Thread 98 - Discuss The Archers here! If you don’t give a ha’porthfor Pip come and add your two penn’orth - we do enjoy a bit of change counting (especially if it’s in old money)

[Bittermints]

Many thanks to @LilianGish for the title (again - she has real gift for this!). Further thanks due to @PseudoBadger for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads and to @DadDadDad for being our resident statistician and keeping the ball rolling when Pseudo stepped back a bit.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to be Susan's best friend or other odd unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

(Change counting references arose specifically out of a nostalgic discussion on the previous thread, if anyone is intrigued.)

What were Joe and Emma talking about (magazines?)? DH was banging about and I couldn't hear.

Emma is doing a moodboard scrapbook (has Pinterest not reached Borsetshire yet?) for the Beechwood house. Eddie found some manky Interiors magazines and Joe & Kiera pasted the (entirely unsuitable, out-of-date) pictures in her scrapbook. Love the idea of 'global gonads'.

I'm worried about Joe. He's sounding very weary.

Ah thanks. I used to have a scrap book like that - about 20 years ago.

There is no way Emma would want a global gonad theme - she'd want grey all over, mistakenly thinking it's terribly chic.

Haven’t listened yet but I keep saying how nasty Emma is. She’s very anti “ outsiders” and is open about how she thinks “MeyanEd” deserve affordable housing over others. And yes she has been supportive ti Will now but she was nasty to Nic when she was alive.

I heard global nomad?
Should Kirsty move in with Phil? Why would he want a new build?

The exchange between Joe and Emma about it not being any of Kirsty’s business was pretty nifty

O M G

Tell me the Bridge Farm land sold to Justin for affordable housing isn't the same plot Tom showed Kirsty, early in their engeagement, as the site of their potential new home? That would be h eartbreaking ilarious.

I heard global nomad?

Emma said global nomad, Joe repeated it back as global gonad, and she corrected him.

I know this isn't related to gonads but I was just wondering if we know if Natasha knows about Tom jilting kirsty yet?

I thought Kirsty’s big decision was that she was going to start trying for a baby. I really disliked Emma asking Kirsty her opinion on whether or not a mother would be able to give away her baby (I can't remember the exact words). Kirsty has been through the worst experience and I want her to have some happiness.

Thanks Fink
I thought Emma’s comment was a bit insensitive as Kirsty has never carried a baby to term.

Yes @QuaterMiss Adam was indeed the Jizzlobber (top tune btw, the last 30 seconds of which I'd like played as I glide feet first through the curtains).

Ants? Beetles? They look like headlice to me (so pretty appropriate as an overinfested icon).

I'm sure Kirsty's big decision was solely about moving in with Phil.

Boop point for Joe, bringing home to Brine how kind Jenny can be, and that sometimes you have to put your family first.

Marguerita You must 've missed the episodes in which both Ian and Adam were tested and Adam is the fertile one.

So the woman egg donor (will the child have the right to know his or her biological mother?) and Adam are the parents of the sprog.

Marguerita You must 've missed the episodes in which both Ian and Adam were tested and Adam is the fertile one

No, I knew only 1 of them was but couldn't remember which.

Just for interest I googled 'global nomad' because it's not a term that I have come across before. Wiki says:
"A global nomad, or glomad, is a person who is living a mobile and international lifestyle. Global nomads aim to live location-independently, seeking detachment from particular geographical locations and the idea of territorial belonging."
Considering that EdnEm's main claim to the Beechwood house is precisely their ties-to-the-locality, it seems strange to aspire to a glomad interior decoration style. Maybe Em wants it because she knows she will never be that glomad. It has echoes of Casa Nueva.

echoes of Casa Nueva.

So true. And now I'm feeling all heart-achey for her. (Remembering how she and Ed desperately wanted to run away to France (?) years ago.) She really is her mother's daughter.

I very much enjoyed the scrapbook / global nomad / gonad exchange. Looking up global nomad as an interior design idea it seems that Emma is bang on trend, although I’m mystified about how she will achieve the look as it’s supoosed to be inspired by travel and she and Ed never go on holiday in the UK let alone trekking abroad. I think Susan, who’s always struck me as a chintz type, may like this approach

“Look out for fringing, tassels, tufting, feathers and raw edges on cushions, throws, rugs and accessories. And macrame is going from strength to strength making an appearance in high street collections across the UK.” Not something from a Victoria Wood sketch but from here www.thedesignsheppard.com/trend/trend-global-nomad should anyone wish to peruse macrame bins and sheep skull ornaments

She really is her mother's daughter.
Susan has always aspired to move her class but never her location, she has never wanted to leave Ambridge. Susan belongs to the generation where middle class money meant you could buy exotic things like foreign holidays.
Emma's aspirations seem to be about those exotic locations (Mexico, France and now even the world is not enough). Emma doesn't seem to have noticed that the middle class's definitions have moved on and it's all about artisan / locally-sourced / sustainable things, and holidays in Rock and Abersoch. The glomad MC like hand-crafted goods (eg dressed turkeys or home-made cakes) but not enough to do it themselves - they leave that to the likes of Emma, who despises the work.
Meanwhile, even-older-generation JD is doing the artisan thing for real, making game pie from locally-sourced ingredients.

To be fair I think the MCs have been holidaying in Rock for the last few decades. And Jenny must have been making game pie from very locally shot game for as long as she’s lived at Home Farm. But Emma doesn’t have a hope of long haul travel, so she has to dream from the confines of her home and make that her world instead.

I was disappointed with Emma over the scrapbook. Why couldn't she accept Joe's efforts with good grace? And she might have liked looking at the retro pictures even though they were at odds with her plans for the new house.

Emma's aspirations seem to be about those exotic locations

Emma's overriding aspiration is to have a home for her family. I don't know any young couple who on finally getting a real place of their own don't get a bit excited at making it theirs through decoration.

Emma has never had a home of her own despite being one of the hardest working characters in the show. In that respect she reflects quite accurately the situation of many young adults/couples in rural areas. (If late 30s is considered "young" these days).

I also don't think she is right to be campaigning for local housing for local people which her generation can afford.

Its exactly the argument happening in villages up and down the country which are becoming MC dormitories for the nearest city/large town.

Why couldn't she accept Joe's efforts with good grace?

I think she did - she thanked him and said she appreciated it. If I'd been knackered from three jobs and a family to look after and finally had a sniff of my own home I think I'd need to be superhuman to avoid some trace of that reaction.