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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment

Tired of absurd TV soap plots? Give Ambridge a try

On the set of The Archers, with David Archer, played by Tim Bentinck, second right.
On the set of The Archers, with David Archer, played by Tim Bentinck, second right. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Those who tire of ridiculous plots in TV soaps (Letters, 2 April) might prefer the gentle pace of life in Ambridge. The everyday story of country folk in The Archers only occasionally features things such as coercive control leading to a stabbing, modern slavery resulting in an explosion and fire at a country house hotel, and an armed robbery at the Post Office. But thankfully no murders yet, unless you count the time David Archer shot a badger.
Barbara Williams
Sparsholt, Hampshire

• The prefix “centi” means “one hundredth”. So a “centibillionaire” (Six tips for budding centibillionaires (No 1: come from a very wealthy family, 6 April) would be worth £10m, which Jeremy Hunt would no doubt regard as “not particularly high”. If we must have a word for someone worth £100bn, it would be a “hectobillionaire”.
Alan Robinson
Griffydam, Leicestershire

• Rebecca Shaw says that even “when you hate the new thing, it gives you something positive” (What’s so bad about a reboot? It doesn’t dilute the original, it adds to it, 4 April). She’s obviously not seen Ant and Dec’s remake of an episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?.
Nick Richards
Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset

• Othello a hero (Quick crossword, 5 April)? I did the play for A-level years ago. I thought Othello was a silly pillock for believing the tripe that Iago was telling him.
Tony Hodbod
Haslingden, Lancashire

• Charles J Corrigan (Letters, 5 April) writes “from the US, where freedom of expression is sacrosanct”. I must have imagined all those articles I’ve been reading about American school boards banning books then.
Denis Beaumont
Wombourne, Staffordshire

• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.

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