Thread #105: Curtains for Emma, Hilda - Joe? Red carpet for June Spencer on her 100th birthday, we hope! Discuss the rich tapestry of Ambridge life here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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.

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 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, 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 to LillianGish and BuckingFrolics for ideas for this thread title. I went with the less Rabelaisian of LG's ideas!

On 14th June it will be the 100th birthday of June Spencer, who has played Peggy Woolley since 1951. I hope the BBC has a lot of special tributes lined up to celebrate this remarkable achievement.

[TeenTimesTwo]

Tilly Button is one of the oft mentioned never heard 'Button Girls'. No idea what age, I think around 15. Her sister is Molly.

Not to be trusted with maypole dancing iirc.

[Paintingtheroseswhite]

I see Lillian as Lucia to Lynda's Mapp

[WheresThatCatGoneNow]

Oooh! What happened with the maypole dancing, TeenTimesTwo? I must have missed that!

The mind boggles

[TeenTimesTwo]

Nothing much, just mucking about and getting it wrong I think. As reported by Lynda when practicing. I could be making that all up of course.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

I'm more interested at this point in the identity of the egg thief. It was reported that someone had "taken all the eggs" and "left all the money". Isn't that roughly the idea of selling eggs at the gate?

So are they saying that "last night there were X eggs and Y amount of money in the box, but today there are no eggs and still Y amount of money"? In which case why didn't they take the Y amount of money inside. But if they didn't do an immediate count, all they'e saying is "we should have had Z amount of money from selling all the eggs and we have only Y". And they don't know whether it was the first person or the last who helped themselves to free eggs. Or whether it was several people who said "Ooh - £3.50 - that's a bit steep - I'm only paying £2".

[JazzersMaw]

Who was selling the eggs? I wasn’t paying due attention.

Aren’t there more Buttons- a boy called Billy. Isn’t there a Milly and a Molly, or maybe I made that bit up.

What I envisage with the Jimposium is something like on The West Wing where President Bartlett allegedly had won a Nobel Prize jointly with a Japanese economist. When the Japanese man is invited to an event at the White House, it transpires that the POTUS loathes him, largely because he’s annoyed that they had to share the prize. So he tries not very hard to be polite and welcoming while the other guy has for years been unaware that Bartlett hates him so much. So on TA there has to be a former colleague who Jim hates and who gets invited, but ... you get the drift. I’m boring myself now.

[Madcats]

Wouldn't be great if R4 Extra ran a parallel series called "the Buttons"?

I'm feeling a bit dazed and confused by the current story lines.

• Why would Jim bother to steal the bunting?
• How on earth can Gnasher and Tom host a massive party above the shop?
• Wouldn't Krusty's & Philip's new-build have a postage-stamp of a garden
• Aren't Adumb and Ian far too busy farming and cooking (and scheduling parental leave - work ops for Ed & Emmur, surely?) to suddenly worry about a bucket list?

[ErrolTheDragon]

Well, a BOOP that Alice, between her robotics and being the family fixer seems back on track being an engineer again.

How on earth can Gnasher and Tom host a massive party above the shop?

They can't. And I'm sure gnasher knows that really. But it will give her the opportunity to have a dig at Tom about this being why the needed the expensive rental house so they had room for entertaining. She's very adept at having digs at Tom.

[Motoko]

Jim didn't steal the bunting, one of the Button girls found it, and Jazzer paid her in fags to give it to him and keep quiet about it.

[BeardieWeirdies]

Two mentions of Adam needing someone to run the aquaponics, Alice fixing the system plus complaints about her current job... Quick, where's Mystic's ball?

[Fink]

Definitely not a BOOP for Alice still having a go at Adam, and saying that Chris still resents him too, because SHE didn't inform him about her plan to use his farm for a trial and he genuinely wasn't able to accommodate her. And he even bloody apologised, what for? 'I'm sorry I made plans for the business I run that didn't take into account the entirely separate company you work for and some project you haven't told me about that I nevertheless should have foreseen you'd need me for.'

[BagpussAteMyHomework]

Feels realistic that Alice is under pressure to have a baby. Tick tock....

Klaxon! Not every woman wants a baby.

[Taswama]

Thanks for the new thread Gaspode - had a week off grid and have been enjoying catching up on listening and thread reading.
How long do Ian and Adam actually have to do their bucket list? I thought Adam was worryingly vague about who is actually going to look after the baby. Have him and Ian even discussed it? If Ian is taking adoption leave wouldn’t he need to inform his employer?

[LassOfFyvie]

I'm feeling a bit dazed and confused by the current story lines
- Why would Jim bother to steal the bunting?
- How on earth can Gnasher and Tom host a massive party above the shop?
- Wouldn't Krusty's & Philip's new-build have a postage-stamp of a garden
- Aren't Adumb and Ian far too busy farming and cooking (and scheduling parental leave - work ops for Ed & Emmur, surely?) to suddenly worry about a bucket list?

Is that a Led Zeppelin allusion? I'm dazed and confused too. Oh and the explanation from Motoko about the bunting leaves me none the wiser. Why would any of the Button girls, Jazzer or Jim care?

Who is going to look after Adam and Ian's baby? Pip must have some sort of invisible nanny as there has never been any clear child care set up for her. Or is Lexi going to be employed as the nanny to the child she gives birth to?

[LassOfFyvie]

If Ian is taking adoption leave wouldn’t he need to inform his employer?

Yes he would but technically this isn't an adoption at this stage.

Under UK law the baby is Lexi's. Adam and Ian have to institute proceedings within 6 months of the birth for a parental order or an adoption order.

[Isatis]

Surely it would make more sense to ask Robert to do the tribute to Jim rather than Lynda? He seems to be much more enthusiastic.

[LillianGish]

I think the bunting saga is being stretched to breaking point - presumably to culminate in Jim’s arrest or whatever shortly after Lynda has finished delivering her enkomion and in front of everyone who has ever known him for the ultimate humiliation. Lovely to hear Kate doing some actual engineering - I’m guessing her brilliant career and Chris’s groin strain are some heavy-handed signalling of the unlikelihood of their ever starting a family (with a large dose of Lynda thrown in there to remind listeners there is another way).

[ErrolTheDragon]

Alice, not Kate...
Or maybe they will go down the career plus DC route, but in her own good time - I think she's 30/31 so there's a few years before she really needs to decide. A storyline about how good employers need to retain skilled staff (especially women in fields where they're underrepresented) would be no bad thing.

Re Adam and Ian's baby care plans, I'm sure there's been mention of Ian taking time off work for this, hasn't there?

[BertrandRussell]

The writing really is pretty rubbish at the moment, isn’t it? It’s making me feel patronised. Which is an odd word to use, but it’s the best I can do.

[5000FlapjacksofJillArcher]

I've totally lost the will to live over the bunting 'saga'. I can't understand why the SW seem to think it's so gripping, hilarious or fascinating, or indeed whatever they do think it is. It's not drama, and it's very definitely not humour.

Every new twist and turn just makes it ever more impenetrable and boring. Make it stop. Please.

[BertrandRussell]

On the DumdeeDum podcast, they were talking about how the bunting thing sort of broke the 4th wall. It was an in joke among listeners that Harrison couldn’t even solve the missing bunting crime- but it’s migrated from in joke to the programme.

[BuckingFrolics]

Checking in with nothing to say but don't want to lose you.

[C8H10N4O2]

The bunting story is tedious as hell. I don't know if its the writing or the script editing but its extremely forgettable.

[LillianGish]

It's not as if the stolen bunting is the only storyline that was left hanging - the disappearance of Stefan and all Knob's shenanigans at the mega dairy were just left to fall by the wayside despite being far more interesting and with far greater dramatic potential. I can't honestly believe that when the stolen bunting storyline was originally conceived the SW intended to leave it it dangling for so long. It can't be coincidence that it has been revived after becoming legendary as an untied loose end - in which case we should all be very careful what we wish for.

[GeorgeTheBleeder]

Checking in with nothing to say but don't want to lose you.

This is so cool. Why can’t I be like this?