Whilst one ‘Observer’ reader suggests Alan Bennett writes the monologues that have replaced normal episodes of ‘The Archers,’ another demands a return to standard broadcasts about Ambridge life
In a letter to the Observer this morning, one Ursula Hutchinson [on-the-ball listeners may remember Ambridge’s resident villain Rob Titchener’s meddling mother was also called Ursula] of Newport on the Covid-19 app friendly Isle of Wight, plainly inspired by his brilliantly straight-to-the-point Talking Heads series, suggested Alan Bennett be brought in. She remarked:
If ‘The Archers’ monologues are to go on, they need to ask Alan Bennett to write them. We’ve just endured a week of Tony’s haircut. Please!
Ursula Hutchinson
Newport, Isle of Wight
Last Sunday, another ‘Archers Addict,’ Mary Evans of Heathfield, East Sussex got even more het up. In her letter, the “enthusiast” declared the new format “totally dull and frankly not worth giving up 15 minutes of your life for, however much time you have to spare at the moment.” She vented:
How I agree with Miranda Sawyer regarding the new format of ‘The Archers’ (Radio review): totally dull and frankly not worth giving up 15 minutes of your life for, however much time you have to spare at the moment. I acknowledge the difficulties of broadcasting but the archive episodes were much more worthwhile, even though I took issue with the gloomy choice – Kirsty being stood up at the altar, the Grundys being evicted, the floods.
My fellow enthusiasts and I will be putting ‘The Archers’ on hold until they drop this boring format. Surely as it’s radio it must be technically possible to cobble together something like the original. I fear they may lose fans who will be disinclined to return.
Mary Evans
Heathfield, East Sussex
We join both Evans and Hutchinson in their lament, but The Archers scriptwriters have thus far provided one lockdown highlight: An episode where the village gossip Susan Carter – high on ‘honey rum,’ as one would be after desperately raiding the dregs of the lockdown drinks cupboard – referenced sexual antics for those in their later years after getting spiced up on homemade chilli.
‘The Archers’ – set in the fictional village of Ambridge – first aired on BBC on 29th May 1950. It is the world’s longest running drama and thus attracts both accolade and criticism in equal measure from its somewhat dedicated audience.
In this legendary episode, Helen Titchener stabbed her husband Rob after he criticised her tuna bake.
‘Country Channel.TV’ went behind the scenes with the cast of ‘The Archers’ in January 2010. One character, Phil Archer, made the ‘Guinness World Records’ for being the longest serving actor in a single soap opera – Norman Painting played him from 1950 until his death on 29th October 2009.
The second part of the behind the scenes tour of the radio soap inspired by life in a village in rural England. It was originally billed as “an everyday story of country folk,” but is now described (more suitably for the ‘woke’ generation we sadly live in) as “a contemporary drama in a rural setting.”
Crumbling Northamptonshire estate Lilford Hall – where the little owl was introduced to Britain – for sale for £10 million, a sum £35 million lower than in 2014
Grade I listed Jacobean mansion with 13 chimney stacks for sale for £10 million; it was for sale last for £44.9 million in 2014 in spite of being listed on English Heritage’s ‘At Risk Register.’
Lilford Hall – parts of which have not been occupied since 1947 –is currently owned by a businessman who tried to sell burial plots in the grounds for £1,250 a pop and shares in a yacht loosely associated with Frank Sinatra for £23 each.
The 321-acre estate includes not only overgrown parkland, but also a zoo with cages that formerly housed bears and a lake for flamingos.
From 1711 until 1990, Lilford House was the seat of the Powys family – the 4th baron is credited with introducing the little owl to the UK.
More recently, in 1969, the “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger used the at-the-time derelict mansion in one of her best-known works.
A 32,406 square foot Grade I listed Jacobean mansion 82 miles from Central London has gone on sale for £10 million – or the equivalent of just £308 per square foot.
On this basis, Lilford Hall – set in 321 acres near Oundle – seems a comparative bargain when considered against the £4,786 per square foot sought for a Lennox Gardens, Knightsbridge triplex flatThe Steeple Times featured in May, but buyers need to remember this – parts of this crumbling building, most notably the major state rooms, have not been used since 1947.
Marketed last in 2014 for the even more punchy sum of £45 million, the “exceptional residential and amenity estate located on the River Nene,” is now offered by agents Savills. The “wonderfully proportioned” U-shaped mansion itself is constructed of grey limestone and includes over 100 rooms and amongst them are 7 “impressive” reception rooms, a ballroom, a ‘great chamber’ and 9 bedrooms. In addition, there are two Georgian pavilions that were formerly coach houses and stabling, three cottages, a former zoo, the oldest private softball court in the world, a former flamingo enclosure and a deer park.
“Impressiveness in the chief attribute of Lilford Hall as a specimen of architecture” claimed County Life in 1990 and as the seat of the Powys family from 1711 until 1990, it became not only a Downton Abbey-esque entertaining pad, but also housed nurses in the Second World War. Here, indeed, is an English country house that has seen lavishness and decline and thankfully here is an example that thankfully escaped the wrecking ball wrought so disgracefully on such houses in the 1950s and 1960s.
Fascinatingly in the 1880s, Thomas Powys, 4th Baron Lilford filled his aviaries on the estate with rheas, kiwis, pink-headed ducks, free-flying lammergeiers and it was from here that he also introduced the little owl into the UK. There are said to be around 5,700 breeding pairs today, but sadly, according to the RSPB, their numbers are now in decline.
More recently, in 1969, “sexually erotic” performance artist Penny Slinger took over the by then “derelict” mansion in conjunction with the filmmaker Peter Whitehead. Their resulting work, titled An Exorcism, was exhibited internationally and in 2004, after the current owners, Charles and Aziza Micklewright, acquired the house, they did something equally avant-garde; they attempted to sell burial plots in the grounds to Americans by citing the estate’s connections to the founder of the Brownists, Robert Browne – a man better known as ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).
Whilst Mr and Mrs Micklewright were lauded for their considerable efforts towards the “huge task” of restoring Lilford Hall, they came to the attention of Historic England in May 2019 when the building was listed on the At Risk Register. At that time, the Oundle Chronicle reported: “The roof covering is in poor condition leading to water ingress and distress to the upper storeys. The front bays require structural attention. A schedule of urgent repairs has been identified but not implemented, and no long-term solution has been agreed.”
Now, someone with very, very deep pockets is required to restore this gem. It would be helpful if they liked erotic art, bears, squash and owls also.
The Names & Numbers – The Lilford Hall Estate, Lilford, Oundle, Peterborough, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, United Kingdom
June 2020 – The estate is listed sale for £10 million ($12.5 million, €11.1 million or درهم46 million) through Savills. It includes 321.31 acres, of which 148.17 acres are pasture land whilst 157.48 acres are woodland. The majority of the estate is held on a freehold title, whilst the remaining 127.6 acres – known as ‘The Linches’ and ‘Lilford Woods’ – are held on a lease with 91 years remaining.
2015 – Promoted as ‘The National Memorial Gardens,’ burial plots in the gardens of the hall were offered “available to any UK resident or national for an outstanding price of only £1,250 ($1,568, €1,393 or درهم5,758)” by Mark Bailey of Harley Investments. Around the same time, a website dedicated to Lilford Hall marketed “a piece of the formal gardens” for sale for £299 ($375, €333 or درهم1,377) to include “an officially certified ‘Squire of Lilford’ [title] … with this little piece of history.”
March 2014 – The Irish Times reported that the asking price for the estate had been increased to £44.9 million ($56.3 million, €50 million or 206.8درهم million). They claimed the agents Coldwell Banker blamed “confusion over currency conversion rates and new instructions from the owner.”
April 2014 – The Lilford Hall Estate is listed for sale through Coldwell Banker on MyHome.ie for £33.7 million ($44.2 million, €37.5 million or درهم155 million) on behalf of “an English gentleman.”
2004 – The estate is acquired by the Micklewright family. Little information is available online about the Old Framlingham Charles Micklewright (born July 1958), but he is described as a “patent attorney” on Companies Houses pages. The businessman is mentioned also as a publisher and trustee of the Marsh Christian Trust elsewhere, whilst his Singaporean born wife, Aziza (born 1964), was a director of Lilford Properties Limited from 2013 to 2018.
A website operated by Sign of the Times Limited, a Hong Kong company of Lilford Hall, Lilford, Oundle, Northamptonshire, PE8 5SG, currently offers shares in a yacht named ‘Sinatra the Voice’ for £23.91 ($29.99, €26.64 or درهم110.14) per share. The boat was built in 1956 and is tenuously linked to Frank Sinatra by the fact that a one-time owner, Beale Poste, loaned it occasionally to the crooner between 1968 and 1974 in West Palm Beach, Florida.
1990 – The estate is closed to the public.
1980s – The house is used as a location in the BBC English Civil War inspired historical drama series By the Sword Divided.
1970s – Aviaries on the estate restocked by George Powys, 7th Baron Lilford (1931 – 2005). He “opened [the estate] to the public as a leisure park” and housed more than 350 birds of 110 species there. It remained thus for around 20 years and included a restaurant and shop. The aviaries and the 1,896 square foot restaurant building remain present still today.
1969 – 1970 – American British “sexual mystic” artist Penny Slinger (born 1947) and Liverpudlian filmmaker Peter Whitehead used the “derelict mansion” as the setting for their works An Exorcism and Lilford Hall. They are lauded as a “photo romance” and exhibited at the Blum and Poe Gallery in Los Angeles in 2014, at the Haywood Gallery in London in 2015 and at the Fortnight Institute in New York in 2019.
1949 – Stephen Powys, 6th Baron Lilford (1869 – 1949) died without having married or having had children. His properties aside from Lilford – a house in Mayfair, Bank Hall in Lancashire and the Bewsey Estate in Cheshire – passed to his second cousin twice removed.
1947 – The estate is sold to a company named Merchant Ventures by the Powys family (though they remain present on the estate until 1990).
1939 – 1945 – During the Second World War, the parkland of the estate was used as a military hospital for nearby airfields. From 1949 to 1954, some of the buildings constructed during this period were then used as a Polish school.
1923 – First-class Northamptonshire cricketer Major John Powys, 5th Baron Lilford (1863 – 1945) built the first private softball court in the world in the grounds of the hall. It is now in disrepair and the roof has fallen into the inner court.
1909 – 1910 – The hall was extended in the Edwardian manner including the provision of a new master bedroom with dressing room and bathroom by William Dunn and Robert Watson of Dunn & Watson.
1901 – The estate surrounding the hall reaches its largest size and totals a vast 8,000 acres of land. Around this time, Queen Mary, wife of King George V, is said to have visited the gardens.
1880s – Ornithologist and expert on the fauna of the Balearics Thomas Littleton Powys, 4th Baron Lilford (1833 – 1896) introduces the little owl into England on the estate. His aviaries were said to “feature exotic birds from all around the world” and a species of European lizard, the Lilford’s wall lizard (Podarcis lilfordi), is named in his honour. The 4th baron is repeatedly mentioned in the works of Charles Darwin for his contribution to the study of the science of evolution.
1840s – Further changes to the building are orchestrated by the architect William Gilbee Habershon (circa 1818 – 1891). The Campaign to Protect Rural England described these Victorian extensions as “sensitive” in 2006 – a rare accolade given most additions to English country houses during this period were simply brash and vulgar.
1740s – The Palladian architect Henry Flitcroft (1697 – 1769) adds “outstanding” Georgian interiors whilst “respecting the hall’s Jacobean exterior.” He “softened and brightened” the building as a result and also “constructed the Georgian pavilions and additional storeys to the east end of the two wings.” Other works by Flitcroft can be seen at Bower House in Essex, Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire and Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire.
1711 – Lilford Hall is sold to the judge and Tory politician Sir Thomas Powys (1649 – 1719), Attorney General to King James II. Powys is best remembered for conducting the prosecution of the Seven Bishops in 1699. He is buried at Lilford.
1630s – Construction of the main exterior of what to this day remains Lilford Hall as a “Jacobean-style gentry house” by William Elmes (the younger).
1473 – The land that forms the estate is acquired by William Browne (1410 – 1489), a wealthy wool merchant and landowner from Stamford, from the estate of Baron Welles (who was beheaded by King Edward IV for treason). In 1495, “in a Tudor style,” he built a hall on the site and it passed to Robert Browne (1550 – 1633), the founder of the Brownists, ‘The Father of the Pilgrims’ and ‘The Grandfather of the Nation’ (of the United States of America).
Moving on homes owned by the newsworthy – including properties owned by society snapper Sir Cecil Beaton, novelist Jackie Collins and film producer-director Peter Minns.
A Tennis Court Teardown
Paris Hilton’s dad Rick’s realty firm Hilton & Hyland has just launched to the market the former Beverly Hills home of the late Jackie Collins OBE (1937 – 2015) for £13.4 million ($16.95 million). They don’t say much about the bonkbuster author’s residence of some 25 years other than: “Secluded behind gates and foliage lies a great opportunity to purchase a tennis court… Home could use a remodel or rebuild.” Miss Collins and her second husband art gallery owner Oscar Lerman paid £2.4 million ($3 million) for 5,269 square foot 614 N Beverly Drive in 1991.
Limited Living in the ‘Hampshire Highlands’
https://vimeo.com/358107497/b6629a2217
Reduced in price from £4 million ($5.1 million) in September 2019 to £3.73 million ($4.72 million) now through agents BCM, The Oast House at Hartley Mauditt in the South Downs National Park in Hampshire was converted by film producer-director Peter Minns in the 1990s.
This delightful ‘mini estate’ looks like something that could have been in of The Darling Buds of May and comes with 76.28 acres of land suitable for ‘stick and ball’ polo, but the problem is this – a planning stipulation dictates that the majority of the main house is only allowed to be on a “short-term” basis whilst two cottages are for “holiday or seasonal worker use” and a bungalow is limited to “anyone fully employed in agriculture.”
Minns is best known for having produced programmes including Mad Cows & Englishmen for the BBC, A Question of Sleaze – The Neil Hamilton Story for Channel 4 and Citizen 2000 – which followed the lives of twenty children who became 18 in the year 2000.
Moving on Sir Cecil’s Seat
£4 million ($5.1 million) is sought for Queen Anne Reddish House in the Chalke Valley in Wiltshire by agents Savills. Society snapper Sir Cecil Beaton CBE, owner from 1947 until his death in 1980, described it as: “My dream home” and an “exquisite country seat” and between 1987 and 1999, it was home to the I Want to Be Free singer Toyah Wilcox. Aside from 6 acres of glorious gardens, the Grade II* listed house comes with two cottages, a range of follies and a water meadow. Locked-down Instagrammers have been moving all over its marketing brochure and sharing photos online, with one even gushing: “It’s the prettiest house I’ve seen EVER… EVER.”
Just as ultimate dumbo Lady Victoria Hervey shows herself up in stating “Fuck Black Lives Matter,” fellow aristo Dr. Bendor Grosvenor calls for the return of objects “looted during the British Empire”
Dimwitted dope Lady Victoria Hervey just cannot help but shove her stilettos straight into the proverbial. Whether be it her short-lived relationship with “he who doesn’t sweat in Pizza Express (Woking branch’)” ‘Randy’ Prince Andrew, or flogging knickers in her long since gone-bust shop in Knightsbridge displaying the words “Yes Please” across the crotch, here is a woman with utterly no shame and an utter incapacity to accept any kind of blame for her own failings.
Formerly nicknamed ‘Toff Totty Vicky,’ Lady Victoria predictably showed herself up by banging on about her associations with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell last year. This weekend, the bubbly blonde went further in posting a picture of the defaced statute of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia on her Instagram page. She not-so charmingly captioned the snap: “Don’t ever tell me this is acceptable behavior [sic]. Fuck BLM [Black Lives Matter].”
Described by even a fellow socialite, the late Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, as “unpleasant” and “a right snob” previously, “luxury is in my blood” Lady Victoria was contradicted by the Reverend Robert W. Lee IV, the general’s great-great-grandson. He “gave his blessing for the monument to be removed” on Thursday according to the BBC and asked: “If today is not the right time, when will it be the right time [to remove the statue]?”
Going further of this situation on Twitter on Sunday, though talking in the context of the related British protests, fellow aristocrat Dr. Bendor Grosvenor – a distant relative of the present Duke of Westminster and a man best known for his stint on the BBC’s Fake or Fortune? art documentary series – tweeted:
“Let the Colston statue’s removal be a prompt for councils and museums across Britain to take action to remove similar artworks from display, *as well as* returning the thousands of cultural objects looted during the British Empire. Start now. We’ve waited too long.”
Sadly, yet not unsurprisingly, Lady Victoria – whose ancestor Frederick Hervey, 1stMarquess of Bristol ironically is best remembered as a “social reformer” and “an MP [who] voted for the abolition of slavery in 1807” – has previous form. In 2003, this ‘aristoprat’ stated: “It’s so bad being homeless in winter. They should go somewhere warm like the Caribbean where they can eat fresh fish all day.”
Shame on this irrelevant ignoramus; it’s not Black Lives that don’t matter, it’s instead Victoria Hervey that doesn’t matter.
Lady Victoria Hervey with the Duke of York at a social gathering; supporter of the abolition of slavery and “social reformer” Frederick William Hervey, 5th Earl and 1st Marquess of Bristol (1769 – 1859).Lady Victoria Hervey’s offensive Instagram post was unsurprisingly met with disdain by many. One responded: “Wait, hold up Lady are you saying Fuck Black Lives ???” Another added: “But think you got to be careful saying fuck BLM… That’s not acceptable TBH. It’s offensive.” Dr. Bendor Grosvenor’s, by contrast, sensible tweet.
Classic clangers from former ‘It Girl’ Lady Victoria Hervey:
“I am Lady Victoria Hervey – it doesn’t get more British than that.”
“Unless it’s champagne, I can’t handle it.”
“I do have a day job.”
“My career always goes much better when I haven’t got a man.”
“A baby is easy – you hand them over to a nanny!”
“I’m not stupid. I’m not a dumb model.”
“[I aim to become] the next Kate Winslet – but with class.”
“I have had four past lives, three of them as a man. I was a composer in 17th-century Paris, I made materials in India and in Ancient Greece I was a famous politician. In Ancient Egypt I was keeper of the oils for the Pharaoh’s wife, and I love oils so it all kind of fits.”
“What annoys me is when these families have got like 12 children and we’re paying for these kids… They work out that they make more money being on the dole than having a job, they just laze around.”
“The real irony of this is that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.”
“Travelling is in my blood, and so is liking luxurious things and spending.”
“I haven’t given up on men, there are a few of them around, but I keep leaving every city I meet them in.”
“Everyone from Europe wants to buy houses in LA.”
“I was too old for Jeffrey Epstein… [He seemed] very charming… He was a very well-liked guy.”
“I’m not one of those kind of girls, I don’t like going to dinners with ten models invited… I was very young and impressionable, Jeffrey was a very charismatic man.”
“I haven’t seen [Ghislaine Maxwell] since September [2018] at a friend’s baby shower… I don’t think anyone is going to find her. She’s gone far away. She’s a bit like a James Bond character. She’s quite a unique person and I don’t believe anyone is going to find her… I don’t think we will ever see her again, it’s going to be like Robert Maxwell continued; she will continue that family mystery.”
“I had no idea what was going on [with Jeffrey Epstein]… It’s extraordinary it’s the case, it’s a wild story.”
“I suddenly thought, I’m just Victoria Hervey… Horrible.”
“I don’t want to make enemies.”
Pictured top: Lady Victoria Hervey with Ghislaine Maxwell, the alleged madam and procurer of girls for paedophile Jeffey Epstein.
Matthew Steeples remembers the Liverpudlian actor and voice of ‘Thomas & Friends’ Michael Angeliswho sadly passed away yesterday
Screen and voice actor Michael Angelis was the narrator of Thomas & Friends for twenty-one years. He took over the role from Ringo Starr and in tribute, following his death, Doctor Who writer Harry Draper remarked of him on Twitter: “Thank you, Michael. You were far more than just Really Useful.”
Born in Liverpool in 1952, Angelis appeared in everything from A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square to Boys from the Blackstuff and Lovejoy. He was subsequently married to his Coronation Street co-star Helen Worth from 1991 to 2001 and other credits included Bergerac, Crown Court, Hazell, Midsomer Murders, Minder and Z-Cars.
An amiable sort and often spotted socialising in Chelsea at such places as The Sydney Arms, Angelis lived for many years just to the south of Albert Bridge. More recently, this lively Liverpudlian moved to the countryside with his delightful second wife, Jennifer, and after passing away suddenly yesterday will be missed by many. As a fan concluded: “He was the voice of my childhood… He brought us all a lot of happiness.”
Pictured top: Thomas The Tank Engine, Michael Angelis (18th January 1952 – 30th May 2020) and his wife Jennifer.
On Twitter, actor and comedian Matt Lucas paid tribute by remarking: “Michael Angelis was one of the greatest TV actors I’ve ever seen. His work with Alan Bleasdale was tremendous. What a loss.” Here he is pictured in a scene from the BBC’s ‘Single Voices’ in the monologue ‘The Last Supper’ in 1989.
Travel writer Sarah Tucker shares news of her latest novella – it’s timely and its titled ‘The Redundant Travel Journalist’
My book The Redundant Travel Journalist has just come out. I would say “just in time for the holidays and in all good book shops” – but, as I don’t know which shops will be open and whether anyone will be taking anything vaguely resembling a holiday, I become aware of how many social constructs surround us. Holidays are one of them. The short novel is a dystopian tale of what travel will be like post-virus, although there may never be a post-virus.
It started off as fiction, but now I’m not so sure such is the boundary between what we think could never happen and what actually occurs. The travel industry has been most vulnerable to this surreal quality of wistful creatively about envisaging a normal, or a new normal, when really the industry is well off the cliff and currently walking on air, spin and hope. We dare not look down because we know, deep down, we have fallen, and are just waiting for the thud or a branch to break the fall.
Travel editors are in overdrive about what travel will be like, although their pages are thinning as there is no advertising and no one is going anywhere (well they are, they are just doing it illegally and in their own private jets).
There are so many webinars with very cross looking travel editors being signposted on Instagram and papers are asking writers in these unprecedented times to not write in these unprecedented times, and also drop all intention of writing virtual travel stories.
They are quote: “Fucking sick of them.” Travel experts are contradicting financial experts about asking for refunds from tour operators and the idea of staycations fills people with apathy and also incredulity (will hotels be open, expensive, can I afford them and then there’s the hygiene issues).
So, I thought I would write a ‘non-fiction’ tale of what it will be like post virus. (‘non-fiction’ being ‘nothing is intentionally made up’). Although research out this week (“What day is it?” I hear you ask) has just shown that all research and advice about what travel will be like during a crisis (the 2008 financial one, for example) never comes true. So, there you have it: There has been research to disprove the value of research.
Travel has become even more bonkers and surreal than it usually is. The dream destination has turned into exactly that, the journey of a lifetime, could be the last journey you take and getting way from the crowds is more of a necessity and less of a casual ask.
But, the Brits have always been ones to take their lives in their hands and travel whilst other nationalities stay put. There just may not be the airlines to fly with, or hotels to stay in. If airlines crash, there will be no use for airports, in which case, they could turn them into socially distancing schools, where children can learn and have the sense they are going somewhere metaphorically even if they aren’t. Or can’t. Like the rest though, I live in hope.
Sarah Tucker is an award-winning travel journalist, novelist, producer and broadcaster. She has edited, produced and presented a number of radio and TV series’ as well as presenting reports for the BBC’s ‘Holiday Programme’ and anchoring ‘I Want That House’ on ITV. She is the author of best-selling novels ‘The Playground Mafia,’ ‘The Battle for Big School,’ ‘The Last Year of Being Single’ and ‘The Control Freak Chronicles.’
To buy a copy of ‘The Redundant Travel Journalist’ by Sarah Tucker for £6.99 through Amazon, click here. Tucker has also recently written ‘The Witches of Richmond’ – it is also available on Amazon for £6.99.
“When you can travel, where will you go?” – Italy’s foreign minister Luigi Di Maio yesterday promised “foreign tourists will be welcome this summer” according to ‘The Telegraph.’
BBC presenter Adrian Chiles’s delight in the simple pleasures of a pint in a park during lockdown reflects how so many feel
Television and radio presenter Adrian Chiles’s relationship with alcohol has been very publicly documented. In August 2018, he presented a BBC Two documentary entitled Drinkers Like Me and “investigated why alcohol had become such a big part of his life.”
At the time Chiles surmised that alcohol was “the only drug you do not have to apologise for taking” and declared he “associated drinking with friendship and good times, as most of us do” according to the Guardian’s Emine Saner. Concluding, the BBC stalwart added: “The advice to ‘drink responsibly’ is the world’s most boring phrase.”
This morning in an opinion piece for the Guardian, Chiles announced: “I am trying to drink less but know a simple pleasure when I see one.” In it, he recounts how his “accidentally on purpose” visit to a pub during the coronavirus lockdown to get a takeaway beer with a friend to drink during a break from the book he is “endeavouring to write… working title: How to Drink Less.”
After consuming a stout on a “rickety bench beneath a low-hanging tree” with “slow reverence,” he “gave thanks for this simple pleasure” and concluded: “I am all for taking alcohol off the pedestal on which it stands for many of us, but this was something special. We talked as we sipped, and then we went home, exemplars of mindful, moderate drinking.” Spot on and cheers!
Actor Tony Discipline amusingly tears up Boris Johnson’s utterly confusing ‘Stay Alert’ coronavirus lockdown revision statement
Tony Discipline – best known for having played Tyler Moon in the BBC soap opera EastEnders – took to social media to explain Boris Johnson’s revised lockdown policies on Monday.
Illustrating the contradictory nature of the Prime Minister’s new directives by quoting him directly, the actor accurately summed up the confusion that has followed in a brilliant little skit.
With nothing to do but #StayAlert according to our befuddled leader, we suggest readers do something simpler: Adopt the DISCIPLINE of Tony and pour yourself another gin.
Matthew Steeples suggests BBC Radio 4 has truly let itself down in having run out of episodes of ‘The Archers’ during the COVID-19 lockdown
Closet fans won’t admit it, but The Archers is an essential part of life for many in Britain and beyond. Be it tuning in for 15 minutes with a G&T before guests arrive for supper on a week night or splurging with the omnibus edition on a Sunday whilst preparing a hearty roast, this is a radio show that in April even had one of its many fan clubs “invaded by Nazis and pornography.”
Whilst it is understandable for the makers of television soaps – programmes that, after all, require all manner of social interaction in their creation – to have run out of episodes, one would have thought that the producers of The Archers would have had a plan to see themselves through a crisis.
Sadly, they didn’t and from the 3rd to 24th May no new episodes of the world’s longest running drama are being broadcast. Whilst the BBC think it perfectly acceptable to play reruns, many ‘Archers Addicts’ (myself included) have been left despondent and feeling like ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.’ After all, where’s Peggy Woolley and her wartime spirit when we most require this soapland matriarch?
‘The Steeple Times’ suggests that in the wake of the latest drivel she spouted in ‘The Sun on Sunday’ well-known washed-up wench and all-round “nasty piece of work” Karren Brady belongs in the funny farm
Aside from illustrating her rank on the Mensa roster in revealing something nobody else on the entire planet knew in stating: “What a month it’s been for Boris Johnson,” Lady Brady also announced: “I am as keen as the next person to regain my freedom.” She then, pass the sick bucket urgently please, added: “At present, in fact, I am mainly wearing pyjamas all day as well as in bed.” As constellation, at a time when we are all coping with the COVID-19 lockdown, one can at least be thankful that she didn’t go further and follow Baroness Mone and go on about her bra choices or dip into the territory of Ferne McCann and try and flog some soiled knickers.
Disgracefully ennobled by David Cameron for utterly no good reason, “muckspreader” Lady Brady (AKA ‘Baroness Bozo’ and #LazyBrady) went on to show how out of touch she is with the ordinary populous. In a segment ever-so enthusiastically titled: “PREGNANT PAUSE FOR A NATION” (in caps for extra-special emphasis), this dimwitted oddity bizarrely offered “huge congratulations” to an American model of Dutch-Palestinian descent named Gigi Hadid and an English singer of Pakistani-Irish descent named Zayn Malik. We’re no doubt lightyears away from fathoming the reasoning as to why the ever-so-vital “pregnant pause” and the ever-so “huge congratulations” are especially required for Hadid and Malik, but, hey ho, we are dealing with Karren Brady – Lord Sugar’s token bit of sideline smut from the graveyard for self-declared “genuine celebrities” that is The Apprentice.
Aside from not explaining exactly which “nation” exactly she was referencing (she probably doesn’t actually know what a nation is herself, poor love), former “dildo merchant” turned “faithful companion of Jesus” Lady Brady helpfully then declared: “They are expecting a baby… which just proves that life goes on. What a beautiful baby they will have. It’s great to have some good news amid the gloom.” Let’s all join her and praise the Lord.
Of this wannabe prophet, one reader previously observed: “All business transactions associated with Lady Brady end in Richard Branson-esque failure” and now we’ll go further: “All falling for the supposed wise words of the pyjama-clad Lady Brady henceforth may find themselves joining her in the funny farm.” It is now time to lock this hapless harridan in a padded cell and throw away the key.
