Shades of EastEnders in the village this month, with the first bisexual in Borsetshire, sexathons and drugs before teatime
Ambridge underwent a mystical union with Walford this month. “Just leave it, Brian!” urged Jennifer. “Yeah, just leave it,” repeated their daughter Alice, venomously. Brian was advising alcoholic Alice to recall her marriage vows after she’d picked up some guy whose name she couldn’t remember, which, as she pointed out, was a bit rich coming from the adulterer-in-chief himself. In fact, the entire shaky Aldridge edifice looks like it’s in slow-motion collapse: its complicated web of children, stepchildren and out-of-wedlock children is going to make the inheritance question in King Lear look positively straightforward. Borsetshire’s landscape does not tend heathwards, blasted or otherwise, but expect Brian to be rampaging around Lakey Hill soon, calling upon thought-executing fires to singe his white head.
Ruairi – the out-of-wedlock child in question – has announced himself as Ambridge’s first bisexual, and he is clearly having a lot of fun with Troy, his friend-with-benefits. Also having that kind of fun are Vince and Elizabeth, the only people in
Britain to be using the word “staycation” to mean “having a holiday at home” rather than “having a holiday somewhere in the UK”, an accurate usage of which village pedant Jim Lloyd would no doubt approve. But Lily Pargetter has outdone them all with her “sexathon” with her workmate Solly, causing an unfamiliar emotion to rise in the breast of this listener, at least – pity for her boyfriend, creepy Russ. Lily is another one of those characters who has been compelled back to Ambridge either by its invisible forcefield or by the requirements of the scriptwriters, when, by rights, she should really be doing a degree at Manchester. Someone – perhaps those indefatigable researchers into Ambridge, Academic Archers – should do a study into troubling university drop-out rates in rural Borsetshire.