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.

Well exactly, Poppy is in Reception so sadly Nic never took her to school (nursery perhaps). So Will has been in charge of this part of her life from the beginning and yet has totally delegated the responsibility to other people.

Even now he cannot plan his workload and sort out childcare, dumping his daughter at short notice onto his exwife who is working nights and looking after 2 children, one of whom is his (and at the age of 14 clearly being brought to be as incapable as the other males in the family as he has to be looked after with his little sister).

Emma has no idea - all she cares about is the money.

Emma does know. When Ed originally turned the work down at the beginning because it sounded dodgy, Emma encouraged him to go back and look like he was willing to do it to get Tim to tell him more, and ideally to do the work because it was such good money. She asked after the first job, which was of course an easy one, and they don’t seem to have had any proper conversations about it since, which clearly isn’t accidental on either part (unless they have this week, I’ve not listened yet).

Your suit is very smart, DDD

Thanks, @Lil’G.

Agree about Will having a year to get his stuff together. (And to source “non-iron” dresses...)

If that was my family, George would be expected to do a bit of watching Poppy and Kiera as part of family life, and be paid for anything over that. Can’t understand why that
Isn’t happening.

And Emma was very worried about the Tim work art th beginning- how come she’s forgotten? She’s not daft!

In an unlikely plot twist, Emma lost her cleaning job with Peggy. Hence money tighter than expected.

Perhaps she should have a word with the Proff.

“n an unlikely plot twist, Emma lost her cleaning job with Peggy. Hence money tighter than expected.”

Yes- I still can’t get my head round that one. So completely unlike Peggy.

And disappointingly, we haven’t heard anything about how the Peggy and Kate house share is getting along.

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

Ed does have Emma and Clarrie getting everything ready and remembering the timetables.

I don't think Ed would necessarily do any better than Will in similar circumstances - both have a very Stepford view of a woman's role

I'm even further behind with the threads than I am with the episodes themselves, so I'm just placemarking till I catch up. Thanks to Gabrielle for starting this one.

Love the thread title, btw. Credit to whoever came up with the wording!

We also heard Martyn Gibson when Kathy was running the bar/restaurant at the Ambridge golf club, didn't we? He of the shady deals with takings/running up a bar bill? Or have I got the wrong person?

I can end my sulk, now one person has acknowledge my hi-LAR-ious CP30 meme. Thanks, lido.

To add to LilG's archaeology, on 23 Jan, I wrote

Maybe a more likely scenario is Ed getting roped by Tim into some early morning shifting of goods which turn out to be stolen.

so I feel like I got the broad idea of where Tim might lead Ed.

I don't think Ed would necessarily do any better than Will in similar circumstances I agree. Or a lot of men for that matter. I'm not saying this to excuse Will (or indeed anyone), but I do find it a very believable storyline. Even if he could get his act together, Will works very family unfriendly hours - he's not working 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. He is required to go out late at night etc on an ad hoc basis and almost certainly doesn't earn enough to pay for live-in childcare. It has been a year since Nic died, but in that time Mia has taken over her role of looking after Poppy so it is only now that Will is seeing what needs to be done. Again, not excusing him, just stating it as fact. I'm not sure who would have been the right person to tell Will to get his finger out - he's not an easy person to tell anything.

Thank you all for the Martin Gibson speaking reminders. It's all coming back to me now, and I can see what has fed my opinion of him.

@dumdedum, I was going to say that! It was indeed very Gibson who we heard bullying Kathy Perks at the golf club.

I agree with all your comments re-Will and his lack of domestic skills. I think too with a child that age, whether there’s a widowed father or not, there would be a reminder note coming home on Fridays about gym kit being needed on Mondays. In some situations there would be a ‘home jotter’ going back and forward with messages between parent and teacher. We’ve got special needs here but I’m pretty sure at 5 the NT children were also on this. In fact one of ours is in FE college and will be 21 next week and we still have messages going back and forward in his bag. or depending on how I feel at any given moment!

That ‘very’ is this dratted machine thinking it’s cleverer than me. It should read Martyn. I don’t know he’s Martyn with a y, I just think he should be.

I know I’m a 1960s model but, really, wouldn’t the first thing you do if you’re trying to organise the household is get a wall calendar - and use it. I’m sure on Nic’s watch there would have been a kitchen calendar. There’s no way she stored all the activities, appointments, etc for 2 adults and 3 or 4 children in her head. I do know there’s this new fangled idea of phones and ‘puters attached to the interweb but don’t young people write some things down? My crowd do but the they’ve been trained by me!

And disappointingly, we haven’t heard anything about how the Peggy and Kate house share is getting along.

Yes, that's really quite odd, especially given that we know that Kate would put her spiritual wellbeing and virtually everything else ahead of her cleaning duties. I suppose they'll wait for EdnEmmur to reach rock bottom yet again and Peggy will swan in with a gracious offer to a resumption of the cleaning job.

It is perfectly possible for working adult men (Will) to be able to get 1 child to school. I ensured both my husband and dad could get small child (6) to school, on time, with water bottle, book bag and PE kit/football kit as needed, because when I had a newborn there was no way I was!! They can both do it fine and know which day football is etc. Why Will can’t get his head around it I don’t know (and don’t have much sympathy either - Emma’s been at work on the night shift, she gets my sympathy).

JazzersMaw I assume Martyn was born Martin and added the y later in life because he's that kind of twunt!

@JazzersMaw, I’m slightly ashamed to say it, but all the stuff for my three goes in my phone - including things like a weekly reminder on a Sunday night that my 6yo dd needs her piano books for Monday etc. It makes me feel like I’m cheating a bit but at least mostly things aren’t forgotten 😳

Apologies, DDD, if I am missing something, but shouldn't CP30 actually be C3PO?

Good spot, Wheres. Something in my brain when I typed it told me it was wrong (my subconscious knew that the it goes letter-number-letter-number, like R2D2), but it was one of those moments where one's focus slips and it was only after I posted that it struck me.

I was wondering if I'd get away with it - who knew there was an overlap between Archers geeks and Star Wars geeks?