For those who haven’t heard of The Archers before (mainly non-Brits, I would think), it’s a very popular radio soap opera set in a fictional farming community of Ambridge.

It’s also the longest running radio soap, having run for over fifty years now, but only recently been broadcast additionally as a podcast.

There’s a new episode every day (except Saturdays) and each lasts around 13 minutes long.

I subscribed to the podcast as a bit of a laugh, to be honest. I was bored and running out of things to listen to. Hearing The Archers and Woman’s Hour on the radio while my mum did her chores was an integral part of my childhood, but I never really paid it much attention.

I was surprised at how quickly I got involved with the characters and after a few episodes had worked out the main characters just by the sound of their voice – which is quite an impressive feat when the episodes are so short. I have no personal experience of living in a farming community at all (although I spent my childhood in two very different small villages) but that’s no barrier – it’s far more about the interpersonal relationships in the community.

It’s an incredibly well-written soap (well it would have to be to survive that many decades, don’t you think?!) and the plotlines are thought-provoking but not without humour. It’s quickly become the first podcast I have to listen to in the day. If I’d had to concentrate on remembering to switch the radio on at the right time, I’d never have got as addicted as I have, so well done to the BBC for making it much more easily accessible.

I wonder how people will be listening to The Archers in fifty years time?

Thanks to all your inspirational ideas, I’ve come up with a solution to my wire tangle. Even better, it required no drilling!

I’d forgotten I had this box, and I can’t even remember where I originally bought it from.

It’s a plain, unvarnished wooden box with holes either side for handles, and a hinged lid. It’s very simple, but I love it and wouldn’t want to risk marring it with drill holes.

The only other tool I used was a screwdriver to remove the plug, a 4-way adaptor, some sticky labels and a biro.

I’ve got the wire for the 4-way adaptor fed through one handle hole, with the wires, plugs and adaptor all inside the box.

I labelled the plugs because I have 5 different chargers (but one I only use very rarely, so I left that out of the adaptor).

The wires I need to attach to the devices are fed through the opposite handle hole, again with labels on the less obvious ones.

The nice thing is I can still use the box for something else if I come up with a better solution later, as it’s undamaged.

I can also easily remove and add chargers (particularly if we go away and I have to take some with me).

It’s also low enough that the main plug socket is still accessible and I can switch off the whole 4-way plug while not in use for safety/electricity saving.

So thank you to those who came up with all those great ideas, it’s made my study much more tidy!

As the more observant (non-RSS) readers will have noticed, I’ve had a redecoration of the Prattle. I was bored with the old one.

It’s only a superficial colour change so I shouldn’t have broken anything, but hey – I’m sure you’ll find it and tell me if I have, won’t you?

Also, comments of love and admiration of the new colour scheme are welcome. As of writing this entry only one person has noticed and they hated it… bah!

What with the camera, the gameboys, the mobile, various remote control cars and now the new lightbox, I am awash with chargers. They all sit in one big tangled lump in a corner by the plug sockets.

Trying to work out which charger you need in any given situation and discover both ends is like those puzzles you had as a kid where you had to trace the line with your finger through the muddle.

There’s got to be a more sensible method of organising them, but how? Any tips?

Li’l Bhaji “helped” me do a quick shop yesterday.

It went fairly well, up until the point we reached the till. He’s been learning his numbers, bless him, and is very excited whenever he sees numbers printed anywhere.

I gave the checkout person my credit card and I was asked to enter my PIN number to authorise the transaction.

Li’l Bhaji pipes up in a voice that the whole shop can hear “MUMMY! You just pressed a 3!” and despite shushing, loudly informed the rest of the shop the rest of the PIN as I entered it.

PIN now changed and three-year-old banned from future shopping expeditions…

I’m starting a new feature on the Prattle. A while back I did a Site of the Week with the Blog Explosion rental but that died a death as I had less and less time to devote to the Blog Explosion community. What I do have a lot of time for at the moment though, is podcasts.

Thanks to Dom’s old iPod, I am now completely addicted to Podcast media. It’s an easy way to keep up with content when you can listen while doing general household chores. So I thought I’d share some of my favourite podcasts and hopefully get a few recommendations in turn.

What better way of doing that than via a Podcast of the Week slot?

This very first week, it’s the turn of The Skeptics’ Guide To The Universe, which has the great tagline of “Your Escape To Reality”.

It’s produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation – and frequently has interviews with Randi himself. It covers a wide range of topics including the paranormal, fringe science and scientific controversy.

The image I had of self-styled “skeptics” before this show, if I was honest with myself, is of dry, boring and very negative people. This show is diametrically opposite to that image. It’s fun, upbeat and intellectually challenging.

It’s presented by Steve Novella, Jay Novella, Rebecca Watson, Evan Bernstein, and Bob Novella, although who’s actually present at the show seems to vary from week to week. It’s obvious that these five get on well together and their camaraderie and enjoyment of the show really shines through.

The podcast is well structured with a professional feel, with regular features including news items with a skeptical bent, email questions, Science or Fiction (my favourite part – I love to “play along” and try and guess which news item has been invented), interviews and a puzzle. At the same time, it doesn’t feel overly scripted or forced.

It also has an atmosphere of humour and light-heartedness which helps to avoid the heavy aggressiveness present in some of the other skeptical podcasts I’ve tried since.

I really look forward to the release of each week’s broadcast and can thoroughly recommend it to anyone who enjoys science or who just would like a closer look at some of the more dubious claims in the media from week to week.

Akra has been doing some clever background code stuff to reduce the ever increasing comment spam I’m getting (even though Akismet and comment moderation gets the most of it, it’s still a pain).

I’m hoping it shouldn’t make any visible difference to you, the genuine commenter, but as always if there are any problems please can you drop me an email on Pewari [at] may [dot] be. Thanks very much!

No, I won’t be participating this year, but just wanted to wish all of those budding novellists who are the best of luck over the next 30 days.

I am, however, tempted to participate in NaNoSweMo, or National Sweater Knitting Month. The idea is that instead of writing a novel, you knit an entire sweater of 50,000 stitches (ARE there that many stitches in a whole sweater?! I can’t say I’ve ever sat down and counted them) in just thirty days.

Unfortunately, I haven’t got the wool and I’m still working on those socks, but maybe next year…