Robbieeeee! It's meee, it's Jessieeee! I've come home. I'm so cold! Let me in-a-your window. The Archers pay homage to Wuthering Heights?

[PseudoBadger]

A new thread in time for the film this morning.

Um, how old is mr basketz? And how does he sustain such a good memory for the '50's archers characters?

It is interesting separating an artist from their work. It is easier to do as time passes but people seem very happy to turn a blind eye when it suits them (Polanski for example)

Yes, I think those are fair points, Mimsy and PG. BTW I just showed DH the pic of PumpkinEd somebody put up at the weekend. He was very amused. I do like MrB's laugh.

Re- John T, I think the idea has been mooted here already that there may be 'something' in JT's past - well, Carol mentions things now and then. The mention of this particular poet - and now knowing his history and that JT liked him - suggests this may be another heavy-handed effort from the SW. But afaik that's all there is, and according to my DH there was never any sinister stuff when JT had a speaking role. I have to say it was before my time (we have an age gap of 14 years) so DH remembers the 50s and 60s, and I didn't join the world till 1961. So I can't say I remember TA much before the 1970s. It was always a treat if off school to hear the early PM radio - Listen with Mother, TA, Woman's Hour. I did have a lot of tonsillitis. I think that's when I got hooked.

I wonder if anybody will ever read the works of William Mayne in the future. He was one of my favourite authors when I was about 12 but sadly it turns out he was sexually abusing young girls for decades. He served a prison sentence and is dead now.

Re-Mr B's vintage, I see we x-posted, BYOS. You can do the math as our American cousins would say. Though I don't think everyone of dh's vintage recalls the 1950s so well, he does have a weird memory. He has an encyclopaedic memory for certain events and is, as already said, hugely pedantic. Our youngest child has an ASD and we suspect father has too. He can remember things like what time he was in when he saw a particular film in whichever year (of course none of has ever checked up!) - and he had a very itinerant job in his youf. But today, for example, he missed a dentist appt cos he got the times mixed up. Gah!

Sorry again. town not time.

it is very interesting what people will tolerate and what they won't. i know that i'm very inconsistent myself and couldn't really adequately defend which artists/authors/composers' abysmal behaviour i can overlook (or perhaps, acknowledge but it doesn't affect my appreciation of the work) when consuming their work, and which i can't

These days I seem to have trouble remembering what I was doing 5 minutes ago but one odd thing I've noticed is that if I use headphones to listen to a programme on the radio while I'm out and about and then hear a repeat of the programme days later I get a flashback to exactly where I was and exactly what was happening when I first heard it.

it's funny nauticant, i do a lot of knitting, crochet and sewing, usually with the tv or radio on, and sometimes on long car journeys (travel nausea permitting). when i look at some finished items i get flashbacks to what i was doing or watching or listening to when i made bits of them. e.g. dp's jumper that i knitted on a camping road trip around ireland. so it's the same but in reverse

I doubt that the SWs are trying to signal anything about John T's proclivities by the mention of Dowson. He's not that well known anyway, and his personal life is even less well known. Surely if they wanted to make out that JT was a pederast they'd have gone for someone more well known?

I thought the singling out of the "days of wine and roses" stuff was maybe some reference to JT's marriage having gone bad.

I hope you two aren't suggesting my husband is not weird. He is, you know. Very. But he is lovely. I get that things with knitting too, but it's nothing like DH. I must switch off now - the joys of injured foot and lingering coryza means I've been online far too much of late, though it can be vair entertaining.

I was getting seriously hacked off today with all the protestations that the Brookfield kids are absolutely fine about the proposed move, positively excited about it, honest. Are we really supposed to believe that both Ben and Josh are perfectly happy to move hundreds of miles away from their friends and everything they know? Hasn't Josh just started ASs or whatever it is that he's doing post GCSE? Is he seriously going to be pleased at the prospect of ditching them, because his chances of finding another college able to offer the same subjects with the same syllabuses and with a place available for him are close to zilch? And what about Ben's investment in the chicken business? Are they going to have him doing one of those stupid about-turns where he decides he's not interested any more, just to suit the plot line?

The whole thing just comes over to me as stuff that the SWs have shoehorned in because they were so overcome with their cleverness at thinking of this plot and the whole issue with Jill that they totally forgot that teenage and adult kids might just have be expected to have their own views.

Coryza, Basketz?

Jenny holding a séance is in some ways consistent with her rather obsessive character but I think she's perhaps floating the idea to see Carol's reaction, as she was in showing her the poem. Until she started looking at the books she avoided Carol but now she's got the idea Carol hastened him on his way she's seeking her out. It is probably the most ridiculous and least interesting of all the current storylines though.

And yes, the word 'coven' springs to mind whenever Carol gets together with her 'dear friends'. It annoys me so much that she's been introduced for no real purpose when long-standing characters are side-lined.

Did anyone else detect a wistfulness in Adam's voice when he talked about having a home? Has Ian left/been written out without even a mention?

BTW apologies for banging on about the Dowson connection to specific shadiness in JT's past. Adam's distinct coolness, the comment about JT having short-lived passions, the Tregorran son not getting on with parents, etc all managed to add up 2+2 and get 15 in my sleep-deprived brain.

Looking back there is very little evidence that Dowson has been chosen as anything other than a specific sort of hugely anodyne poet who is fairly hard to interpret as having a broader context (c.f. his contemporary Yeats - if they were quoting Yeats we'd all be suggesting JT was secretly a member of the IRA or something, depending on the poem). And it looks like Dowson falls into the Lewis Carroll category of exceptionally immature people who couldn't have an adult relationship so fixated on a child instead.

I would swap Carol for Lilian like a SHOT.
I'm really missing the real matriarch of the village.

And it's not as if Eleanor Bron must have been cheaper to book. I do really like her as an actress/person but I'm feeling indignant that her character has barged in with these ridiculous storylines.

I like the three older women talking together, though of course that could have been done without carol's presence

Icimoi totally agree re the children being just fine with the move. Completely unrealistic

I too thought the Dowson thing was just a reference to a) his marriage went bad and b) he had woo'ed them both with them same slightly obscure poet whom they wouldn't otherwise both recognise.

Still not sure about Carol though.

Justice completely off topic but your name reminds me of this graffiti between junctions (I think) 16 and 17 of the m25

Ici - if any of the sw have teenagers they should be ashame of themselves for this nonsensical 'the kids are fine'

And agree cuttedup - Eleanor bron can't have come cheap. And they've found the money for Wayne to make an unnecessary appearance. I can think of so many more deserving characters!!!

Of all the new characters I think johnny is the only one with some staying power. I was a bit dubious at first but it seems like he has no Machiavellian tendencies - unlike all the other new characters!!

I can't make up my mind about the séance nonsense. On the one hand it seems like a terribly artificial attempt to produce something spooky in time for Hallowe'en, on the other hand I'm wondering whether they're seriously trying to plant the idea that Jenny might get through to John who'll do a whole Hamlet's father act on her.

A thought that came to me just after I posted - it would be a bit of a laff if they all get together and JD thinks she's contacted John, only to find it's actually Walter Gabriel, wouldn't it? Could that be what all the reminiscences about Ambridge in the past are directed towards? Are the SWs reminding us who was who just so that there won't be cries of bafflement all round the country when flocks of past Ambridgites suddenly appear to JD and her fellow woo-merchants?

Me: " If Rodways charge half a percent, that's a cool £250K before they start"

Ooops. As DadDadDad rightly points out, too many noughts. Make that £25K.

But nevertheless, if Deavid and Roooth move, just the estate agent, solicitors' fees, stamp duty and moving costs have to add up to something in the region of £50K minimum, don't they? And they they've still got to construct the milking parlour and buy the machinery and hardware. We're not even told whether they've checked out that local dairies actually want to buy their milk. Put that on top of paying out the siblings, and it's a hell of a financial hit. Are we seriously supposed to believe that they find that prospect exciting?

SEND HELP!! I've missed two episodes and I don't care! Have access to catch up and can't be bothered

Still reading the thread obv