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.)

Is Kate's house near Home Farm? Perhaps she'll start making a massive fuss about noise from the parties there disturbing her clientele's chakras or whatever it is.

Kate's house is on Home Farm land. Jenny (and Brian) had the cottages built as holiday accommodation and an investment for Kate and Alice. I couldn't say exactly how it's positioned in relation to Spiritual Home, which I think uses land in a particularly quiet part of the farm.

Or perhaps Kate will take up with the wild partying Gill family .... marry into it and take back Home Farm?

My physics teacher told us a shaggy dog story over the course of, at least, half a term ending with 'Don't put all your Basques in one exit'.

Yes, the other classic shaggy dog pun, is the one involving fans of a well-known board game bragging in a hotel lobby as people pass by - it ends with a description of "chess nuts boasting by an open foyer".

The greatest source of 'shaggy dog' puns was of course the R4 classic, My Word - Frank Muir and Dennis Norden spinning stories around a well known phrase which they subverted for the punchline.

A few I can remember 'Book lack in Ongar', 'A gnomes not a gnome if you're not Enid', and one which mutated from Lear's 'Never,never,never,never,never' to 'Neva, never niff an oven ever'.

My father was fond of a poem: "john had a very ancient car, it went not fast, it went not far" and when on one occasion "it did not even go at all", he recalled a friend "who dabbled in witchcraft and in spells, somewhere down near Tunbridge Wells" It ended with the line "a witch in time saves the 7.49"

Jill's childish simpering over Leonard has out Tom'ed Tom for not acting one's age. For goodness sake please nip it in the bud SWs

Nah, JoeGrundy, women of Jill's generation will simper childishly at the drop of a hat.

I'm pretty sure my £5 earned me money on Kate's Cottage in the Grand National. could've been dreaming/drunk/delusional though. Yes I do mean all 3 :o

DDD I must confess I had overlooked your pun - as you rightly surmise I would never have let it pass without comment - so thanks for flagging it up. I’m very grrrrrateful 🐶

I vote for the new thread having "Top Bloke" in the title - whether it is Toby turning over a (pretend) new leaf or the only shop that Brian can afford new clobber!

Is that so MerdedeBrexit ? (J’adore ton nom de plume!)

Good to see some plain speaking by Brine and JD to Kate, at the very least it allows the plot to move forward to where she will actually end up. Top whining from Kate.:o

I'm looking forward to much moaning by Kate at having to wear one ofJD's mumsy woollies.

Well, I guess we expected Brine to get frustrated with Kate, but to hear JD really let rip at her was somewhat delicious. An episode that delivered all one could hope for on that storyline.

On the other story, who is this impostor who has replaced the real Toby?

What does Kate live? Spiritual Home can't be bringing much if anything in. How did she fund the trip to South Africa?

Why does Toby have to put his career on hold to provide free child care for Pip? Why can't they get a child minder or something, like any other couple?

Just realised that was badly phrased. Yes, of course Toby is providing child care for himself and his child, but Pip did bang on so much about being able to go it alone that it feels like it's for her. But the main point stands.

Toby is being extra helpful because he wants to live permanently at Rickyard. He'll sacrifice anything, temporarily, to make that happen.

Pip wants to do motherhood On Her Own and also have everyone else dance attendence on her.

Do we think Toby is paying child support?

Kate - about time.

Maybe Kate can have Toby's room at Bert's.

She could offer Bert a pedicure.

So Toby wants to distill the base spirit, and Kenton seems to think it's a good idea. I imagine Toby is hoping for a further injection of capital from Kenton, whose finances are already overstretched.

Loved Jenny telling Kate she would have to stand on her own feet now.

Kate's going to move in with Roy isn't she? He can't really leave the mother of his first born child homeless. She can have Phoebe's room during term time and there will be a spare room when Kirsty moves in with Phillip.

What are we supposed to feel about Toby. He hasn't one redeeming quality. What is the point of him.

Are Shula and Alistair going to be the Taylor and Burton of Ambridge? Remarriage on cards, I reckon.

Kirsty - RUN for the hills! (Just mind and not wear good, white trainers while you do.)

I think Mia partly doesn't want to go and play happy families so close to the anniversary of Nic's death.