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kicking my addiction


I'm busy making a whole lot of changes in my life.

Some, like ceramics evening class, are a spontaneous attempt to try something new however hopeless and messy.

Others are spurred by outside forces, most forcibly The Archers Sixtieth Birthday "celebrations" which, far from making me feel celebratory, are forcing me to reconsider my lifelong addiction to All-Things-Ambridge. I've listened to the Everyday Story of Country Folk forever. In pre-internet days se once had to drive up a steep and dodgy white track to a hilltop in Provence on a wet Sunday morning in order to get just enough of the crackly signal to hear Lizzie being abandoned by Cameron in a motorway service station. But now, just as I was getting over the death of Nigel we get Biscuitgate and the toe-curlingly awkward Royal Variety Performance this morning. Whoever plays Caroline deserves an award for trying to invest some sincerity in the line "It's just like talking to anyone else" plus she had to feign sympathy for a brand new relative (Uncle Adrian) who was specially invented to give the storyline a clumsy heavy-handed connection with osteoporosis. These things never work - they just break the magic.

I doubt we will ever hear of Uncle Adrian again. So I am beginning my trial Ambridge-free period today... and I am currently listening to Noah and The Whale. Oh - and the mug is by Simon Drew - but you know that already don't you.

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