Robots in Ambridge? Well, sort of…
Iwas excited to learn last week that Harper Adams University has a professor of robotic agriculture who has interesting ideas on how robots can improve farming. One of the byproducts, of course, will be to give a lift to The Archers, as robots join the cast:
“Morning, Joe, we don’t often see you in The Bull at opening time. Do you want to try a pint of Borsetshire brewery’s new ‘smart’ ale? It has a microchip in it that tells you when you’ve had enough.”
“Thanks, Jolene. I reckon I could do with that. I’ve just had a shock. Our Clarrie has eloped with that robot who took over Bridge Farm. I never liked the look of the BZ/4901z and I was right. He has swept her off to the fleshpots of Penny Hassett.”
“Oh, I am sorry, Joe. I did hear a rumour from HR/322q, the new pig man at Brookfield, when he came in last night to be recharged. Apparently they were spotted having hanky-panky in Inputter Copse, you know, the wood on the other side of Silicon Valley.”
“These artificial intelligence incomers are ruining Ambridge. I hear Brian Aldridge has got a Latvian robot au pair. That’s going to lead to trouble, mark my words.”
“These are hard times, Joe. I bumped into Elizabeth Pargetter and she told me that Loxley’s FG/659f has been hacked by the Russians. They made him get rid of his dairy herd and plant 40 acres of snowdrops. He’s devastated.”
“It’s going to be worse than foot and mouth, Jolene. You’d better give me another pint of that smart ale.”
Hurrah for pettiness. Three cheers for the subtle manoeuvre to thwart the queue jumper. Long live the unworthy pleasure, on a crowded train or bus, of demanding to sit beside the person who has parked his bags on the seat next to him. Salute the woman who counts out the exact sum in very small change and then asks for a receipt.
We are world champions at pettiness. We can out-stickle any stickler. So, when Michel Barnier slyly suggests that failure in Brexit negotiations could affect our ability to take our dogs and cats across the Channel, he is taking us on at our own game. He is taking on people who relish the discreet charm of the wordless parking war; the gardener, poised with secateurs as his neighbour’s clematis creeps through the trellis; the cunning busybody who raises a piffling point of order just as the council meeting is drawing to a close.
He thinks he can outwit the saloonbar debater who folds his arms and challenges his opponent to define “wrong” and the expert on footpaths who reveals that a right of way goes through some incomer’s new conservatory. A mere EU negotiator is no match for a British committee that can dream up 87 things you are not allowed to do in a park or the scholar who happens to know that an archdeacon’s widow takes precedence over a baronet’s niece.
It would take less than a minute nute to dream up something that a citizen from the EU is not allowed to do in Britain and we can always man the barricades of British etiquette. Our pets may be unable to broaden their minds with travel, but then Mr Barnier may find that, for reasons of health and safety and data protection, he has to show his passport before using ga a British public convenience.
at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion It is sad to be losing our gradable adverbs like “rather” and “frightfully”, but I comfort myself that we can still sprinkle our sentences with “sort of ” and “actually”. I suppose “sort of ” is the old older person’s version of “like”, which is deployed so freely by the young young. I am particularly fond of “sort of ” an and can usually fit about three of them into any sentence. Being a puris purist, I abhor “kind of ” which I regard as an intrusive Americanism.
“Act “Actually” is also a good friend when you don’t want to be too direct in you your utterance, and preferable to “ba “basically”, which I regard as a rat rather upstart bit of sentence furn furniture.
I am fairly neutral between “um “um” and “er” and no utterance is com complete without a few of both. If p pressed, I guess I favour “um”. If i in doubt, you can always chuck in a an “of course”.
T These are all devices to avoid gett getting to the end of a sentence. Actua Actually, I find that these days
I hard hardly ever finish a sentence.
I just l let them sort of tail off…