Why doesn't ET visit Ambridge?
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Your support makes all the difference.Ten ways in which people nowadays finish off a sentence that starts: "Surely you don't still ... ?"
"... have a cooked breakfast every morning?"
"... allow people to smoke in your house?"
"... take sugar in your tea?"
"... smoke that stuff?"
"... have your old Status Quo records?"
"... listen to The Archers?"
"... get a Sunday paper?"
"... find The Goon Show funny?"
"... believe in God?"
"... believe in atheism?"
Ten things which characters in The Archers are always having.
A coffee
Babies
Nasty accidents
A quick pint
A conversation about another character whose voice has never been heard in the programme
Second thoughts
More coffee
Plans for parties
Worries about sheep dips, milk quotas, and other contentious things that justify having an agricultural consultant listed in the credits
To deal with unpleasant characters whom you know will get their come- uppance even if you have to wait 18 months for that pleasant moment of revenge.
Ten things which characters in The Archers never have.
A cup of tea
Nice accidents
Plans to go out and buy new clothes
A slow pint
An appearance for one episode only
Political opinions
Encounters with extraterrestrial beings
Crop circles
Moustaches
Any inclination to listen to The Archers.
Ten made-up place-names which never sounded remotely as if they could really exist.
Ambridge
Discworld
Gotham City
Barchester Towers
Blankshire
Megalopolis
Rawlinson's End
Crinkly Bottom
Alphaville
Llareggub
Ten place names which always sounded made up, even though they are real places.
Welwyn Garden City
Brasilia
Brazzaville
Leonard Stanley
Bix Bottom
Ashby de la Zouch
Newton-le-Willows
Cricket St Thomas
Llanfairpwllgwyn etc etc
Dodge City
Ten expressions which have not been decimalised or metricated.
Penny for your thoughts
Give them an inch and they'll take a mile
A guinea pig
The penny's dropped
Not short of a few bob
Spend a penny
Penny for the guy
I wouldn't give tuppence
Came down like a ton of bricks
Inching slowly away
Ten expressions which not only demean women but demean specific women by name.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
Not on your nelly
Plain Jane
Sue and be damned
A cheap sally
Darby and Joan
Off the peg
Sweet Fanny Adams
Poison ivy
Shrinking violet
Ten words which we and the Americans insist on pronouncing differently.
Caribbean
garage
inquiry
controversy
versatile
fertile
Warwick
nauseous
futile
zee (for zed)
Ten questions which have never been answered satisfactorily.
Stands Scotland where it did?
Why is the English word for a driver "chauffeur", if the French word means "someone who heats something up"?
Why do we wear a wristwatch on the left wrist?
If Kochel put Mozart's life and work in order, who did the same for Kochel?
If Smith is the commonest name in England, why isn't the French equivalent, Lefevre, the commonest name in France?
What's it all about, then?
Why do people call the left-hand lane of a motorway the "inside lane", when it is actually the outside lane?
Why is it called a double bass, when there is no single bass?
Why is a boy soprano called a treble, when there is no such thing as a double?
Why is a play for two people called a two-hander, when they've got four hands between them?
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