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.

Will managed to flip from the hair-trigger, aggressive "I can cope" to "could you take Mia?" in the blink of an eye.

Hmm. Much as I loathe Will, if you have 1 family where there is one adult and one permanently resident child and another where there are five adults and one permanently resident child, then i’m not sure the solo adult needs to offer equal amounts of child watching.

Saw this today. We've got bunting trouble, too, up here in Lancashire (Lytham is about twenty miles away from me, and is next door to Blackpool)

Joe can’t really be treated as an adult for child care purposes, and I’m sure incurs a lot of work for Clarrie. Eddie and Ed are never asked to help with Poppy. It’s always Clarrie or Emma who get asked. Emma has two jobs plus looking after George and Kiera. Will could almost certainly afford to pay Emma/Clarrie to look after Poppy and put it on a reasonable footing. Clarrie would say no on principle but Emma could do with the money.

“Joe can’t really be treated as an adult for child care purposes,”

Why not? He can watch a child watching TV as well as anyone else.

And we know he watches Poppy because she told him about her gold star last week. And there’s been no suggestion he creates any more extra work than Ed or Eddie.

Jazzer has clocked the dodgy nature of Ed’s work for Timotei - he can see that someone paying so much money in cash is can’t be above board. Ed must be aware of this too, Emma has no idea - all she cares about is the money. It’s not going to end well. I love the fact that we have been suspicious of him since he uttered his first word on air - it’s a real,slow burner.

I get the Joe is capable of looking after the ponies and the ferrets but I bet Clarrie does loads for him. Washing, bed linen, cooking, cleaning, plus the general ‘keeping an eye on’ that creeps in when someone gets older. It’s not just an extra mouth to feed. And yes Joe can watch Poppy and chat with her but I doubt the Grundys leave him to supervise the children alone for long.

@Lil’G, what was Timotei’s first word on air? Can we remember? But yes, definitely been suspicious since the beginning. Can’t remember that connection, either - was the intro via Oliver?

Washing, bed linen, cooking, cleaning, plus the general ‘keeping an eye on’ that creeps in when someone gets older.

Don't forget the pedicures.

Ed was indeed introduced to Timotei through Oliver. The first job was some fencing at the golf club, I think.

When it all comes crashing down, I hope it takes Tim and also Martin Gibson, though I fear it will be just Ed.

Can’t remember that connection, either - was the intro via Oliver?

Yes - of course, Tim will be squeaky clean with Oliver, and now with Alan - good cover for a bad 'un.

Ahh yes, the churchyard stuff. Very canny.

Whereas when I was a teacher, DDD, there was heavy reliance on the seating plan for most of the year. And a professional, non-committal look for any child who came up to talk to me during break, until they gave away some identifying information. A vague smile was the most I could manage for anyone foolish enough to try to greet me at the weekend, when I didn't even have the clues from the school uniform (differences in tie colour) to help.

The year when I had 3 Year 9 classes was the worst: 92x 13-14 year olds, and because of the demographics of the area, 91 of them were white British, me = not a clue.

EBear, do you think Martin Gibson is somehow involved in all this shady dealing with Timotei (I don't think we've heard anything to that effect, have we?) or do you just want him to fall because he's nasty?

Who was Ed working for this evening and did anyone else get the impression he might inadvertently get drawn into something dodgy? “I’m happy to do anything as long as it pays.” Just wondered why the improbably named Tim Oaty (sounds like shampoo) was given such a prominent speaking role. posted by me on Jan 2.
Quater’s reply Tim Oatey gave me the absolute creeps. He felt like the aural equivalent of something out of Luther. Or a naked Dalek about to attach itself to its victim.

Brilliant archaeology Lil’G!

(Although someone seemed to be conflating Dr Who with Harry Potter ...)

Bit of a compare and contrast there - Ed successfully getting two children off to school without a fuss, Will having a major epic with one. When he blames Poppy for not telling him till the last minute that her dress needs to be ironed or that she needs PE kit, he really is infuriating. How difficult can it be to remember when PE is or to organise the ironing?

EBear, do you think Martin Gibson is somehow involved in all this shady dealing with Timotei (I don't think we've heard anything to that effect, have we?) or do you just want him to fall because he's nasty?

It wouldn't surprise me if he was at least aware that Timotei isn't entirely on the straight and narrow, but I'd have thought that if he's doing anything criminal himself, it's more likely to be fraud or embezzlement.

Mostly it's just because he's nasty, which is obviously just based on hearing him being talked about by other characters, because I don’t think he's ever actually spoken, has he?

I was interested in Will’s idea that Poppy should have told him she has PE. He has no clue about school has he? It’s the summer term, they will have had a set day for PE since September.

I think we did hear Martin Gibson, when Brian (?) was running for chairman for something. Martin Gibson wanted the role and spoke against Brian getting it.

He has no clue about school anything has he?
Poppy is not even six years old yet. The idea that it is her job to remind Will, rather than it is his job as parent to teach her organisational skills, is awful.
And yy to "how did Will not know, at this stage of the school year, what the weekly timetable is?" He is so clueless that he doesn't even know that he doesn't know!

There are a lot of men like Will who have no clue about their children’s timetables or indeed about anything that needs doing that isn’t their own paid employment. Nic was the laundry fairy, the shopping fairy, the housework fairy and before he was married Clarrie played that role in Will’s life. It is as difficult for Will to pick up all Nic’s dropped threads at it would have been for her to turn gamekeeper if the roles had been reversed. Yes he should have done more in the past - should Nic and Clarrie take some of the blame for not insisting that he did? I’m not saying they should - just posing the question. I think it is a very realistic portrayal of a man completely floundering after the unexpected death of his wife. It’s not helped by the fact that he has a job with such irregular hours - difficult to see how anyone could manage it alone without paid childcare. He needs to admit that he can’t do it all.

All of that would be true a year ago, Lillian, but he's had over a year to sort things out and instead chose to rely on another female, and a child at that.

Also he has chosen to take on much more at work for reasons that have never really been made clear, so that doesn't give him too much of a free pass.

“All of that would be true a year ago, Lillian, but he's had over a year to sort things out ”

This. Mumsnet is full of women excusing men’s incompetence- men with much less excuse than Will has. It’s not difficult to adequately feed and look after a child!

Will is a strange one. He was angling for full custody of Jake and Mia at first. Maybe subconsciously so that they could take care of Poppty and Geirges emotional needs. And his, of course.

Also he has chosen to take on much more at work for reasons that have never really been made clear,

frankly, sacking Pete screams 'plot device' to me.