Very sad to hear this. Her book Her Brilliant Career made quite an impression on me. RIP.

Pauses are everything in.... #TheArchers

Perhaps Amber's dad is as much under his wife's thumb as Amber has been. #TheArchers

She's already changed her voice once George. We're all hoping she doesn't do it again soon. #TheArchers

There are people being arrested these days who, in the past, would have made a funny footnote in a P.G. Wodehouse novel.

I'm on a 30 second countdown to "it's been raining for 24 hours".

On my drive home there are two houses that have had a full frontage of Christmas lights up for the last 10 days. At this point they're just doing it for the "local chatter" equivalent of clicks aren't they?

We don't hear the first-name Neville much these days do we? Is it my imagination or was it always more common in the North Country? The noble (Raby) connection....

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m... I think this is very good. I went into it wondering whether it would mention some elements of this whole thing that I feel are critical - and which often get left out by eg The Times in reporting - but I think it does, it gives a really full, thorough account

A lovely 50p purchase from Hertfordshire Archives

Filming seems to be following me around at the moment ("Come to Hertfordshire it's within a stone's throw of London"). County Hall today. I've lost count* of the number of dramas where I've seen people walking under the 1930s arches here.

Thoroughly enjoyed this this morning about local girl Constance. Often wonder about the bond of ex-suffragette prisoners. Which of course made me think I must get a read of the Lissa Evans books on the subject (have only read one). www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Oh God, This Cultural Life has finished its current run.

Little did we know when we lost the 15-Minute drama in #BBCWomansHour that the gap would be filled by repeating bits of previous programmes

And so say all of us...

For old times' sake I'm going to start referring to Morgan McSweeney as Magron McSweeney www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I wonder if some not-very-nice managements think it's a good thing having staff working from home because then staff can't huddle in corners, compare notes and become "toxically against the management".

I had 40 minutes TV watching time before having to get up and do the dishes. So of course I decided to watch Lawrence of Arabia. For the first time ever. Nothing like watching a classic over four or five nights.

The allegation here is that wealthy tourists paid to be able to shoot human beings. Perhaps killing wildlife wasn't enough for them. If true, psychopathic scarcely begins to cover it. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

They say everyone has a book in them. I guess mine would be Everything That's Wrong with my Company.

How utterly dependent word prediction (when typing in apps) is on the first letter being right. Just how many subsequent letters have to be present and correct in order for prediction to suggest a word beginning with another letter? Many....

How lovely, and how unexpected for BBC One to be showing a good little film (only 6 months old) without much fanfare at 8 o'clock on a Monday evening: Mr Burton. Dear old BBC, where would we be without her?

Every now and then I think about Judy Finnegan. 25 odd years ago she was absolutely pilloried by the press, over a long period, for perceived poor performance (lot of p's there). And faux concern. 1/2

Once again, as I render my spare bedroom uninhabitable for the next four weeks, full of company packages, I wonder how my company would cope if it didn't employ people "wealthy enough" to have a spare bedroom.

Lovely chemistry between the two leads in Trespasses.

This is utterly disgraceful.

I couldn't agree more with John Armit in the Radio Times about All Creatures Great and Small. Never less than charming but utterly paper thin plots these days.

Only on Private Passions would you get an episode devoted to crowd-pleasing Downton star Hugh Bonneville followed next week by an Albanian academic.

Oh, that landmark moment when you first see a parent drunk. Congratulations Henry. #TheArchers

Goodness me, Agatha Christie aficionados, who are also followers of the BBC's crime headlines, will hear something of interest this evening, or should I say this morning.

More of this sort of thing...

I'm listening to The Magus on Radio 4 Extra. My God, it's making my hackles rise. I know it shouldn't matter if you don't like any of the characters in a novel but ....despising them is a whole different thing.

I'm saving Lavenham for a day when I really need a lift...

In one of our latest blogs, Jacky Cooper shares the ways in which Nazeing History Workshop has shared the wartime history of the village. Find out more: www.balh.org.uk/blog-nazeing... #WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll

All becomes clear... They're filming bits of the new Strike episode in Ware this week apparently. (I'd better pop in to the little Sainsbury's and let the woman behind the till know).

I've been watching a bit of The Bishop's Wife over breakfast. My God, the quality of the scripts, the fine-toothed comb perfection of scripts in that era.... #NotAllFilms #Obvs

I am BEGGING people to put spaces in their mobile numbers. It's eleven digits in a row, would it kill you to do 01234 555 555 so people can parse it?!

I always feel a bit of dissonance when I see Emma Thompson in a youthful role as a vulnerable woman. It's so at odds with her Grande Dame nowness.

For the (unplanned) second time in a week I find myself watching a film featuring Emma Thompson playing a Scottish woman, with her Scottish mother playing her Scottish mother... #TheBlueBoy #ScreenTwo Spooky this time....

There's nothing can galvanize the "getting one's affairs in order" muscle than being given the date of an operation.

Call me a killjoy but, even if you have grown up on a farm, is it really possible to have the knowledge to just pick up where your Dad left off when you've been working years as a graphic designer? #TheArchers

I've been thinking about internment during wartime and, to be honest, I'm not surprised it happens. Given how bloody awful people generally are at .....spotting traitors.

Um, I hope The Naked Week didn't contact the Madeleine McCann that I know for comment.

Those dazzling headlights on some car models are truly indicative of the way some people see the world now (enabled by the companies that supply them). Me in my bubble 1 The community at large 0

Alan Bennett and Nick Hytner have made a film again. And I enjoyed it. (the full feature less clichéd than the trailer...) #TheChoral

Listening to Antisocial and thinking, for about the 10,000th time, why do pendulums (pendula?) never stop in the middle...?

I wonder if this series' name is the US' revenge for the film Baltimore (kept wondering when McNulty would turn up).

My brother tells me he's against colonial reparations because loads of UK tax-paying foreigners, whose countries had nothing to do with colonization, would be having their tax dollars used for it.

I do wish that the two people parked on either side of me in this car park would get out and go..... .... so that I can get on with the business of sucking the Swiss Bun icing from the bottom of this Simmons bag.

For more Celia Imrie, in her twenties this time, she's a little minx in this (on iPlayer). #CloudHowe #CelebrityTraitors www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...