*The Archers No.95* *Welcome to the 'real' world Ben and Ruarhi, the bad boys of on roading and welcome to the cereal cupboard little Rosie *!

[ppeatfruit]

Thanks to witchmountain for the last thread and to dadx3 for Godfathering them! Also to any other posters whose ideas I have borrowed for the title.

I agree, The Canterbury Tales are hardly Christmassy
Unfortunately, all I can remember of "The Merchant's Tale", which I studied for A level, is the not very useful quote:
"And sodeynly anon this Damyan
Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng."

Can't believe the nuns let the English Department get away with that

Or even your 'actual actuarialness', DDD!

Passing briskly over the smock smut , Caroline worked at The Bull in the late 70s, I think, as I'm fairly sure she was installed at Grey Gables when I started listening properly in the very early 80s. Eddie and Clarrie got married round about then and William was born not long after Prince William, so 1982/3, I suppose.

I have dim, confused memories that Peggy also worked at GG which is how she and Jack got to know each so well, and that she and Caroline crossed swords a few times. Did Peggy at one point run GG for Jack and then move to a secretarial role? Or did Peggy work in the Estate Office? I half think I remember that too. Will check with my Archers books when I''m home.

Anyway, one bit I do remember is that Caroline's first husband, Guy Pemberton, bought a half-share in The Bull when Sid and Kathy bought it from Peggy. (Peggy hadn't run the place herself for a couple of decades at least by then.) When Guy died, he left that to Caroline along with the Dower House and a good deal of money, although the bulk of his estate went to his thuggish son, Simon, the one who slapped/punched both Shula and Debbie and got off with a caution.

So, from spending a fair bit of time in TB as a young woman, she spent quite a lot of time in there as a more mature woman, talking through plans with Sid and Kathy, and latterly just with Sid. She sold her share to Lilian, didn't she, when she and Oliver bought GG from Jack's estate (or from Hazel).

fink I went to a single sex school too. I though someone would pull me up over my wild generalisation (fueled by my utterly miserable school experience)

And indulge me while I carry out a little test... test

Dint
The bold-asterisk doesn't work if it is next to a punctuation-thingy.
Your 12:55:36 post had a ] immediately preceding the first asterisk.
Your 14:25:31 post had a . immediately succeeding the second asterisk.

Bittermints

The bold-asterisk doesn't work if it is next to a punctuation-thingy. It doesn't work if the first is straight after a letter either - see my test above. But I think it does still work if the second one is straight after a full stop.*

Yes it does :-)

So the rules seem to be:

1. First asterisk must come after a space
2. Second asterisk must not be preceded by a space (it can be preceded by either letter or punctuation)
3. If you are trying to "bold" more than one paragraph, each paragraph must have its own pair of asterisks - you have to "bold" each paragraph separately.

R4 - I've just re-read your second comment ...

test.... won't work because no space after second asterisk
so what about test - no space before first asterisk, but space after second, so I predict it will fail because of the first asterisk not having a space in front.

But I was wrong on both counts, so I give up! First one shouldn't have worked because it contravened R4's Second Law of Asterisks, second one shouldn't have worked because it contravened my first rule.

(This is like learning an early version of Fortran by trial and error)

I give up, too! I can't find a failsafe instruction for bolding, apart from "preview the message before you hit post"!

Heart trouble?

Certainly Elizabeth's 'flu is enough for Lily to be plausibly away from university.

Wondering about Lee - is this the toxic ex as a red flag, i.e. she'll be trouble if Helen gets involved, or is the classic nasty man slagging off his ex?

I get the feeling that Lee might be the survivor of an abusive relationship himself.

Men are just as likely to be victims of emotional abuse and/or domestic violence.

"Men are just as likely to be victims of emotional abuse and/or domestic violence"
Not just as likely, no. Some men are victims. But not anything like as many as women.

I didn't actually say just as many.

I said just as likely.

'just as likely' means 'same probability' so men aren't 'just as likely' to be victims of DV as women. However a man certainly can be a victim of DV.

Anyway from bold and DV, I've worked out I don't like listening when there are high stress things, like current LL storyline, so I haven't listened much recently. (Only to the Helen being a lesbian misunderstanding which I am hoping is now all sorted.)

"I didn't actually say just as many.

I said just as likely."

Sorry?

I'm very bored of Lower Loxley, Lizzie and Lily.

Yes, Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote/The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote , as any fule kno

Also ejoying the learned discussion on the proper usage of bolding

If they are trying to make the Canterbury Tales some sort of allegory of Ambridge life, I wonder whether Lynda is planning on casting Helen as Patient Griselda from the Clerk's Tale?

I think the Canterbury Tales is to edumacate us. Emma "quite liked it" in tones of wonder. See? Olden day literature is for everyone!

I thought Lee blaming his ex-wife for the break-up would have been a red flag to Helen - isn’t that exactly what Knob used to say about his ex-wife? She’s making it difficult for me to see the kids. All her fault, she’s being difficult, I had to move out for all our sakes. It might very well be the case that his ex is to blame for the break-up, but I wouldn’t expect Helen to take that at face value with her history. Imagine what Knob (wherever he is) must be saying about Helen - totally unreasonable, tried to stab me, won’t let me see Myson. If anyone knows there are two sides to every story it’s Helen.

I wish spelling were still so creative. ( lousy at spelling)