@wibble@urbanists.social
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

wibble

@wibble@urbanists.social

Formerly: schoolteacher, academic editor, helpdesk operator, database designer, project manager, crate-catcher and tree-surgeon's assistant.

Interests: #ClassicalMusic, #StringQuartets, #Physics, #Biology, #Fiction, #Trees and #Ideas.

All photos (if not credited separately): https://urbanists.social/@wibble, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Interests: #trees, #birds, #ideas and sometimes #TheArchers

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wibble, to TheArchers
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

It's nearly time for Omnibus, in which a weekload of episodes are shovelled out at once for the benefit of those who couldn't be bothered with it during the week yet, somehow, have nothing better to do on a Sunday.

So let's see what's happened this week. Did anyone win the cricket? How many wheels are on Harry's wagon? And will there ever be sheep?

@thearchers

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Hannah, or Anna in the vernacular, has failed to drop a catch, and saved a somewhat predictable storyline that, in the fullness of time, will end up with George on some sort of register.

And Kate and Lilian are conspiring, like the elders of a peculiar sect, to carry out an Act of Kindness for Alice's own good, and so further yet another misunderstanding-driven plot.

So far, there have been no sheep nor even a mention of piggies. Is disappointment its own reward?

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Cricket aside (which is where it should be), I'm wondering if it's at all normal for folk to take delegations to medical appointments. It's not something I've ever considered, but perhaps I've got an abnormally reluctant audience.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Enough birdsong at Grey Gables to make me wonder if they've finished building it yet.

And now, after a discursion back to Alice's lengthy and wide-ranging trip to the quack's, we've got Lily back on the up-sell, the cross-sell and the hustle.

Once a kitchen-flogger, always a kitchen-flogger.

The same, of course, could be said of sheep. But there aren't any.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Good grief, Alice's being chased by the doctor. Who seems to think it a good idea to live within a stone's-throw of her patients, while expounding to Alice the importance of keeping a distance. The scripties, who must surely have whispered in her ear, seem a bit confused on that point.

Now the pig-man is talking about a talking horse to the sound of the lowing cattle that live outside the tea-room.

I guess it's something.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Alice has not taken Asra's advice, and Chelsea's trying to corner all the minimum-wage jobs in the village.

Assuming there aren't too many of those, at least not since the shop started exploiting volunteer labour, I'm wondering how the Button sisters earn a living. Perhaps I'd better not do that.

wibble, to TheArchers
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

It's almost time for #TheArchers Omnibus, a weekly round-up of all the desperate things the scriptwriters have had to do to map the nihilistic vortex of existential despair onto the agricultural calendar.

Which almost makes it sound exciting.

And we're off!

@thearchers

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers First up, a small-hours call from Creepy Harry that made three minutes pass like a bellyful of lego.

Make that fifteen.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers I suppose a noise from Bartleby is something. And there's a solitary bird of some sort singing in the background; a robin, perhaps.

Here, I've got chiff-chaffs and great tits and wrens and jays and greenfinches and magpies in the background, all happening at once. Is that because I'm in a city? Or because I don't have to pay royalties?

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers If I parsed that right, the plan seems to be to keep Bartleby alive by way of ad revenue rather than crowdfunding. Which, for a grifter as narcissitic as George, is a surprising oversight.

Chris has lost his knife. This should have Chekhov written all over it, and possibly Agatha Christie. I wonder if we'll hear of it again.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Alice is being rumbled in a way that will take four episodes and we've learnt that Barry (the Rat, I presume) takes four sugars in his tea.

Meanwhile, while we wonder if it'll be Ed or Emma that loses a leg first, we've had a mention in passing of the Texels, albeit in a broadly administrative context.

Jamie Perks is a tree surgeon in Ledbury now. Did we know that already, or is it a sleight of script to prepare us for something nasty?

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Village cricket never gets exciting, does it?

Nor do the staffing issues of tea shops. Though this one's got George back in Fallon's orbit and, this time, he's not humping cowhides up and down a ladder.

Is "working like dogs" a thing?

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers I've not really kept track, but I don't remember there being a Crown and Cushion in Penny Hasset. Or, for that matter, George having any mates.

Alice is being rumbled some more, and now we get to hear Ed bidding on an online chainsaw in Greenbury, apparently, wherever that is.

Still, we've been promised some teatime weaning.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@suearcher @thearchers Ah. That would explain it. Though the Beatles were, I'm happy to say, well before my time.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers We're back at the horseless stables and the delicate rumbling of Alice who is sprinkling the blame as blithely as a Post Office executive.

Sheep! We've got sheep! And lambs! This is very much what I'm here for.

Less so the branding discussion.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Oh No! The rumbling of Alice has taken an unscheduled detour down a very well-worn track.

I'm sure the scripties are only doing what they're told, but I think it could only be better for the listener if they used the shredder more often than the duplicator.

And there's an end to it, with everything much as it started, apart, of course, for Chris' knife...

wibble, to thearchers
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

I'm happy to announce that I've both had my walk and got home in time for the , where they're short of staff at the Bull and George is fantasising about sticking it to Hannah and Uncle Chris.

Meanwhile, Fallon's going to gatecrash a Plod's disciplinary, in a way that I wouldn't expect is normal, and Miranda's parading her ex-husband's name as if it's some sort of trophy. Which, I suppose, it is.

@thearchers

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Right. So the Jolene thing and the Justin/Miranda spat have all gone nicely nowhere and we're now at Plod HQ.

Elsewhere, the winter-wheat harvest's been dreadful, there's permaflooding everywhere and the Brexit-labelling thing's set to kick dairyists in the purse-strings.

But never mind all that. We're being treated to two rounds of Creepy Harry in the witness chair, where he's being as reliably creepy as ever. I wonder if he's ever thought of becoming an MP?

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Oh, look. Harrison's going nowhere too.

Which is just as well, as he's going to be needed for the next tedious step in the Jolene saga. The only other way to handle that would be if Norris shacked up with a Button which would take a bit more work than we've yet been treated to.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Creepy Harry's got a shot liver, by the sound of it, but he's still managing to manipulate Alice nicely.

Not sure I quite enjoy this back-of-an-NHS-leaflet scriptwriting, though, considering we've had it all before.

But perhaps, rather than carping, I should be worrying for the scripties' therapists.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Harry's Mum seems to have the right idea about Harry. Which won't, I suspect, stop Alice from going on the crusade on Harry's behalf, like a bewildered peasant taking a pitchfork to Ottomania for the right sort of God.

By all that's plausible, they should both end up at the Ambridge Bus Stop, riddled with meths and hypothermia but, in this peculiar world, they'll be leading lights at the Chamber of Commerce before the finger of fate can wriggle out of its glove.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers Alice has willingly entered the leaflet-papered lair, and is helpfully nailing herself to the shrine.

Meanwhile, Odious George, ever the grifter, has still forgotten to crowdfund for Bartleby, and Fallon and Harrison have chosen not to send Robert to look at the ducks.

Bartleby's namesake was famous for preferring not to, and I'm beginning to think it was quite the right policy.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@thearchers And here we finish, with Alice caught nicely in Creepy Harry's trap.

All the goats, cows, horses, llamas - even the little birdies in the trees - have remained throughout as silent as the lambs, and I can't say I blame them.

wibble, to random
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

was cancelled due to lack of interest and a surfeit of leftover cake.

So here's a pair of pictures I took last week, which I've carefully collected, selected and curated to explore the theme of "Springtime in Catford".

A yellow daffodil flower blooms brightly on its green stem. Despite it's cheerful yellowness, It doesn't have the usual trumpet-shaped corona but something altogether more mashed, like the heart of a jaundiced cabbage, while the petals around it are all ragged and chewed. Perhaps it's been damaged by a collection of small brown insects that made the flower their home and also dinner. Or perhaps it's a rare Catford Mutant that the florists have yet to exploit. The former seems more likely as pack of small blue grape-hyacinths have gathered around the plant, keeping carefully out of focus, as if waiting for the right moment to pounce.

pvonhellermannn, to random
@pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green avatar

Half thinking of starting an hashtag here, about the dire, dire state of UK (global?) higher education. Sharing nuggets of senior management decisions, neoliberal language, and overall slow collapse.

Won’t work of course because most of us can’t risk honesty, but honestly: the everyday reality of what is happening deserves recording in all its depressing and damning detail.

wibble,
@wibble@urbanists.social avatar

@pvonhellermannn Is it "employment", or "supply of potential labour"?

After all, it's students, not employers or government, who gamble their time and money on the skills and knowledge that might lead to employment in future. Get it right and neoliberal hellscape. But get it wrong and penury.

In that wager, a university plays the part of bookmaker, so naturally adopts the motives, methods and morals of a racetrack satchel-carrier, for whom the money justifies the means, whatever the result.

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