It's her - she did it.

 I used to enjoy the days when everyone in the family sat down to watch the same show. These days TV watching can feel both lonely and super connected and it’s weird. 

You’re all watching Line of Duty, right? The whole world is. Except the Long Suffering Husband who, for reasons I can’t fathom, prefers his entertainment not to feature too much real life death. He’s okay with Zombies and war but the Sunday night obsession with working out how a body died is not his thing. Therefore, we sit in different rooms of the house and I have no one to discuss it with. Except that there is always Twitter. If it wasn’t for Twitter I might never have realised that the ‘jizz’ (CHIS) wasn’t a piece of forensic evidence.

When we were growing up, telly watching was more of a social event. We all gasped as we watched Roots together, being enlightened after being hooked from the start as Kunte Kinte was held aloft by his father. We cried as we followed the attempts of the women in the Tenko concentration camp’s attempts to survive. We watched all the soaps and took part in all the quiz shows. We could collectively sing almost any theme tune. 

My obsession with finding out about the dead body started early with Quincy and then later Morse. My dad had less patience for TV watching than the rest of us, although he absolutely loved Morse and there was one story where he kept shouting at the TV. 

“It’s her. It’s Heather Haversham. She did it.”

We all shushed him. We knew he was being purposely obtuse. Heather Haversham was a character in Brookside played by Amanda Burton, who happened to be in this Morse story. You could tell from the twinkle in his eye that he was enjoying winding us up more than he was the programme.

Last night, watching Line of Duty, I realised that I have turned into my dad.

“Don’t trust her,” I shouted at no one, “She’s not a policewoman, she’s a vet and if she hadn’t left Rex like that he wouldn’t now be looking for his further field.”

Anneika Rose also played Anisha in the Archers

It probably wasn't as much fun, as my dad had with the Morse episode.   I could have taken to Twitter to share my findings with other Archers/Line of Duty fans but I suspect they would be a small bunch.  Also, what fun would it have been if they couldn't see the smile playing around my eyes so that they knew I was winding them up?