridge
To my bed, with the curtains drawn and a cold damp flannel pressed to my eyes. Fury, I have
discovered, brings with it many of the symptoms of migraine: pain, nausea, fatigue. I do not
wish to belittle the afflictions of genuine migraine sufferers, for whom I have boundless pity,
but, frankly, have you been listening to the Archers lately? It’s enough to make anyone feel
sick, and as though a hot skewer is being pushed through the temples.
Part of the problem is the habit engendered by long practice. If you do not go to an office
then you have to have some routines, otherwise you just spend the whole day in bed eating
biscuits. Having not worked in an office for over twenty years, apart from a couple of days
doing shifts as a sub on the Independent in the early 90s (never again, I vowed; and I came
away with an abiding respect for the skills and temperament of the dedicated sub-editor), I
have evolved a routine which, with now devastating consequences, is loosely based around
the Archers.
For those of you who do not know the programme, it is a fifteen minute serial drama
featuring rustic idiots broadcast twice-daily, the 2.00pm broadcast being a repeat of the show
broadcast the previous evening at 7pm. Then the week’s whole experience is repeated [itals]
en bloc [end itals] between 10am and 11.15am on Sundays. For most sane people, listening to
the show only once is plenty, or, for even saner people, more than enough, but there is a
compelling, addictive quality to it, and, just as some people are more prone to alcoholism or
drug abuse than others, some people can’t help listening to the Archers more than is good for
them. Readers, I am one such person.
The evening show is when I sit down with the first glass of wine and the first roll-up of the
day, after many long hours eating biscuits in bed, I mean working jolly hard. (I like to think
pushing wine o’clock back from 6 till 7pm shows steely fortitude, don’t you?) The 2pm show
goes on while I prepare myself a little something for my luncheon. The routine is now more
or less automatic.
Unfortunately it has now, as I have said, become painful, and is the result of what looks at
first sight to be a deliberate policy on the part of the editors and writers of the show to enrage
and disgust its audience. For a start, one of the least unlikeable characters, a genial toff called
Nigel Pargetter, was killed off in the most unlikely fashion. That a death was forthcoming
was well known, and all the listeners were looking forward to his screeching harridan of a
wife, Elizabeth, or her deranged cousin, Helen, being bumped off. Instead it was he.
Well, those are the breaks, and life moves on, although Helen has now become a mother
through artificial insemination, this being how they do things in the country, and every
episode has a few obligatory moments when the cast coo over her baby, a spectacle even less
interesting on the radio than it is when presented visually, yet somehow just as repugnant.
But the real problem is the imminent arrival of Horse-face, or, as everyone on the
programme is obliged to call her, the Duchess of Cornwall. The Archers has form on this,
having got Princess Margaret to make a cameo appearance in the 1980s. The thought of the
diminutive party hag and rancid anti-semite (“not another fucking film about Jews,” she is
said to have remarked at a royal screening of Schindler’s List) scattering her fag ash all over
the studio was at least good for a giggle. But it appears that Camilla is an Archers fan and
wants to pop in and do her bit to blur the distinction between fiction and reality. The result is
that half the cast is going doolally with servility and monarchism, begging for the day off so
they can wave at her, or begging for the day on if they are working at the hotel where she’ll be
staying. To add further insult, the BBC broke its sternest rule by giving an outrageous free
plug for the shortbread biscuits her husband makes. (I use the word “makes” in its loosest
sense.)
The air of sycophancy is more than stifling: it is nauseating. I have yet to hear any character
express even non-committal indifference to the prospect of her arrival (I write five days
before her visit; it’ll have been and gone by the time you read this). And I’m not expecting
anyone to express active hostility on republican grounds either. For fuck’s sake, no-one’s
even allowed to call her “Camilla”.
As I say, all this is making me ill, and I don’t think I’m alone. The sensible thing is to stop
listening, but that is not an option. To pursue the analogy with alcoholism: I am like John
Berryman, ploughing through as much booze as he always did even through the effects of
antabuse, the drug which makes the effects of alcohol intolerable. The sick-bag, please.

In Other News
The Duchess of Cornwall who by any standards is ancient has told the BBC she has been listening to the Archers for 30 years. So a newcomer then
David Aaronovitch has posed the question, when will David confess he murdered Nigel? We are betting on June.

@kmflett for updates