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.

Nigel wasn't 'nice but dim' - he was lovely, and 'dim' is the wrong word entirely.
He certainly wasn't the sharpest tool in the box. But he was luffly. Sorely missed.

It sounded to me as if the card had come from Tracy who was otherwise shoe-horned in with that nonsense in the tearoom for no apparent reason having been silent for months. I thought that was a deliberate red herring as the card is from Mia (nothing creepy just a nice gesture) or possibly was intended for Mia.

Jessie, as far as I recall the sequence of events was something like this:

Helen takes up with Aussie barman slimeball
Annette is living with Helen in the flat above the shop
Slimeball comes to flat at a time when Helen isn't there and Annette is - this doesn't seem accidental
Slimeball says to Annette something like 'You know you want to' - Annette has given no indication of being attracted to slimeball and doesn't sound overjoyed at his attentions now but submits
No ongoing relationship between Annette and slimeball results
Can't remember if she told him about the pregnancy - probably not
She eventually told Helen she was pregnant and Helen was overjoyed and all ready to smother support her and baby
Annette secretly arranged and had termination, then fled Ambridge to regain some freedom
Helen never knew who the father was
Slimeball off scene at about this time, can't remember how or why
Helen decides that now she's been disappointed about having Greg's grandchild to look after she will have a child of her own, heads for fertility clinic

Run, Lee, run!

Blimey - I'd forgotten that part, Helen's history is bad enough without it. But it did, plot wise, form the transition between Greg and having Henry, I suppose.

Ah, here's the Lowfield summary. Slimeball was Leon and he was around for several months in 2009. Maybe I misremembered the tone. I do remember feeling very uncomfortable about this scene, though.

Annette helps Helen get ready for her night away with the big cheeses. Shoulder pads look too officey. Once Helen's gone she settles down with pizza and a DVD. Leon's at the door. His manager changed his shift at the last minute and he thought it was silly for both of them to be alone. Oh, and here's a bottle of red and one of white. They watch the chick flick, Leon apparently isn't into action movies, and afterwards Annette has difficulty standing to make coffee; Leon has to drive so hasn't had much wine. He declares how attracted he is to her and they kiss. Annette weakly suggests they shouldn't but then tells him not to stop when he offers.

Hm... yes, iffy.
Of course, the best thing in that summary is
'helps Helen get ready for her night away with the big cheeses'

I remember that at some stage - I think post-Annette - Helen went on holiday with Kirsty or Brenda to somewhere like Ibiza. Drank like a fish and had lots of drunken liaisons. Kirsty/Brenda was v worried about her behaviour.

Who was the journalist. I remember him but not his name.

Mainly what I thought about David last night was not his dimness over Ruth's sexual overtures (only to be expected given his general level of awareness), but what right did he have to interrupt the party? Tilly Button must be over the age of consent now ...?

While trying to find out how old Molly and Tilly are (no luck), I found out that there was once an elephant called Rosie on TA, belonging to Walter Gabriel. Who knew?! It might help me to get through scenes with Pip if I imagine that she's inadvertently named her child after an elephant.

Wait, what? There was an elephant in Ambridge? How?

I remember the elephant though no details. I only vaguely recall Walter, his voice but not much else. I’m just marking place - quite a lot going on in my little life so mostly listening, thinking, reading re-TA. I do love a new thread though and this one’s extra good IMO!

I was thinking about the parallels in Shula and Helen in that theywere both very keen to adopt someone else‘s unwanted babies, Shula with Elizabeth; Helen with Annette. I wouldn’t have thought that’s very common, especially in ‚modern times‘.

A circus came to town, ddd.

I can only find reference to Rosie and Tiny Tim (Rosie's calf) being bought by Walter Gabriel to appear at the village summer fête. Maybe they only had that one appearance and were forgotten about by SWs afterwards? Or maybe he didn't really buy them, just hired them from a circus or something.

Which reminds me, I haven't heard any peacock sound effects at the Bull recently. I wonder if the peacocks have all gone or have just gone quiet.

From someone's book I think a rogue scriptwriter had Walter buy it out of nowhere and another had to tidy it out of the way.

I’ve sometimes wondered about the peacocks too, Fink. I’m not sure we’ve heard any mention of them since Sid died.

Yuk. I don't want to listen to radio sex & snogging on the Archers. Especially not the lunchtime episode.

Walter Gabriel called everyone "me old pal, me old beauty." Which grated on me horribly. AIUI before my time he was the compare and contrast useless farmer before Joe Grundy fulfilled the same function.

I listened with my morning coffee, grumiosmum, and it wasn't any more palatable then! Not quite up there with Sid and Jolene in the shower, but on a par with the horrific scene where David and Ruth were alone in a haywagon nine months before Ben was born, IIRC.

I've had a quick look in my Ambridge Encyclopaedia and The Book of The Archers and neither adds any further detail about Walter's elephant. They just say he bought her and her calf to appear at a summer festival. I suspect that was the period when the listening figures were in freefall as more and more people switched to watching TV in the evenings and the SWs kept doing ridiculous things in the misguided belief this would keep their listeners engaged. In 1970 Adam was briefly kidnapped and IIRC at some point a plane crashed in a field.

Certainly there was ganeshing of teeth at RuthnDavid' ear-curling carryings on, last night.

Since we're talking about Walter Gabriel ... that article by the Elizabeth actor had a clip of Nelson Gabriel - very sad, realised how much I miss him. Except he wasn't tall and slim like the actor picture, he's tall but rather walrus shaped, in immaculate dark clothing. Or maybe a cross between Hercule Poirot (David Suchet version) and Clement Freud.

Certainly there was ganeshing of teeth at RuthnDavid' ear-curling carryings on, last night.

oh, brava, for tying together so many themes from this thread! (and a trump, trump, trump...)

Thanks for the new thread, Bittermints

I'm with those who think Mia has a crush on Will and sent him the card, but Tracey will get the blame for it.

Meantime, I'm boggling at the idea of Walter Gabriel and the elephant(s) - I've never heard that mentioned before!

Nelson was tall, slim and dark-haired. I spent many an evening there with Tim Beecham.

Oh my goodness, I think the SW have been listening in on my two sons arguing! That opening argument between Kate and Ruari was so familiar, right down to the younger sibling repeating what the older one says with a mocking voice, and the older one saying "Dad, are you going to let him get away with this."

It's nice to know that I am part of a dynamic as old as Cain and Abel.