IT so happens that the Curmudgeoness is a voracious reader. She devours books like some people devour chocolates.

We have to go to Mar'ton every week, whether we need to shop or not, to re-stock her pile of far from light reading: up to six books, often of the very thick family saga variety.

Not many books upset her but this week, I caught her snorting and growling over a tome called Humbridge - an Everyday Story of Scriptwriting Folk.

As the name suggests, this a book written by Anthony Parkin, who was a scriptwriter on The Archers for some 25 years until he quit five years ago.

His reason for leaving the longest running, best listened-to drama series on BBC radio was simple: the politically correct brigade had taken over and he believed Ambridge had become more a reflection of a chattering-class London suburb than a genuine reflection of rural life.

And this is why Mrs C was snorting smoke and brimstone: time was when The Archers was treated as part of her day.

Then, one day coincidentally about five years ago, she switched it off halfway through and snarled: "What a load of twaddle. Whoever writes that knows about as much about English village life as I know about baseball."

Now, Mrs C once played a vicious game of rounders (which is where baseball came from, of course) but to my knowledge, she has never watched a single game of the Americanised sport. Nor has she since listened to an episode of The Archers.

For my part, I can't say that I was ever a fan. For a start, The Archers did me a terrible ill back, I fear, in the late 1940s, when it replaced Dick Barton, Special Agent.

However, I do remember characters like Walter Gabriel, who was a real Curmudgeon to millions of listeners, when in fact he was a fictional character. I listened to it in the car from time to time and was impressed by its accuracy when it came to depicting rural life.

I did not know, until this week, that was because Anthony Parkin, author of Mrs C's book, had been hired to write scripts involving farming issues. In other words, he was an expert who knew (sorry about this) his onions.

According to him, the series is now dominated by lady editors who know nowt about agriculture, hate rural pursuits like fox hunting, and refused to mention last year's Great Countryside March because anyone who went on it was a fascist pig.

Instead, the main characters are now very-PC female vicars, female Asian lawyers and the like, with the fellas largely support characters who have babies with their mistresses just to show what chauvinist pigs all men are.

And that's about as close as the 21st century Archers gets, farming-wise: men have taken the place of porkers proper. I'd rather watch Coronation Street - it's rural content is more accurate!

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.