I've been having fun with Tamara Drewe, which - not being an avid Grauniad reader - I hadn't realised was (very) loosely based on Far From the Madding Crowd.

No prizes for guessing that beautiful Tamara with her nose job and legs up to her bum is obviously Bathsheba Everdene.

Reliable gardener and handyman Andy is Gabriel Oak.

And handsome rock star Ben is a 21st century Sergeant Troy.

While naive, substance-sniffing teenager Jody makes a brilliant stand-in for tragic Fanny Robin.

There's a muddle over an e-mail instead of a Valentine.

But I wasn't quite sure about the philandering novelist, Nicholas ... he's the older man, Tamara's third suitor, but surely he can't be respectable Farmer Boldwood? Or does there come a point where I'm trying to read too much into it? Anybody else have any ideas? It's so long since I read the original that maybe I'm missing something.

Posy Simmonds has done a brilliant job depicting the Hardy-esque misery of modern rural England where the pub has long closed down and local youth has nothing to do in a bo-oo-oo-ring village but hang out in bus shelters discussing snogging and reading Heat.

I love Posy's drawings that change colour with the passing seasons and her merciless eye for middleclass England ... how my toes curled when I realised that frumpy, reliable Beth, the put-upon wife, wears an apron of the same (ubiquitous) Cath Kidston fabric as my ironing board cover. Yes, I am that boring ...