Sunday, August 28, 2011

The Archers: A month in Ambridge

Pip brings computer gibberish to Ambridge ? as if Bridge Farm's E coli catastrophe wasn't enough to worry about

If there is one thing I can't be doing with ? and it's no use giving me that look ? it's computers. And computer gibberish. And people who gibber it.

Pip Archer, puffed up with one B and two Cs, has been offering her relatives the benefit of her IT expertise.

Bridge Farm, where Tony, Pat and Helen live, has been a hissing and a byword in Borsetshire since E coli was found in its ice-cream. Little Millie, whose very name suggests a heavenly choir, is in intensive care. Clarrie, the E coli carrier, goes around ringing a little bell. Underwoods, purveyors of fine foods to the gentry, is demanding money with menaces. The Borchester Echo is baying at the door ("We're on the front page again!"). And Bridge Farm has an ice-cream mountain that would make Brussels whistle.

At this suicidal juncture Pip waded in with her spanking new strategy to boost sales. "Have you thought of a mobile website with bigger links and onscreen navigation buttons?" Helen, who mostly sells lentil soup, had not. Pip pressed on. "If you're redesigning your normal website, add lots of keywords into the text to optimise research engine results. Create accounts on all the big social networking sites and microblogging sites. Add links to them from your home page, then update them often. Monitor traffic to your ?" Someone had put a pillow over my face. Filtered faintly through the feathers I seemed to hear them suggest scrolling tweets along the top.

If The Archers lasts a thousand years ? which is possible ? this was Pat's finest hour. She screamed: "Oh, for goodness sake!" which is as filthy as language gets in Ambridge. "Oh, for goodness sake!" is what Brian said when they discovered old bones under his new development. You add your own asterisks.

I have a better idea for selling surplus tutti-frutti. What about a stop-me-and-buy-one tricycle? Fragrantly olde worlde. Carbon friendly. Computer free.

Oddly enough, you can buy one on the internet.


guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/aug/23/month-in-ambridge-the-archers

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