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.)

I think it was the sniffy, sneery (perhaps channelling Lynda Snell!) 'thinks tones of grey is tasteful'/'aspirations to long-haul travel' type of remarks that seemed rather nasty, and not especially confined to the fictional Emma. (Incidentally, grey is gorgeous, and long-haul travel is not particularly aspirational - any cabbie can go round the world on tuppence-ha'penny, scuba-dive and windsurf in fabulous places, charter a private plane to get to remote spots, live like a king on a beach for months at a time - I know, because I was married to one).

Emma can be envious and chippy, but she knuckles down and grafts hard to achieve her ambition. She doesn't despise the work, as someone said, she's pleased to do it in pursuit of her goal. Many of us could benefit from her drive! I think the confrontation with Jennifer was rather badly written and unrealistic.

There is a difference between money and class, as I think Brian has suddenly remembered when the comparison was made between the Grange Farm family being forced out and the Home Farm family being forced out. We are back to Kipling and his "two imposters".

Long-haul travel isn't particularly aspirational these days, as Cromercrab says. However, I think that it's more classy/aspirational to do the travel and come back with your own keepsakes than to go to The Range and get a cheap Chinese copy of the same, simply because some designer has decided that it's this years "look". (Especially if you know that it will be binned in a few years for the next fad.) But it's asking too much for a first home to be authentic; it's all about trying to make a statement in your new little nest without having the money to do it. We've all been there!

I wish we could hear Emma carrying out her council activities in causes other than those that directly reflect her own interests. At the moment it all comes over as if she only stood for election in order to get a house or to get one over on Brian, which actually feeds into Hannah's perception of her.

Sorry if I've missed this discussion but did I hear Jennifer say that the surrogacy used a donor egg? Isn't that illegal in the UK?
Of course Jennifer may have been told this or be assuming.

My comment about long haul travel certainly wasn’t intended to be sniffy towards Emma. She simply can’t afford holidays, whether long haul short haul or weekend break to Bognor, they’re saving every single penny for the house. So it’s sweet and a little sad that her design eye, picking up on a recent trend, will showcase global nomad when it’s related to something she can only dream of. Most people with jobs and children and a mortgage can only really dream of upping sticks and floating off around the world on a whim, coming back laden with boho trinkets and patterned souvenirs and tasselled rugs and throws.

No, that isn't illegal in the UK drspouse. Most surrogates don't use their own eggs. What's illegal is surrogacy if neither of the gametes (egg or sperm) are related to the intended parents.

If the SW are going to give us a realistic storyline about Emma's new build, it could be that it will turn out to be really shoddy building work with lots of glitches to fix...

Ah! I understand now.

Jill!

I know!!! Talk about bombshells. I wonder if she'll marry him, the effects on her Will.

On other things, I thought this was a very good episode, Brine having done the right thing and still getting it thrown back at him by JD and, was it David and the hideous reminder of the ignominy of court.

What I don't understand is why Brian ever tells Jennifer anything he is going to do. It's always a disaster for him when he does: she either bullies him into doing what she tells him to, or blabs his plans.

What is Jill up to?

How has Jill kept her gentleman caller quiet?

David, Kenton & Shula have managed to not notice that (a) their sister is having MH problems and (b) their mother has a new bf. They aren't very observant, are they?

You are right Questions. JD is not a good confidante for Brian.
This storyline has been a bit daft. It's like way they used to portray Jack Woolley as a duffer, but you don't get to be that rich (Jack or Brian) by being a poor decision-maker.

I think maybe Jill has only seen with Leonard at the Laurels, so there wasn't really anything for any of her children to have noticed: they will have assumed she was visiting Christine. Spending time with Leonard instead was probably why she was late home the other day.

Her siblings have noticed about Elizabeth being more herself even than usual not being herself; they just didn't know whether to tell Jill or not. Little did they know that Jill has other things on her mind!

Wasn't Jack slowly sliding into Alzheimer's for about fifteen years, even before the diagnosis?

Didn’t Peggy have a gentleman friend at the Laurels when Jack was in there? I think Jill’s new preoccupation goes some way to explaining why Elizabeth has dropped off her radar. Just pondering the surrogacy storyline - if Lexi is going home what is the latest date she will be able to fly back while pregnant and might her return be affected by Brexit if she’s planning to give birth in the UK after March 29? 🐜

I’m also wondering if all the surrogacy gossip might prompt a conversation between Lee and Helen - or Lee might hear from someone else about Henry’s conception leading to a “Is there anything else you’re not telling Me” conversation.

Just caught up again ... the reason I showed up in DDDs stats upthread is probably because I get way behind, then binge on the podcast and then on these threads.

Re the variable nature of your bug emojis - the exact depiction of eg bug depends on the platform. That's why we need a proper MN emoticon for overinfestation, as they remain constant across platforms and time.

A bug emoticon could serve double duty for reporting when MN has one of its occasional breakages.

The Laurels seems a somewhat unlikely location for budding romances - Helen and Lee and now Jill, in short order.

Talking of Lee - do we think Pat (and the SWs in general) would be so snobby if Tom had hooked up with a nice, sporty girl who liked chick lit and turned up for a walk in unsuitable clothing?

And on the sexism, returning momentarily to Alice... she's supposed to be an engineer but the SWs won't be. Whereas they have an agricultural story editor, and probably do some checking with legal storylines, it's all too common to find ignorance about what scientists and engineers really do in any sort of popular culture. (I guess the same applies in other areas but this is where I notice it). How often when a story touches on your own field of expertise do you find yourself cringing at the mistakes? The 'Two Cultures' syndrome...

How often when a story touches on your own field of expertise do you find yourself cringing at the mistakes?
I may have mentioned it once or twenty billion times twice.

Errol It's not unlikely to find an old boy at the Laurels though is it? Jill's getting on a bit too!

Yes Lilian Peggy met someone there too, it sounds more like a walk in dating agency than an OPH

The Dopeys will have to make do with eating pizza and ready meals, after being spoiled by the casseroles, terrine with onion jam and drizzle cake, if Jill moves in with her "fancy man"!

I hope Jill's new friend isn't a plot device to divert her attention (and that of KDS) from Lizzie - which is what appeared to happen.

Re surrogacy - is it illegal in the UK for a surrogate to carry a baby with no genetic link to the intended parents? Or is just that in those circumstances the intended parents would have to be approved as adopters? I do know that when one of them has provided a gamete, i.e. either the sperm or the egg (or both have, as I suppose sometimes happens) they can go through the much simpler, quicker process of applying for a parental order, whereby the surrogate signs away her own parental rights (and so does her spouse if she has one). Complex.