Sunday 26 July 2009

COUNTRY MATTERS

Just overheard, on The Archers -- for overseas readers: BBC radio's long-running 'everyday story of country folk' -- a question one so rarely hears asked amongst city-dwellers...

"How are you getting on with the lama-wool blanket?"

But the Line-of-the-Week, has to be Lynda Snell's:

"It's been a bit of a while since I rounded up the members of the PCC and we got to grips with the graffiti on Susan Grundy's bench."

You know, it's another world out there in the country...

15 comments:

SharonM said...

Oh ahr, oh ahr! And then there's the warning of not getting your wurzels caught in the mangle.

shalion: Yes indeed, Sharon is a Leo.

Brian Sibley said...

Now you're just being silly! ;-)

scb said...

Sharon -- as long as you don't mix your wurzels with your Woozles. Woozles are dangerous.

My mother used to listen to The Archers on CBC Radio when I was a child. Now I'm going to have the theme music running through my head for the rest of the day. Not that that's a bad thing!

Thanks for the memories! And the chuckles!

Good Dog said...

a question one so rarely hears asked amongst city-dwellers...

"How are you getting on with the lama-wool blanket?"


Isn’t it de rigueur in Islington? Or is it Hoxton? I can’t keep up with the trendies.

We never heard anything like that out on Dartmoor. Maybe we missed it all rounding up the cattle when the herd got out of their current field and trampled over our croquet lawn.

Brian Sibley said...

SCB - Ah, yes, the theme music: Barwick Green by Arthur Wood. And if you want a reminder (not that it sounds as if you need it), you'll find it here.

GOOD DOG - Cows on the croquet lawn?! OMG! How utterly Carrollian...

Good Dog said...

Oh, we never let them play. Anyway, they much preferred coming into the old orchard when we were clearing away the dead trees and making a bonfire from the scraps that wouldn't be useful in the boiler.

The beauties used to all pack together, side-by-side, breathing in the smoke and sparks. Then they went off and got slaughtered. I suppose it was a funny old life really. Still, that's the countryside for you.

Oh, the WV is "complian", which would be expressing annoyance at poor spelling.

Brian Sibley said...

Maybe the fires gave them a presentment of what it would eventually be like to end up in an oven!

scb said...

Smoked beef, anyone?

Brian -- thank you for confirming that I had remembered the theme music correctly! (I hummed it for my mother this afternoon -- she was quite impressed. Hummed it from memory, I might add, as I hadn't yet seen your link. She remembered listening to the Archers. I'm never sure what she will remember and what she won't, so it was nice that the Archers was one of the "Do Remembers".)

Brian Sibley said...

That is good... :-)

Suzanne said...

Tum te tum te tum te ta. See I remember that too, after all these years in Belgium.
You'll be pleased to hear that Waterstone's in Bury St Edmunds still has a Classical section which I found thanks to you and the Kipling poem you blogged the other day... I HAD to have the works!
Good Dog: current field? I though currents grew on trees?
cogoari: morning country madness brought on by one-hour jet lag travelled by boat (oh dear, it gets worse doesn't it...)

Brian Sibley said...

"Do you like Kipling?"

"I don't know I've never kippled!"

Boom-boom!

I think Kipling is a hugely underrated poet. Check out The Gods of the Copybook Headings.

Bizarrely, as I type this, there's a woman on the 'One & Other' fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square reciting (rather badly) If!

SharonM said...

But not 'If I were a carpenter, and you were a lady'.

Brian Sibley said...

No... Surprisingly, perhaps... ;-)

Sheila said...

I used to think the The Archers was an accurate reflection of country life until Lynda Snell arrived in the village and made frequent references to her previous life in Sunningdale and the Sunningdale Hunt. As it is just up the road from us, we know that hunting in Sunningdale would be very difficult - how could they chase foxes through gated estates of stockbroker mansions without falling in swimming pools, getting caught in tennis nets, or tripping on croquet hoops, as well as dodging round the Porsches, Lexuses (Lexi?), Mercs and Rollers? Hunting country it ain't!

Brian Sibley said...

Another illusion shattered! Mind you, I can well imagine Mrs Snell organizing a neighbourhood protest against irresponsible placing of croquet hoops so as to cause undue risk and hazard to fox-hunters!