Knob throttlers form an orderly queue at Blossom Hill Cottage! Discuss the Archers on the Official Thread

[PseudoBadger]

Do you know that I was 3 months pregnant when the first thread started - DD was 2 yesterday

That must also mean that Poppy Grundy's 2nd birthday has passed by unremarked upon...

Wordsaremything BOOP points are named after BitOutOfPractice, who thought there was sometimes a little too much negativity.

So, every time we hear something of which we heartily approve, we award it a BOOP point

gruach they go to Borchester Green. Freddie and Lily go to the cathedral school, as did Daniel, but BG is the local comprehensive most young Ambridge folk go to.

Local school for Borchester and all the surrounding villages is Borchester Green. It doesn't have a sixth form so they move on to Borchester FE college .

One of the brightest young women I know started going out with her partner when she was in the sixth form in a seaside town and moved in with him before she took her A levels. I think he was a couple of years older. He'd not gone to university and possibly hadn't done A levels. They're still together now, at least ten years on. He runs his own small business (skilled trade), pretty successfully. During that time she went to university - choice of where to go largely dictated by wanting to be near him. Fortunately that worked out all right for her, and she got a First. On to do her Master's (Distinction) and then her Ph.D. She's now working as a postdoctoral researcher with a very bright future ahead of her in academia. They've supported each other through lots of trials and tribulations to do with their working lives. They seem to get on like a house on fire. They have a couple of non-work hobbies/interests in common and are just very, very happy in each other's company.

Oh yes, and my brother's children refer to my mum as Granny Mary and their other Gran as Granny Susan [all names changed to protect the innocent].

Ah, thanks Seek.

(I'm much more conscious of the Cathedral School and longing to see how the twins take hold of their futures.)

Grandchildren's grief implausible- they hardly ever saw her.

We only usually saw my paternal grandparents at Christmas, Easter, and stayed for a week in the summer. I was still pretty upset when they died (I was similar ages to the Archer offspring,) so it seems quite feasible to me. Grief doesn't always come out just as expected.

gruach Lily will take hold of her future.. Silently, I suspect!

Long time lurker here. Had a full on cringe and had to turn down the radio at oh so brave Pip's poem. Why are they making such a meal of distant Heatherpet's demise. Hopefully Ruth will hanker back so much to those halcyon days of Prudder she'll go back for good on her own.

Thanks to BYOS for the Lowfield tip:
"At Heather's funeral Ruth is doing her little voice. Apparently Ben was in such a state she almost left him at home. Usha offers support and encouragement while Ruth tells Pip how brave she is. When Ruth dissolves in tears, Pip goes to find a very silent David.
Pip reads a poem chosen by Heather in very dramatic fashion with just a hint of tears. It succeeds in reducing breathy little Ruth to more tears and further dramatic outpourings to Usha about having let Heather down and Prudhoe no longer feeling like home. Wisely Usha decides to take Jim home."

arf.

I hope I wasn't the only one going "FUCK. ALEX." when Phoebe said she hoped he'd understand.

Ruth's "little voice" is appalling overacting. Most people don't totally change their voices and sound weedy and pathetic when upset. My mum died at a younger age than Ruth's mum and after a shorter illness and we weren't all wavery voices and wailing. We all wanted to speak at mum's funeral as well (having been to too many impersonal crematorium funerals where the only speaker is a vicar who never met the deceased.)
The worse time is usually after the funeral when there is less to focus on and the reality of never seeing that person again hits home.

Well quite Selsig. "I'm going to read a poem at Granny's funeral." "Which granny?" "...The one who's dead."

Agree re Daisy Badger and also re being polite if I met a baby Badger with a silly name. I think it's particularly silly because daisies grow on the ground and badgers live in the ground...

Peter White - thanks for the correction - apparently memorises his scripts before recording.

Any getting back on-piste....I missed tonight's ep. Fill me in if you can be bovvered.

Why are they making such a meal of Heather's demise? It is to try and justify all the ridiculous,tedious and unbelievable drama that Brookfield has been mired in since SOC took charge. The great North move, the new bypass, Jill's eviction and then Heather's move south - none of which was anymore believable than Heather's send off and the vast outpouring of grief. Please, please, please let that be an end to it.

Not much action but one important decision.

We heard Ruth, Usha and Pip at the funeral telling us who else was there.

Pip read Heather's chosen poem with unlikely professionalism - almost as if she spoke aloud for a living.

Kate tried to inveigle her DD into yurt work.

Roy and Phoebe went for a driving lesson and she parroted Alex's Oxbridge nonsense. Roy spoke ...

Later she rang him to say she had applied.

Pip read Heather's chosen poem with unlikely professionalism - almost as if she spoke aloud for a living.

Young Farmers do public speaking competitions. (Well, they did in my day.) Maybe she learnt there.

gruach I too questioned why Phoebe would be interested in Alex if he was not University- bound but was torn offa strip by ppeat. Glad you agree.

In my family the two grans were Granny Betty and Granny Elsie when spoken about in the third person ( they also signed themselves as such on cards) and my brother and I still refer to them by those names even though we are long grown up. To their faces we called them Gran, I think probably we also often called Granny Betty just Gran in the third person after Granny Elsie died when it was obvious the conversation was about the living one. I don't think it's juvenile at all. I remember having friends who used the "Granny Smith/ Granny Jones" convention and it seemed terribly formal.

I thought the acting was very good - you could hear Roy biting his lip not to say something about how manipulative Alex was, but trying to be diplomatic.

Sorry I am catching up with thread but I have been listening. askingforapal I would Love pip to start calling HP H Dawg. Why oh why aren't we the scriptwriters?

Also gruach I have a couple of degrees and a decent job that uses them. All my dp's have left school at 15 with nowt. (which seems a bit odd admittedly). It never comes up or seems relevant.

Regarding HP poem. Jeanette winterson's why be happy book speaks about northern language/ dialect and how close to Shakespeare it was traditionally and learning by heart of that generation. So that traditional texts seem much closer to everyday speech than they would for a modernist southerner like me.

Sorry there must be a more concise way of saying that.

Oh and I didn't mean modernist. I meant modern ish. Right as you were!

I went through two university degreees with a dp who did not. He would have been appalled if I had suggested not going in order to stay with him.

Tbf I think we are picking minor holes- Granny Heather, choice of poem, Phoebe's rs, dgcs grief when given the sinkhole sized implausibilities in other parts of the plot, there's really no need

I think with phoebe she is so obsessed with doing well academically and getting to university that it would seem odd that she would have much in common with Alex at this stage in their lives.

Pip read the poem like she was auditioning for the RSC rather than in a 'I'm just good at public speaking' way

I reckon miss badger has something on soc and its in her contract that someone has to say something gushy about pip every episode

They would do well to have given her on air mother lessons on how to act 'grief' in the run up to HP's demise

I read comments here before listening to last night's - wasn't feeling much up to listening to HP's funeral - and was a bit sceptical about the BOOPs for Roy, but you were right! It was spot on.

"Why are they making such a meal of distant Heatherpet's demise?" Wondering this too. Part of me thinks they just believe they are sensitively portraying the struggle of looking after an elderly parent, and now coping with a parent's death, and rather misjudging it and over-writing it in the process. Otoh, I wondered if they're setting Ruth up to not get over her resentment at David for not moving and depression and/or marital troubles are on the cards.

The only good thing about the funeral was hearing Usha - I wish we got more Usha.