Loxfest is over. Locket-gate is upon us. Discuss Mowgli, Rob's new secret and of course the new road here with other Archers fans.

[PseudoBadger]

New thread for hopefully an exciting Sunday episode. Poor Hayley.

Am I the only one who doesn't like Linda? The story of a newcomer who knows best about everything is true to life but that awful, affected voice and all that dismissive sniffing... Poor Robert. Perhaps someone could find him a spine. Dayveed will perhaps come across one in the sink hole!

Leonie is unbelievable and James is wet.

Love it!

While Lynda has her negatives she does mean well most of the time. And unlike a lot she gets things done. I don't think Robert defers to her because he is spineless but because he is happy to have the relationship dynamic they have.

Although a bit of nonsense I thought the interaction between Lynda and Robert when she applied for promotion was very sweet

I know leonie has always been a pita and it is funny

But have there been any 'normal' mums lately? Emma is massive pfb/psb and Helen, well it's Helen.

Just the other day I was talking to a friend who had really trouble breastfeeding but had assumed it would be easy. Portrayals like leonie that I believe to be very difficult to achieve don't really help

i don't know... i'm uncomfortable at a lot of these situations which just seem to be an opportunity to poke fun at "silly women". i know that there are other more serious things going on for other female characters, but the men don't get the same treatment at all

I don't know about that. The Grundy and Horrobin men are usually portrayed as "hopeless men" that we can poke fun at. I'm sure that men, and/or class warriors, could get upset by that.
Clunky set-piece attempts at laughing at people humour often involve the men, especially Eddie.
Also there are lots of situations where they portray the men as pathetically hen-pecked submissive - Neil, Moike, Eddie, Alistair, Kenton, Alan and dear departed Nigel.

true, particularly re the class thing

though i would see the "hen-pecked" stuff as more of the "silly women" thing actually

Yes, the characterisation of Leonie (especially) and James would make cardboard look good. To me they're used purely as comic devices to be slotted in whenever some 'amusement' is indicated. Like the whole thing of their projected book, and Leonie parking herself with Lyndie'n'Robert and staying for weeks on end - yup, very believable for someone who supposedly has a job.

I guess it was meant to be funny but I have to say I was gritting my teeth as Leonie spouted her drivel about naming ceremonies, Montezuma, etc etc etc. Less is more when it comes to comic effect, and just chucking in every cliche you can think of doesn't make it funnier.

weirdly over-invested in this, I realise

Has everyone got used to Susan's haircut now?

I loved Lilian's comment about the numerology of names - "are you a 5, James?"

where is leonie's mum? is she around?

Lives in Spain. Perhaps she has visited them silently in London. Of course being called BooBoo perhaps we're lucky that the baby was not christened Yogi.

Also strikes me that Leonie, sister to Coriander, quite possibly gets the mad naming tradition from her mother.

oh yes v good point re coriander!

Well petula I'm old and in my LOOng experience I've seen very few totally equal relationships. Gay or straight. In fact I'm trying to remember ANY !!

I think Leonie is a lovely name just unusual. Coriander on the other hand ..
I've often wondered if people with normal / common names are more likely to give their children unusual names or not and ditto for people with unusual names. Mine us unusual and I like that but if I'd been bullied because of it, maybe I would have chosen top 10 names for my dc.

Yes, Leonie is actually rather nice. I imagine that Coriander grew from a musing along the lines for "Basil is a nice name for a boy.....but if we have a girl.....hmm, don't like Rosemary.....aha!"

My Dad always called me Parsley actually. But it's not my real name.

parsley is an adorable nn

Leonie is a lovely name, reminds me of These Old Shades

DH had a friend whose wife was called Rowan (or something) and named her dcs Leaf and Tree poor little things !!!

tamsin greig debbie is married to richard leaf, and they call their children the "leaflets" apparently

What's Charlie up to???

Flippin Nora! How long are they going to drag out... "hayley knows but has not yet confronted Roy" for! Argh!

And yes! What is Charlie upto?

And where are they going with moike and vickoi?? It's obvious he doesn't want to go!!

He may not want to go but he clearly has no more enthusism for milk bottling.

God Vicky is heartless - she's never cared about Ed.

Ooh, what happened? I had a difficult 'first day back from school' bedtime

Trevor, that was a beautiful line. It properly made me laugh.

I did wonder whether anyone has ever breastfed, but since I'm currently listening to the Archers during 'feed at bedtime', then the prospect of a nighttime feed is right at the front of my mind...

I'm glad Vicki is back now, I think I'm entirely alone in quite liking her.

only listen occasionally so do miss a lot of stuff - eg Leonie and James actually getting together but did actually LOL yesterday when I heard the Mowgli/Montezuma thing. Sheer delight - need a bit o' that ...

(and I used to feed along to the Archers when DS was newborn...)