I have gone bravely forth into AmbridgeExtra for your benefit and now I know stuff.

[CuttedUpPear]

Annoyed by R4's pathetic attempts to lure us into Ambridge Extra by only giving half the storylines in the Archers, I felt duty bound to go over and find out what the hell is going on.

Bob Pullen (RIP) apparently no big friend of anyone in Ambridge, prophesied his own death, to the day it would seem, since he somehow managed to travel to Liverpool and stick envelopes all over the place with clues in ready to be found by Jim, Joe and whatsisname.

This leads the gents to a some scouse landlady friend of bob and then onto a ridiculous treasure hunt taking in lady friend's own dead parents and Red Rum (where said lady friend answers most of the riddles and appears to have some sacrosact knowledge of old dead Bob who stayed in her B&B once a year).

Cue a raft of 'friendly northener' cameos and stereotypes agogo. I think the Liverpool Tourist Board must have bunged a wad of used oncers over to get their image promoted on R4.

It was all a bit "Three Men in a Boat" - the scriptwriter is clearly wasted in Ambridge.

There is a twist but it's nothing that will impact on Jazzer's milk round.

Well that's 25 minutes of my life I'll never get back.

i love it

Well done. You did good work.

Thank you for that, cutteduppear.

I've never managed to get organised enough to find it ... and have taken acquired an irrational grudge against it. Silly really.

Off on a tangent: If something good doesn't happen to Will, and soon, I'm going to ... fume angrily in my kitchen. I know that doesn't carry the same force as some act of preposterously over-the-top and unnecessary ASBO-type behaviour directed at the script writers but ... I tell you: I am getting cross.

Well done cutteduppear.

Will. Oh my. I'm assuming you mean "good" as in "interesting", gatheringlilac? He's too holier than thou to be true.

Do you mean Ed, not Will gatheringlilac?

Also:
Do you want to know what the twist in the Liverpool story is?

I could tell you but it might come out in TA. If we don't all lose the will to live first that is.

I don't think the twist will come out in TA as they all promised to keep it to themselves.

I love AE too. In the same way I love TA, a kind of getting-pleasingly-annoyed-by-the-characters way.

Thank you CUP. I have a rather cutted-up / not-cutted-up attitude to AmEx. I don't want to listen to it on principle but, there again, if it exists then I want to know what's going on.

I hereby appoint you MN's chief reporter on AmEx.

Do tell us the twist.

Yes, go on .

I can't listen to it. But I would like to know the twist please.

Yes, I did mean Ed. I'm good up until about 3pm and from then on in I become increasingly wobbly about names (including useful ones like "door", "plate", "coat".).

I'd like to know the twist too.

THE TWIST

Seems that Bob Pullen had a daughter out of wedlock. Who never knew him. Until now.
She was the mystery Liverpudlian woman who ran the B&B where the 3 old codgers stayed.
The cannily placed less than a week before Bob's totally foreseen and seemingly not all all disabling demise envelopes led them to her and she accompanied them on their treasure hunt, seems Bobdad was the treasure. Oh and he left his fortune to her, not Joe Grundy

Are you ROCKED to the VERY CORE???

I know. All you swooners sit down here and take this .

I'm still waiting for the proper fallout from Nigel's death, Ambridge hasn't properly been rocked to its core really has it. This might be it! Oh, wait...

Gosh! {Fans self}

I just want Nigel back.

Oh and Alan fell off his motorbike.
And he has moved an alcoholic mate into the vicarage. Usha is doing cats bum face.

zzzzzzz

How do you see a cats bum face on the radio?

The same way one can see them on MN Olivia....

Thanks for the AmEx update! I feel annoyed that it exists but I don't want to listen to it. Sounds pretty dire - was it?

It's just WRONG! It's like an alternative reality where the characters don't admit that TA exists (and vice versa). It makes me want to reach into the radio and give them a good shake.

Even David wants to shake Ed atm

Oh well, I guess it;s been a few years now since the vicar last moved an alcoholic / drug addict into the vicarage, so we should have seen it coming.

I predict that in the length of an AmEx mini-series, we will have had despair, tension, marital discorn, religious doubt, reconciliation and it will all end happily to the sound of the bells of St Steven's ringing out across the parish.

p.s. CuttedUp I enjoyed the last AmEx series no end (in fact, my birthday treat to myself consisted of a lie-in while listening to the final episodes), so there.

Why doesn't David lend Ed the £100 to do the sheep shearing course and then off-set it against future shearing?!

Ok Grendelsmum
I hand on the baton of MN's chief reporter on AmEx to you. You're welcome to it.

We expect timely updates on here mind!

I bravely take on the baton...