He's behind you! Rob's not the messiah - he's a very naughty boy! Watch The Archers pantomime here.

[PseudoBadger]

Oh no he isn't! Oh yes he is!

Just to be clear, that "hah" was a dig at Birmingham's education system, which has been subject of gov review the last couple of years. Which in itself is not a dig at the individuals delivering education in Birmingham, or at Bethany

Have we discussed Jill's perfect custard yet? No ready-made or Bird's powder for Brookfield, oh dear me no.

(I love Bird's CP custard!)

Welcome lurkers & ex-lurkers,

This thread is moving so quickly I am becoming even less productive than usual.

Yes please to a gentle baking & possibly even getting ready for Christmas episode. Drama over whether Emma will get to the nativity play in time as a cake takes longer to bake than usual? Nice low level unthreatening drama.

The only thing we'll hear from Emma and Fallon soon is wailing and gnashing when they see the compulsory, bought in, frozen burger and fizzy pop laminated menus someone has kindly produced for them ...

Yes broken arm. I think he was trimming a cow's foot, and because he hadn't restrained her properly, she pulled back and trapped his arm in the crush. Yes, there was a distinct lack of realistic swearing, and the cow wasn't told off at all!

I was more amazed that David washed up after lunch, and that he casually agreed to trim a couple of cow's feet before he read the paper and did the milking. There's barely time for a quick snooze and a cup of tea between lunch and afternoon milking!

Indeed I wondered at that too dfw. One minute they can't stop. Next they reading the paper.

Also the Grundies are aware Rickyard is there after all Ed and Emmur lived there.

And Eddie is usually their relief milker and also usually front of the queue for extra cash so it would not have been at all out of character for him to say "will you be needibg me again this week for the milking".

Surely, surely the only reason to mention Eddie and Rickyard is so they can have a lightbulb moment and move the Grundies in.

Nic was in last week for the scene where Will woke with nightmares about Justin Elliott, the night before the Big Shoot.

At the airport, when David was saying goodbye to Ruth, and she said, "there's my group, I can see Sam," David said, "Sam?" in an OMG-after-all-these-years-you're-going-away-to-have-an-affair-with-the-platemeter-man way, and Ruth replied, "yeah, we'very never met - I recognise his photo from online." Or something similar.

Eddie did say something about not being available for much milking, because he's got a big job on in Borchester. But you'd think he'did say, "I'll ask Ed for you."

he'did -> he'did
Autocorrect is not at all correct a lot of the time.

Argh! he'd

Ah I missed that Eddie detail. But yes why not ask Ed. He'll have hedges to cut and not much else surely.

And where is Bert lurking during all of this? If he lives at B'field where does he hide ehen they are having all these fanily discussions / cereal manoeuvres.

Was just thinking about the Hellin denouement. I hope when she does come out of this the longterm effect is that she is stronger and not that they make her more whiney and more overprotected by BF. And I hope she goes back to realising she does not need a man. She has to realise that this is not her failing but his.

Otherwise I will be disappointed. You hearing SOC? Disappointed.

SmallLegs, yes, exactly. Though you do raise an excellent point - what exactly will Helen be like after Rob (we do all devoutly hope) gets his comeuppance?

Will she once more relapse into being the ultimate special snowflake? Or will she say thank you Kirsty, I now realise what an utter arse I was being before Rob/whilst having affair with Rob but that's all behind me now while I show my mother how to be an independent woman, unswayed by an (idiot) man.

The Hell/Rob story will go on forever if they think listeners like it.

Have we enough for a petition?

Wasn't there someone hanging round the pub saying he was a cowman looking for a contract work? Isn't that a clunky way of introducing the new candidate?

Another lurker delurking to say hello. I've been listening on and off since I was a little girl almost 40 years yikes!! Used to peal the spuds while listening to the omnibus with my DF, after the intro theme there was an old man, I think Walter but probably someone else, sounded a bit like Joe Grundy now, that said Good Morrrrrning in a very country accent, does anyone else remember? Love dipping into these threads, they make far better reading than the actual listening

[sidles off to lurk again]

Tom Forrest!

We were always gathered in my parents' bedroom with the Sunday papers (and Nova magazine iirc) and a tray of tea when the omnibus started. Happy days ...

That was Tom Forrest, Pantah. He was Doris Archer's brother, hence uncle to Phil, Jack (Archer - Peggy's first husband, father to Jennifer, Lilian and Tony) and Christine. He was the gamekeeper before George Barford (Christine's second husband), who was the one before Greg (Helen's former partner, who killed himself) who was the one before Will. Everybody still with me?

He did a sentence or two about what was happening in the countryside ('This is the time of year when you might see a wheatear* up by the country park') and then there'd be a really clunky sentence or two to get us going on the omnibus ('and talking of the country park, young Tony and Pat Archer took their kiddies up there this week and met Mr Woolley out walking with his dog Captain!')

*Disclaimer: I know nothing about birdwatching. This is probably nonsense.

Hardly an erudite comment on storylines or script writing but can I just ask those of you who know more about these things, how much does firewood cost? I was quite astonished when Rob gave Eddie 50 quid and that was just part payment. How much wood would you get for 50 quid? I was expecting it to be about 20 or something.

Clunky? It was pure poetry. The best thing ever in the whole history of radio.

For the benefit of newer lurkers we had a conversation here, perhaps 30 threads ago, about how, in a previous century, the daily episodes used to include bits of gentle, insignificant village chat that we don't get now. And how, if you were a sad obsessive even in toddlerhood you could spot which of those chats had been excised from the omnibus to fit the time available.

Friends with woodburners seem to pay the same for wood as I do for heating oil. my house is warmer

Now you're talking, Gruach! As a sad obsessive even in the womb (nobody out-sad obsessives me ), I always looked out for the padding that would not be in the omnibus. There was a point in my life when I often heard every episode during the week and the omnibus as well, and I'm afraid a large part of the reason for that was so I could check I was right!

Sorry, but I hated the Tom Forrest intro, as it buggered my suspension of disbelief.

Hello to all the lurkers!

LilG how are things now? Hope that life is becoming more settled.

Think everyone has said everthing as I got a bit behind due to not driving the last few days. Am glad they've finally remembered about Pavel even if the whole Jenny bringing it up was utterly implausible.

Presumably the lovely Samantha (or Sven) did for the archivist in the end!

They don't really need an archivist. The scriptwriters could pose questions here, Gaspode and others could answer them; they would save money and we would all have some fun trying to work out the future plot from the questions asked