Fast falls the eventide for Joe Grundy, the darkness deepens for Ed - will he be fenced in or is there still time for acts of pennants? Abide with us and discuss The Archers, thread #104!

[GabrielleNelson]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads and @DadDadDad for being our resident statistician and keeping the ball rolling when Pseudo stepped back a bit and more recently when someone forgot they had promised to start the next thread, ahem.

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 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 this thread, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, DadDadDad has created this useful thread: 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 BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks also to LillianGish for the splendid thread title. As actor Edward Kelsey died last month, we have probably heard Joe Grundy for the last time, or will do very shortly. RIP Mr Kelsey; many thanks for creating a wonderfully vivid character, gnarly toenails and all.

As pointed out on the last thread, we're getting very close now to the 100th birthday of June Spencer, who plays Peggy Woolley. What an achievement! I hope the team manage to squeeze Peggy into that day's episode, come what may.

That house is overpriced. It is in a beautiful location but is on the wrong side of the river. This is more like it.

Like, how do you know it's Anthony Head or Eleanor Bron or whoever (let's assume for a moment that I had heard of those people, which I hadn't, but that's another issue) when you hear them on the radio?

Because you've spent more years than it's wise to think about listening to all these people.

They become familiar voices, in the same way that if my sister rang and said "hi, it's me," I don't need to be told her name or read it on the screen.

Also, the people who thought, "that really sounds like actor X", and it turns out to be actor Y are less likely to post about that.

“Also someone upthread said you can buy a stately home for £1 million.

You absolutely can't. You'd need upwards of £5 mill for a decent place, unless you are very up North.”

Buying a stately home isn’t a problem. It’s selling one that can be a bit tricky.

Hmm, I think I'll just have to accept that I'm a bit subnormal in recognising voices. I definitely wouldn't put any money on being able to recognise my sister's voice if she rang up and said 'Hi, it's me' with no context. I reckon I could do it over 50% of the time, but not reliably every time. I was struggling yesterday to decide whether it was Lizzie or Shula speaking at the end (this thread has since informed me it was Shula), and I've been listening to TA since childhood, and actively listening every day for at least 18 years. Basically, Joe Grundy's habit of addressing everyone by their full name is a Godsend for me!

I've heard of Shazam, a couple of my siblings have it. Maybe I'll give it a go. I've only seen them using it with music. My sister appears to have several similar apps for almost everything: one to identify wine from its label, I think one for trees.

Fink, this is very interesting. There's a condition called prosopagnosia, which means not recognising faces. I bet there's a similar term for not recognising voices.

Shazam is sorcery. My son uses that or a very similar app on his phone and it's amazingly quick and accurate.

Still rather miffed that Patricia Hodge was brought in just for that. At least, I assume she was. It didn't sound as if she would hang around or have any good reason to get back in touch.

• Basically, Joe Grundy's habit of addressing everyone by their full name is a Godsend for me!

This is why Joe surely has to live a lot longer, they need to sneak in a new character who has this verbal trait before he can shuffle off his mortal coil.

Geoffrey Whitehead stumps me every time, he’s in every single radio drama or comedy I listen to and I NEVER RECOGNIZE HIM!

This is really fascinating Fink. (Sorry!) I don’t think I’ve ever considered that some people might be endowed with the aural equivalent of prosopagnosia. Something new learnt.

For me, after half a century of life, there are almost too many familiar voices stacked up in my head - I can recognise them all but increasingly can’t bring the person’s name to mind as quickly as I’d like, even though I can visualise their face.

I’d love to know what made Camilla so unhappy, growing up ... They did know she was a caaah - Lily described her as such on Friday - but perhaps, given Freddie’s realisation of his own destructive powers, he felt it best to live with someone he wouldn’t mind hurting.

GN you caaah! You crossed me! (I type too slowly.)

Agree with you about Camilla, George - wasn’t the twins’ nickname for her “Donkey”?

www.bentinck.net/voices/sounds/mindthegap.mp3

Who's this then? (Don't read the link unless you want a big fat clue!)

Yes, I thought for years that I had face,-blindness, but when I went for proper diagnosis it turns out I'm in the 3rd centile. Officially face-blind people are 2nd centile or below. I wonder if it might be the same for voices - I can recognise some, but I'm clearly below average.

I do actually have aphantasia - which means I can't form mental images (visual or aural or whatever), but my memory is actually pretty good. I wonder if it's related to that or if I'm just generally weird.

Myimaginarycathasfleas - the clue is in the link you gave! Also, it was already happening when I was a London tube commuter on various occasions between the late Seventies and the early Nineties. I accept it is possible you weren't even born then. I am a couple of years younger than TB, though he has worn better than I have.

Oh Fink, that really is interesting. Can I be nosy and ask if/how you dream?

P.S. Shazam is just for music, it won’t work on your sister unless she is Madonna and starts every phone call with a snatch of song.

A potentially interesting article here, Fink:

www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/127083.php

There was something on All in the Mind a couple of weeks ago. (I'm hyperphantasic, in contrast.)

That's interesting, Flapjacks, thanks. I suspect (and I'm not a medical expert of any kind) that it might be a spectrum, like Prosopagnosia, so I'm less good than average at recognising voices, but I definitely can recognise them sometimes so I'm not full on phonagnosia.

thislido people who are aphantasic can dream. I don't know about other people but for me I think I dream regularly but I hardly ever remember my dreams, and if I do remember them then I remember them like anything that happened in waking life - the events of the dream are in my memory but I don't 'see' or 'hear' anything in my mind.

We think my sister is hyperphantasic too, EBearhug. It's hard to tell because we all think what's inside our own head is normal until we're told otherwise!

I was going to suggest getting back on topic, but there was so little worthy of discussion in that episode that we might as well continue in the 'do androids dream?' vein.

There wasn’t much tonight certainly - although a BOOP for the almost tangible edge of envy and exhaustion in Emma’s voice. How on earth can she be resenting Jazzer’s tiny pay-off?

I’m also worrying that without swift and rigorous advice Jazzer might drink his money away within a month. Hope not though.

And Poppy ... Are they moving towards some accident befalling her if Will leaves her alone at home while he’s working?

Thanks Fink! It’s hard to imagine what’s in other people’s minds. All my memories have pictures attached I think.

Well it's easy, isn't it ?

Personally, I tend to hear a voice, and if I recognise it, lots of associated stuff springs immediately to my mind.

And if I'm ever in doubt, just google it.

Emma always sounds tired & dissatisfied - not without reason most of the time.

It did sound like she might be beginning to set limits with Will about Poppy, probably suspecting that with Mia gone he'd be trying to make Emma look after her more. I liked the agreeing with how much needs to be done but not offering to do it for him, but offering strategies on how to manage it - iron the uniform the night before etc. He has absolutely no idea how much Mia was doing to keep things going.

I also liked the agreeing to take Poppy as a one off but being clear she was busy the rest of the week - helping out, but not doing it all. He will have to get a nanny or some other paid child care, Emma & Clarrie both work.

Will doesn't seem to think to offer any kind of exchange. Emma is exhausted too. Will could surely offer to have Kiera occasionally as well as George? I'm sure he could manage a sausages and chips dinner or even give Emma some extra money so that she could give up the chicken factory.

ADarkandStormyKnight - I agree with you, nothing offered in return, but he wouldn't as he sees it as women's work. All that stuff about Poppy loving to play with the other kids, no trouble at all etc, totally not seeing it is extra work for Emma supervising a much younger child than hers, an extra mouth to feed when they are trying to save for the house etc. And he can't do it, running out of bread, packed lunch supplies etc but it's no trouble to Emma as she's a woman..........

Well in DDD’s case he probably has an algorithm but the others probably just recognise the voice, the same way you recognise people when they phone you.

Please refer to my photo.

Actually, we do a lot of conference calls at work, and I'm pretty good at picking out voices, even of those I've only met once. I also honed my skills of recognising faces as a teacher: 100+ names to learn at the start of the year? normally had them all in a couple of weeks.

I do struggle with some voices in TA: eg Ruari / Ben, Rex / Toby, Jazzer / Brian. (I may be joking about one of those).

I still can't quite believe that someone upthread said they struggle to recognise Geoffrey Whitehead - so distinctive. He makes even unfunny lines amusing with that dry way he has.