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...

The fake watercolours were a stupid error by Leonard, but I don't think that was so much a failure of emotional intelligence. In the end, I think the way he came clean and was able to laugh at himself showed his emotional security.

It was sweet when he did it to woo Jill, but hasn’t he done the same thing again with Shula's horses?

I bet Leonard has got Fallon's bunting intending to pass it off as his own. Guilt and fear of discovery by Jill is making him try to set things right.

Bookmarking

Thank you for the new thread!

The jobs thing is so strange. Why isn’t Freddie learning to run the family business?

Why doesn’t Emma take on more hours at the tea room to fill in for Tyler’s absence?

I missed the ep where it turned out Leonard's painting was a fake. What happened with that? I saw on here that Shula's horses were faked (with mild bemusement about how one could fake a bespoke picture of an individual horse), I didn't realise that the one he'd done for Jill was too! The man's clearly a mountebank. Does he paint at all? I must have missed more than one ep for all this to blow over my head - but sometimes I think I've listened to an episode and it turns out I missed the crucial scene (children's bath time or some such intervening at the important denouement).

Can someone fill me in, please? RIP Lowfield.

Leonard supposedly did a snowdrop picture for Jill. Everyone admired it. On the back of it he was pressurised into doing a picture of Shula's horses. Jill was there, hovering in an annoying manner, when he failed at the preparatory-sketch phase and he confessed. Jill thought this charming and chortled and hooted a lot in her usual way. If a Fairbrother had done this then she would have run them out of the county on fraud charges
Next thing we know, Shula has a picture of horses which was not done by Leonard (and I totally share your bemusement at this). Jill is therefore complicit in the new fraud.
Leonard is an artist of some description but I think that he is more on the architectural side (being a retired surveyor) and naturalistic things like snowdrops and horses are beyond him. Why he has got himself further embroiled in Shula's Art Project is beyond me. He will be Found Out.

Yes R4 and he will probably be found out by CMR, being on the same committee!!

Thanks DDD Good bit of trouble shooting there. (I imagine you as Bristow at your desk with your spreadshits ) The programme 'Bristow' was just on R4 Extra , I never even knew they made a Radio version of Bristow it was quite amusing.

I really wish they’d explain the fake horses. It’s utterly implausible, especially when the story would have worked perfectly with him confessing about the fake snowdrops, Jill and him sheepishly telling Shula and them all having a laugh about it.

Yes jessie but the SW's don't seem to think anything through properly, Gawd knows who they've got now, Why don't they get a lesson from some 'old hands"? They don't seem to realise that their listeners actually LISTEN

My "suspension of disbelief" is being tested to the limit. TA is getting close to being beyond "stretching things for dramatic purposes" and into "Implausible" and "ludicrous" territory (and don't get me started on that old chestnut of jarring "out of character" action).

I ❤ Freddie. He's becoming a very likeable character.

I could listen to him all day.

BTW, who actually owns the village shop?

I've got a vague idea that it's Hazel Woolley - but I'm probably wrong....

Yes and Hazel also owns the flat above the ship. Hence Natasha's concern about the wicked landlady.

They don't seem to realise that their listeners actually LISTEN

I was thinking they've been paying too much attention lately, what with the Return of the Bunting, and also excessive amounts of Change Counting. It's nice to hear a bit of change counting once in a while, but it's not necessary in every episode. These things tend to be more appreciated for their rarity value than ubiquity.

I remember when Nigel died. Elizabeth blamed David and was very unpleasant to him. She didn't blame the house or Nigel himself who always was a rather dim fool.

It seems pretty obvious it's George who nicked the money, as he's suddenly got a new game that he'd been told he needed to save up for

Didn’t Ed want to buy him that game from the dodgy driving money

Ebear Yesterday R2 was talking about the fact that we'll all be contactless soon , so as you say, there won't be much change counting going on anywhere. There was a caller saying that where reception is bad (in the countryside) there will have to be cash!

So will Natasha go the way of karate dude Lee, and never be heard of in Ambridge again?

To be fair to Elizabeth she was grieving, and as David seems to attract sudden death to those around him, I don't blame her at all.

I won't miss her that's for sure I miss poor Lee though.

Good grief the Shula art project storyline is going to get tedious. Actually I think a lot of the storylines are tedious at the moment. They wound the Gnasher storyline up to boiling point and....now what. It's all over the place at the minute

So will Natasha go the way of karate dude Lee, and never be heard of in Ambridge again?

Maybe they will return in 5 years like the bunting. p

I don’t see the point of the art project at all. Where is the money coming from for it for a start? Why is Shula so keen on ecclesiastical art when she’s having a crisis of faith? Is it another excuse for tedious bible reference swapping between her and Alan? If I wanted religion on the radio I’d listen to thought for the day.

Actually, now that Lynda is involved the Shula art storyline is looking more promising. Looking forward to lots of fights between her and Russ, and my money's definitely on Lynda for that one.

I think the idea is that Shula's crisis of faith is over after her heart-to-heart with Alan, but she won't be doing any more preaching. I must say, I was puzzled by her apparent perception that God wouldn't want her in church because of her sins, given that she must be perfectly well aware of all the emphasis in the bible on forgiveness, the shepherd rejoicing more over the lost sheep, etc etc.