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.

My theory is that the actress who plays Natasha wanted a pay rise to go with her new status as a Mrs Archer, so she 'went to wales' while the negotiations were in progress, with the possibility of no return.

AlecOrAlonzo - well, yes, I do realise that - the location wasn't strictly relevant but I try not to spend my holidays with headphones on. I did see a stack of newspapers being delivered by ferry on one of the islands, somewhat late in the day - not quite sure why in the age of the Internet.

If you have a British Airways credit card you get Airmiles for your normal spending Bert. Or Avios as they are known now.

Agree with all the mental health possibilities for Gnasher posted up thread.
She sounded well scary when she said: " You'd better believe it, Tom Archer. Because I"m here to stay." Shades of "I'm your number one fan". And we all know what happened to James Caan. :o

Also agree the airmiles are associated with her credit card habit use.

Just remembered a priceless bit, where Nathan tells Tom, crossly, to stop tidying up, and he meekly comes to heel: Okay, okay. Nothing has changed.

Nathan??? Natasha.

Gnasher was saying that she was overwhelmed by being "Mrs Archer in Ambridge" but she loved being "Mrs Archer". The first thing the reunited couple did was to take an aimless drive out into the countryside i.e. to go anywhere that wasn't Ambridge.
Foreshadowing and prophetic? Please

Could the car be a white Mercedes....?

Gnasher is mad isn't she? I mean Victorian novel league mad.

Yup.

(Reverted to my favourite username, btw.)

You've all said what I wanted to re Gnasher () and Tom. Is this why the bunting has returned - is someone trying to make Tom see literal red flags?

Re Scottish islands and papers - my parents live on one of the former and get a paper every day to do the crossword. They do read it too, but the time spent together working out the clues is important. Keeps them active too, as it makes them walk down to the shop to pick it up. In the winter months the ferry service is often disrupted and the papers sometimes don't make it through. They always tell me that, as a marker of just how bad things are. They're well up in their 80s and still going strong, so long may the papers continue to be delivered to the furthest corners of these islands.

ButDark They’re not sacrifices though? They were struggling to pay the rent and Emma took the job as a positive step. She makes it sound as if they go without all the time when actually they are just saving hard which is what most people have to do to get their first house.
I don’t like Em ...even more than I dislike Natasha. There, I said it.

Welcome back, gasp0de (who were you in the interim?) - I kept having a physical paper for quite a while after DH had got an online subscription, mainly for the killer sudoku and crosswords, until I got an iPad. It's not quite the same, no margins to do the anagrams in.

I’m still puzzled by the bailiff incident. Was that it? No follow up?

I was also mystified by that episode and could see the large, red, flashing yet fatally unspoken 'WTF?' hovering above Tom's head throughout.

Totally agree that Natasha sounded manic. If we're supposed to believe that any of this is rational behaviour in any way, the SWs have miscalculated. Bigly, as a certain imminent visitor to these shores might say

Danascully2 I was hoping we’d hear Frank Ocean playing in the background last night - then we’d know it was a white Ferrari ...

Errol - that theory had occurred to me - Natasha was taken off the air while the actress's agent negotiated her a better package ("I never realised how demanding it would be acting with Troughtons..." ).

Also: "hey, Natasha, you're not the only who likes to splash the cash sometimes. Guess what I got a great deal on - and it was only £4000..."

Frod it!

Gnasher might be up-duffed with Trev, and legged it back to Tom in order to deposit fat cuckoo in the Archer nest?

Much as I dislike the character I do love the actor's voice and I think she is very very good at her job.

Will no one care about Poppy though, off in the night with a useless dad and a million risks?

I just opened today’s Guardian to find a feature about tours of the Archers studio. Warning: contains cast photos.....

The article is here. As long as you avoid the photo at the top, there are no other cast photos on the page. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/24/the-archers-tour-bbc-mailbox-birmingham-radio-4

Visitors on the tour can take on roles and record a classic scene. I have this little fantasy of some of us on this thread having a meet-up on the tour and recording there. Now I need to decide who I would like to play...

Is that the same tour Madcats linked above?

The thread meet-up might be fun - if we could have one all to ourselves.

You are right - apologies to Madcats. I'd seen the article earlier and was going to scroll back and check, then 5000's post led me to assume that it hadn't been mentioned.

Blimey !!!! You lot are really upset and Dadx3 You have NEVER sworn like that before !!!!! We had neighbours in for dinner last night so I missed it (can you tell!). I look forward to L.A. But I will say that it sounds like the new 'drama at any cost' seems to be dong it's job

Errol the Outer Hebrides sound like paradise

doing it's job ! of course

I’m still puzzled by the bailiff incident. Was that it? No follow up?

The only follow up was at the event in the gallery when CMR quipped about at least all the guests were invited this time. Elizabeth did a tinkly little laugh and Kenton asked what was being referred to. Elizabeth brushed it off as just one of those things which happen, no big deal.

CMR just had the one line but I thought it was clever writing. The whole thing has been brushed under the carpet. The bailiffs were just upstart oiks pushing their way in uninvited- how very dare them.

Ruth and David can now hand over the Dopey moniker to Elizabeth and Lily.

She sounded well scary when she said: " You'd better believe it, Tom Archer. Because I"m here to stay." Shades of "I'm your number one fan". And we all know what happened to James Caan

Exactly. And did everyone else spot that in the monologue about how much she loves/ misses him she dropped in another paranoid line about the whole village talking about her?

Stubborn keyboard ppeatfruit?!