Fans of The Archers might be interested to know that the late Norman Painting (who played Phil Archer) will make his final appearance on the radio drama tonight at 7pm...

If you missed it yesterday, here's what his last words were....

The following words sum up why I haven't listened for years.

In recent years, the series’ plots have increasingly seemed to be dictated by a blizzard of press releases from do-gooders, with anorexia, childhood obesity, compulsive gambling, and marriages both inter-faith and gay jemmied implausibly into Ambridge life.

 I know that time scales are compressed so that what happens in a year of life for the ordinary chap is portrayed as one week on radio. But I find the agenda of the chattering classes self obsessed and thus boring.

No doubt they find me likewise.

The Archers is not much like rural life here, or anywhere else I suspect. Its all too sanitized, tough issues like racism are sometimes tackled and then quickly bundled back off to Joburg or married to a trendy vicar. No mixed race kids, no real long term rural deprivation, for an awful lot of folks things don't get better. I know it is a national institution, a sort of collective ideal and change is viewed with horror. But can it last? Is it time for an Archers uncut?

Archers fans who want to know what the actors actually look like might be interested in this photo in The Guardian. You've just got to work out who's who now!

 Matthew Naylor's blog on the Archers over the weekend made me laugh - some things really are better left to the imagination http://www.fwi.co.uk/blogs/lincolnshire-farming-blog/2009/11/underneath-the-archers.html

Whatever else might be right or wrong with The Archers, they do try to be contemporary and they do do their research. Because the parish council in Ambridge has decided the local shop should be run as a cooperative, the characters have been heard receiving advice from the real-life charity, the Plunkett Foundation, which helps community enterprises. Apparently the foundation has also been giving advice to scriptwriters - even taking writers to such shops.