Discuss The Archers - yes, this really is Thread 103. Are you going to vote for feet, stations of the cross, or a hologram? Will Natasha ever return? Will Russ ever leave?

[DadDadDad]

Exciting times - this thread will witness our 100,000th post in this long-running unbroken chain of threads.

New and old posters welcome. Don't spoil with any future plotlines.

And if you need a beginners' guide see here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have

Carry on...

EBearhug
I googled, but I failed to find when the change was. Mildly surprised, ad proposed changes to TA scheduling tends to warn of the end of the world, or at least letters to Feedback. I suspect it will be in one of the many Archers books, but I can't be bothered to look.

I think you must be right about the change in episode-length happening at the same time, because I can't see how else they could fit the full week into the omnibus on Sunday.

I know from Lowfield that it was at Easter 1998 that they gave us a Sunday episode for the first time, but looking in the BBC Genome doesn't help about how long the episodes were before that, because that just says The Archers started at 19:00 and 14:00 each day before and after that date, which simply Is Not True now so I can't tell whether it was then either. The next programme is said to start 15 minutes later in every case as far as I can tell.

Have my first [No comment] Mike and Abraide

Silly me I meant of course

I didn't see that ppeatfruit. That's right - the Sunday episode. Is it just me who tends to find the Sunday episode usually a bit dull and Friday the best one?

Ambridge Sundays seem more eventful than the average village. Most rl people don’t go to church or attend endless local festivals and community shindigs.

I quite enjoy the generally inconsequential meanderingness ...

I don't think I'm going to be able to join a Freddie appreciation club till we hear a conversation, preferably with Lizzie, where he acknowledges that his drug dealing was serious criminal conduct that put people in danger and that he deserved every single day of his sentence. If he can introduce into the conversation the fact that Russ knew about it, could have stopped it in the early stages, and kept quiet in the interests of continuing to shag Lily, so much the better.

Very late to the party (I think I was off MN for Lent at the time) but the conversation last night over whether Mia's mystery illness was period pain reminded me of the revelation last month that the whole of Borsetshire apparently suffers from delayed-onset puberty. Emma said that, at 13, Mia was only the second girl in her year at school to start her periods! I don't know if this was discussed on the previous thread. Maybe it's part of a slow burn long term SL that hormones in the water are affecting all the children - could also explain Henry's voice-age disparity too (although he now appears to have turned silent).

Maybe it's part of a slow burn long term SL that hormones in the water are affecting all the children

Something else to blame Brian for! Yes, it was mentioned Fink - maybe the thread before last.

I’d be happy if, following tradition, we heard nothing more from Henry until his drunken 16th birthday party - but I fear they may make an exception for him, as for Mia.

Interesting theory Fink

Just seen I made the 100,000 post yesterday !

Monty you're in, but I'm watching you

I'm fairly certain that before the great change the episodes were 15 minutes long. There was a huge shakeup on Radio 4 at one point when news bulletins were introduced on almost every hour, so I suspect before 1998 TA started promptly at 7pm and lasted till 7.15pm, with the repeats at 2pm-2.15pm. They were on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and as others have said an edited version went out on Sunday morning. One of life's little pleasures was spotting the sentences that might be for the chop on Sunday and trying to remember on Sunday what got missed out.

(No, I've never had a life.)

I thoroughly enjoyed that.

Best episode for ages

Go Jazzer - take 'em for every penny!!

Didn't the afternoon repeats run from 13.45 - 14.00 before the Great Timing Change? I seem to remember taking late lunch breaks at one stage so that I could listen to the repeats in my car but then the time was changed and so I couldn't do that.

Would have been 1997/98ish because I left that job in 1998.

And congratulations to lillypainter

It was good. I wonder if the Borsetshire Blue was bad.
Good Jazzer & Jim, excellent true-to-form Bridge Farm Archers, and Radio Carter & Clarrie.

Back to the old snobbish ways- the plebs can’t appreciate good cheese.....

Just seen I made the 100,000 post yesterday !

"Just seen" - lilly, a likely story. I bet you were out on the beers to all hours celebrating and have only just resurfaced.

Anyway, PM me your address, your hat size, and the dimensions of your kitchen floor, so I can organise your prize. Also, do you prefer lime green or throbbing black for a colour?

As much as a Jim Symposium would be dreadful, pleeeease can we call it a Jimposium?

My dd’s pony was like Jim when she was younger. The moment she was bored she was up to something, a day with no interesting work and she’d be trying to work out how to open the gates, or turn off the electric fence, or represent another pony in court regardless of experience, knowledge or the ability to read........

Re "me and Ed" v "my husband and I": it's I if you're the subject and me if you're the object. Generally, to work out whether to say me or I, pretend your husband/Ed isn't in the picture, and use the same word.

1. I went to the shops - My husband and I went to the shops
2. John bought dinner for me - John bought dinner for Ed and me (You wouldn't say "me went to the shops" or "John bought dinner for I".

Beardie - true, for standard written English. But it's quite common in colloquial English and in some dialects for "me" to be used in the subject when coordinated with another noun.

Emma saying "me and Ed are..." is valid and distinguishes her dialect from the more formal register of someone like Jim.

Hopefully, Emma would know not to use it in a job application.

Gabrielle, I have very fond memories of R4 on Sunday afternoon when there was no news bulletin between the end of TWTW and the six o'clock news. Twas great. That would have definitely been the case in the mid 90s. I also loved spotting the scenes that had been deleted from the minibus - as it was then called due to the editing down.

Bore, you are right. TA used to be on before two o'clock, because Woman's Hour started at two - with a string quartet or some such piece of music for a signature tune.

I have been listening to R4 for so long that I even remember when Any Answers was on after TA on Thursday evening, and listeners' letters were read out. (Disclaimer - I started as teenager )

Indeed. But "Me an' Ed went to see our new house". Hence my complaint. She does it because she's a Grundy.
An Archer would say "... and I... went ".
Was the goat's milk going to be sold or was it going to be made into cheese?

I should also point out that even in more formal registers, "me" is used for the subject: eg...

"I like The Archers." "Oh, me too" (the verb has been omitted but me is the subject in that reply, and not many people would say "Oh, I too").

"Seriously? Me, listen to the Archers?" (bet you wouldn't say "I, listen... " in this questioning way - well some of you might ).

The linguists love this stuff - eg this blog post by the author the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3469

I noticed that Jim quoted the case name as “x versus y”. I’d have thought that he was educated enough to know that you say “x and y”, eg Donoghue v Stevenson is spoken as “Donoghue and Stevenson”. I know he’s not a lawyer (and indeed that is the point of the storyline) but I had a feeling that having him get that wrong was not deliberate.