Thread 99 (yes, 99!): Join us for spirited discussions of The Archers and its Top Blokes, whether you're Team Elizabeth (low spirits), Team Kate (Spiritual Home) or Team Toby (spirits =gin)

[Bittermints]

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. Thanks also to all those who contributed to the thread title.

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!

So, to business. What a fantastic two-hander. Massive BOOP points to Alison Dowling, the scriptwriter and director (and the therapist). I had more than a small tear in my eye listening to that.

I'm another one with a vote of thanks to chemenger for all that information on the last thread about distilling. I should know some of that because I went on a tour of the whisky distillery near where my parents live but I've forgotten most of it except how delicious the end product is.

• Everyone's done an undergraduate degree. He'd need a lot more than that to re-establish himself in the academic / professional world.

(Am basing this supposition on experience of an entirely different area of creative work. I realise there may be the odd super-talented artist who doesn't take this route. But no-one seems to have noticed any super-talent in him.)

What I mean is - he needs to be actively practising some form of art at a professional level, probably in a context that places him amongst professional peers and involves some element of commercial competition.

I had drawing classes for a while from an artist who started off teaching & selling pieces and then moved to part time teaching & now only paints. It’s hard to make enough money purely as an artist but if he really wanted to be an artist he would have been producing work all the time. It’s like writing novels, don’t give up the day job.

I think people who are genuinely driven to be artists are driven to create. I’ve known a few professional artists and they work all the time, on a combination of commissions and their own inspiration. Russ seems to spend most of his day hanging around being faux concerned about people. Where did he paint in Manchester? Where does he paint in LL? How is he paying for materials?

I’ve now moved to the podcast (as I feared I have moved on to Radio 4 comedy and now science. Like Russ I’m meant to be working at home... )what does amuse me is that the adverts on the Archers podcast are about finance to pay off US student loans. I can’t help suspecting the intercept of people listening to the Archers and having recent US student loans is vanishingly small.

OMGoodness. Pip is insufferable.

"Did you sleep with her?"

Would anybody really say that IRL?

Hi, chemenger - I'm just wondering, you're in the States yourself, aren't you? I'm sure I heard something on one of the BBC podcasts about there being adverts for people listening abroad, so presumably they are tailored to whichever country you're in? (That falls flat as a theory if I'm wrong and you're in the UK!)
I assumed one of the reasons Lily had run through her money so quickly was because a lot of it was being spent on the Artist's Supplies, which I doubt came cheap, only the best for Russ.

...and what money didn't get spent on artists supplies got spent on nibbles and vino from the posh deli!

I've just found it, I knew I'd heard it as I live abroad - if I listen to TA on Tune In Radio on my phone, I get the message: "This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK." Followed by an ad for a podcast by a multinational bank.

I think that chemenger’s point was that, even amongst those listening in the US, the number of people who are Archers listeners and were also educated in US colleges with US tuition fee loans is likely to be pretty small, as most are probably British expats. (Unless TA is in fact hugely popular amongst the American intelligentsia)

I must admit I joined Pip in being total sceptical about the lust-filled supermarket buyer. If she was more interested in getting it on with Toby than buying his gin, and if he genuinely didn't reciprocate, what the hell was he doing for the several hours he was out of the house?

Ah, yes, sorry, chemenger and JessieMcJessie, I see what you mean now, though surely it's obvious that all listeners to TA podcasts in the US will be students of the English Language and how she is spoken

Oh wow, I didn't know that about adverts outside the UK. I find adverts in podcasts super-annoying, but luckily if I listen on the computer they're reasonably easy to skip pretty accurately without missing any of the actual show, much harder once they're on a portable device. Some podcasts randomly put adverts in the middle (I think deliberately because they're harder to skip than when they're at the beginning or end). I hate the adverts. If I do inadvertently hear one, I make a mental note never to buy what they're selling.

Why does the BBC need to do this? Surely once you've created the podcast, it doesn't cost any more for it to be available abroad? I have no idea how the whole thing works, but I can't see how it could ... so if they're not spending anything extra on it, why do they need ad revenue?

I imagine they need the money, Fink. The BBC is underfunded AIUI.

I don't mind the adverts (I'm in the US), it's just one at the beginning and one at the end. I'm happy for american banks to pay for Just a Minute! However I do have a TV licence in the UK so it does irk me that here is no way to legitimately watch BBC tv here. Surely there could be some login system that would let licence holders watch wherever they are.

My European colleagues tell me that Gardeners' Question Time was the best thing to listen to to improve their English when they first arrived in the UK.

Oh and while Pip is annoying I think I would have been pretty furious with Toby.

I guess if you're in the US you might be more immune to adverts in any case as they're so in your face in general over there.

LOL at the people learning English via GQT. I can picture someone with a heavy German accent having brilliant flower-related vocab and chatting away excitedly about various types of fungal infections whilst being unable to order a coffee!

There’s no such thing as immunity to adverts I fear. I think as the BBC is funded by British taxpayers it’s fine to charge people or add adverts where people are unlikely to be UK taxpayers. It also has a revenue generating arm which sells DVDs of popular programmes etc as well as the rights to the formats.

I used to teach English abroad and we’d watch the weather forecast and play Just A Minute.

I think it’s fine to have the adverts, they’re not in the middle of the BBC podcasts, just at both ends. It’s nothing like American tv, which is pretty much unwatchable.

Most of my colleagues are Italian so they can not only order coffee but also explain at length why it is incorrectly made.

Pip has every right to be angry that she didn't know it was Bert. Rosie is too young to be left with just anyone no matter how nice and kind they are. Bert is an elderly man. Even if he once knew about babies that was a long time ago.

Yes Toby was completely out of order. Not sure where this is going either. Will they have to get rid of Toby in order for pip to be with Red.

Rex

Uh-oh, Ed's getting into hock with the devil. I don't trust that guy (forgotten his name), he's far too generous considering he's only been around for a short time, and now he's asking Emma for a "favour".

The "favours" will increase, and they'll feel obliged to help him out, because he's been so helpful, but they'll get dodgier and dodgier, until it gets to actually criminal.

Mark my words!

He made some comment about honest people losing out didn’t he or did I misheard that bit?

I feel angry about dodgy bloke coming to ruin Ed and Emma’s hard worked for happiness.