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.

Ref. Will's domestic problems. Does anyone remember hearing on `Little Museum of Curiosities' R4 that there are 4 genes difference between men and women?

That explains a lot IMO.

I think Will's problems may be as simple as never having been taught how to do it.

My dad couldn't cook until after my mum died and he had to learn: she wouldn't let him in Her Kitchen. Once he knew he had to, he asked me to show him how to make half a dozen things she used to, and then when he had those sorted asked for some more. He ended up a pretty good cook: nothing fancy, but it was all well worth eating. His soups were splendid, and when he took to looking for recipes on the internet some of them were things he had probably never eaten before, too.

Nic struck me as someone who wouldn't have had the patience to teach Will how to do things; she'd say, "Oh, get out of the way, I'll do it!" And since she died, who has thought of teaching him how it's done, rather than doing it for him? The rota was to do things for him, not to teach him how to do them himself.

Clarrie never taught either of her sons how to do a hand's turn about the house. Will managed perfectly well when he moved out and was living by himself, and after Emma moved out and he was living by himself, but he did it gradually, not all in a lump suddenly. And doing stuff for yourself, when it doesn't matter if you don't do it all every day, is quite different from looking after a child.

One of the four genes being from "hygiene" of course , ppeat.

Women (speaking generally of course) tend to be more emotionally present with children.

I think Will's problems may be as simple as never having been taught how to do it. I agree. He is completely clueless. Also because he has a fairly low opinion of what he would probably have termed “women’s work” he just thinks “How hard can it be?” He quite simply doesn’t have the first idea of what is required and the degree of organisation involved.

I think the clue in your post GreyGables are the words I ensured. You made it happen by showing/explaining to your dad and DH what needed to be done - no one has shown Will anything (and they probably wouldn’t dare because they’d get their head bitten off). Even Elizabeth has been cleaning for him for goodness sake and she probably doesn’t even clean for herself.

I disagree about Will needing to be shown. Making meals, doing laundry, cleaning the house, ironing a shirt, checking a school timetable, are not difficult. That’s why women complain about having to do the wifework, because generally it is dull. Time consuming and requires thought certainly, particularly if you have a heavy workload or many children. The mental load is taxing.

But these are basic chores that Will is failing at and I fail to see how anyone with a degree of practicality, common sense or access to the internet would not be able to manage to do them, even if not to a very high standard

Also although it is undoubtedly difficult being a widowed single parent (been there, done that), when you are the only person in charge of 1 small child it’s arguably easier than managing another person’s contribution into that household. The mental load is all your own and the standards are all yours to set.

Will must have a tiny tiny brain, no one showed me how to look after children or clean the loo but I managed it. Men like Will don't do these things because they don't know how, they don't do them because they don't want to.

Do all women get everything right first time, though? I mean, if you had suddenly had to learn it all, all at once with no run-up, would you have been competent instantly?

Will has had a lot of the "parenting" done for him, both by the people on the Rota and by Nic's daughter, who (sorry, because she was twelve and thought she was doing the right thing and being grown up, but she got it wrong) enabled him. She had no business buying things at the shop when she didn't have the money, for instance: she ought to have told him they were out of bread, not gone in on her own to fetch some. And told him that Poppy needed the money, rather than not saying anything about it at Clarrie and then not actually saying anything about it to Will either. I assume she saw Will that evening or after the match? Or someone adult if he was out at work? She is old enough to have said "I think you/Will must have forgotten about Poppy's school trip tomorrow, she needs the money for it" and if it was someone other than Will, they would have told him.

It's being written for melodrama, and also for Villain Man Evil Cruel Incompetent, and it irritates me. Unless she is supposed to have been so terrified of him that she couldn't even say "Dad, we're out of bread again" in which case the sooner Poppy is taken away as well and Will uses the Greg Memorial Shotgub as Greg did, the better it's overdone.

I don't think anyone is saying it is OK that Will is so domestically incompetent - just that he is (like many other men). In that respect it is a realistic storyline.

Wills character has always been overdone though, he was often spectacularly unpleasant when Nic was alive.
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Even before the Emma affair, Will was vile. Do you remember how when he inherited from an aunt who had made her will before Ed was born and then never thought to amend the will, rather than splitting his inheritance, he lorded it over Ed as though Will had actually done something to deserve the whole lot and had inherited because he was a superior being?

Never thought an episode with Freddie in it could be boooooooooooooring ...

You'll have had your tea?

Aargh, I can't believe Kenton still hasn't got his head around the concept of being in someone's debt. 'David will get his money back, but only when I'm ready' is NOT how it works!

I don't think he should have taken his mum's money, but he should at least have twigged that he needs to be paying it back NOW, not when he's ready.

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.

@Dumdedumdedum Hahaha I was very much born then! But driving around London in my trusty Renault 4 so didn't get much exposure to tube announcements!

I'm not quite sure, but I think I found myself liking Shula this evening

Just me, then.....?

Oh bugger, another bold fail

Aye, Angus Anthony, I see you've had a wee tea, yersel. Would that explain the bulge under your kilt?

By the way, DDD, I have never seen a Star Wars film in my life, and I never will.

Just somehow knew that CP30 didn't look right! 😸

She had no business buying things at the shop when she didn't have the money, for instance: she ought to have told him they were out of bread, not gone in on her own to fetch some

No I don't agree there. Mia was trying to help and Will was letting her, Mia is not to blame she is the victim.

Will is pushing 40, managed to cook and clean perfectly well for himself when he lived on his own. Its been a year and he still hasn't grasped the basics? The women in his life may have enabled his domestic incompetence but its also been his choice and expectation for them to do that.

Its a year on, not a month on. He made a huge fuss about keeping Jake and Mia but never took domestic responsibility for them.

There was a lot of jollity in that episode. Was that for us, the listener, to give us a reprieve or was it supposed to show Freddie how the other half get on with their lives (even including Shula!), in contrast to all the seriousness and angst at LL.

Have any of the LL bunch discussed the licence yet?

I thought there were more hints of Shula having some sort of “calling” tonight...

“I couldn’t do his job...”

“Yes, you could...”

Yes ... I was a bit distracted at that point so wasn’t quite sure what I heard - but it sounded again as if Shula was being ushered towards ministry ...