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Rumpty-tumpty-tumpty-tum, Rumpty-tumpty-tum-tee, Rumpty-tumpty-tumpty, tum, Rumpty-tiddly-tum.

Oo, arr, me old pals, me old beauties. Now just you put down them there mangel-worzels and harken to old Walter Gabriel 'ere. Mine's a pint of Shires while you're up.

Our scriptwriters and them there clever-sticks down at Level 9 have gone and taken the story of us everyday country folk, the Archers, and stuck it on one of them new-fangled computery machines.

Seems the idea is that you be a trainee scriptwriter and have to plot decisions about four of us lovable folk here at Ambridge: Jack Wooley, Elizabeth Archer, Eddie Grundy and Nelson Gabriel.

Course, if you be going and making decisions that make us folk look as boring as a wet weekend, then them ratings are going to fall.

Spice it up a bit though (watch out, Mrs Perkins!) and them Controller fellas up at the BBC might have something to say, I shouldn't wonder.

What you get on your TV is a picture and a load of writing, telling you what be going on. Every so often, you must choose from a list of three options as to what to do next.

You don't have to do any writing yourself - just keep pressing any of those three numbers whenever you be told. Now even old Walter could do that.

Unless it's the Shires playing tricks (and I'll have another while you're about it Jack) seems like I remember this sorta thing from way back in another Mosaic game about a dairy and a mole called Adrian.

Now, me old turntops, don't go thinking that the game is the same every time you play it 'cos it b'aint be so. Like Sid Perks' Shires (don't mind if I do, Jack), it's a little different every time you try it.

The game is as nigh on as big as a haystack and so has to be forked in in several parts. The pictures are pretty but don't knows are how I go much on 'em. Still, you can always turn 'em off.

Well, me old cabbages, if you be a fan of us old codgers down here in Ambridge, then sure as compost is compost, you going to love this here game.

As for me, I be the only one of the Ambridge clan I can stand for more than ten minutes at a time and so would as soon jump in a threshing machine as listen to their doings, whether it be on the crystal set or on a computer machine.

Each to his own tastes, is what I say - and speaking of tastes, my glass is empty, Jack, me old beauty.