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.

But Adam has been persuaded to enter.

I do like the way he's not telling Ian about his fear of clowns. I hate them too, I don't get why children SHOULD like circuses either . JD was being insensitive there. I still find them unpleasant, even the highbrow non animal cirque du soleil types I think it must be watching all those people nearly killing themselves for our entertainment. It does nothing for me.

R4 I was going to say that about Jim too ! He loves flouting his knowledge, remember the quizzes at the Bull where he had to be told not to use Latin?

Up thread, someone commented on Kirsty to Philip "That's why I like you". I noticed in the "good" episode a couple of days ago, she'd upgraded to "love".

The Jim story hasn't made sense to me since the day he arrived. Why pitch up to live in the same village as your son, (who doesn't particularly want you there), only to bait and beliittle him and insult his wife?

“R4 I was going to say that about Jim too ! He loves flouting his knowledge”

I know it’s s typo, but I love the idea of flouting knowledge. My children flout my knowledge all the time!

I like Jim because he is unashamedly intellectual, while not looking down on others

Did you miss the scene where his children did a compare&contrast? Fiona was OK because she went into academia; Al was looked down on because, despite having braincells, he chose to go into a non-academic field (pun intended!).
Jim can put up with the likes of Jazzer because what is the point of being superior if you don't have someone to be superior to? Anyone who might challenge Jim - Lynda with her literary references or Robert with his bird knowledge - is a threat to be belittled

I plainly wasn't paying attention.

I'll try again.

I like unashamedly intellectual people. That's why I like Jim.

Yeah ... The whole point of Jim is/was that he despises anyone who he thinks has pretensions to social superiority without the requisite brainpower to back it up. He loves Jazzer because the poor man is a blank slate, intellectually - but always eager to lap up Jim’s words of wisdom.

I like unashamedly intellectual people.
I'm almost with you, after the re-wording. I'm not sure about the "unashamedly", though. Truly intellectual people don't need to brag about it, it slips out naturally.

He loves Jazzer because the poor man is a blank slate, intellectually - but always eager to lap up Jim’s words of wisdom.
Yes. Jazzer thinks Jim is a genius because he bested Tom. I think we could all do that with one hand tied behind our back!

Yes A dark and stormy I wonder why he didn't go to stay at Fiona's with his broken ankle? Maybe she was abroad or something.

Bert I did wonder if the word word flouted was correct! It wasn't a typo can you tell I'm no Jim!

I like unashamedly intellectual people.

So do I, but to me Jim doesn't come across as intellectual. He comes across like too many people I've met at universities: desperately hoping nobody notices that he is ignorant, but has a good memory for Latin tags and fairly useless dribbits of information.

I have never heard Jim produce a reasoned argument, or anything that is not really common knowledge on any subject.

Perhaps Jims big secret will explain his intellectual snobbery.

But we none of us actually KNOW how intellectual or otherwise people are. I like people who have real commonsense, flexibility and a grip on reality . Some of the most highly qualified types certainly don't have much or any of all thre

sorry I posted too soon ! 'all three personal qualities'.

I’m not keen (to put it mildly) on spiders. However, I have had a bird eating spider walk over my hand with no problems, it was so huge that it seemed more like a hamster with extra legs than a spider. Didn’t help with smaller spiders.

ppeatfruit
But we none of us actually KNOW how intellectual or otherwise people are. I like people who have real commonsense, flexibility and a grip on reality . Some of the most highly qualified types certainly don't have much or any of all three personal qualities.

I don't think any of those are particularly intellectual, though, are they? And some of the most intellectual people I know are not "highly qualified" in any particular field (thinking here of my mother, who was the Elephant's Child and searingly logical in her argument, and of a friend of mine who has never been to university at all but thinks the way a razor cuts: incisively).

I have always felt that the hallmark of the intellectual is an endless curiosity, a "what if?" and "but what about?" outlook, and a desire to discuss (endlessly!) anything which is open to debate. Common-sense doesn't necessarily enter into it think of Frank Kermode packing manuscripts into a black plastic sack when he was moving house and then leaving them outside the door where the dustmen found them and took them away! and nor does a grip on reality I've known people who would forget to eat or drink if they were pursuing an elusive idea or a particularly fiddly bit of programming, or debating a proposition or flexibility, except in the sense "preparedness to look at every possible side of anything rather than accepting as viable only the side which occurred to them first".

Jim is an academic, but I don't think that makes him an intellectual: I have known academics who were not intellectual at all, just highly qualified in a narrow field, and he reminds me of them far more than of the seriously intellectual academics I have also known.

Jim is hilarious - I love him for his pomposity, his desire to foist a love of Latin on everyone and the fact that he has no-one who really shares his interests in Ambridge. In the absence of a soulmate he has paired up with his polar opposite - Jazzer. I think we are going to find out why he has the relationship he does with Alistair when his secret is finally revealed. It will doubtless explain a lot about his character and he will be more - not exactly likeable, but more understandable, for it. Like Lynda, he is not an instantly warm and cuddly character, but all the more realistic for that. As my mum would say, wouldn't it be dull if everyone was the same.

Jim reminds me a lot of many older retired academics who are hugely knowledgeable about a range of things. It seems to relate to grammar school educated boys of the 50’s. They all speak several languages, including classical languages, know about classical music and literature and have traveled. They are all engineering academics, so no women of their era. Younger academics are far less widely read and much more likely to be narrow experts. We spent a long time with “This sentence could not be more prolix” written on the blackboard in our coffee room, which was there mostly to make the mechanical engineers feel ignorant.

Sorry - lurker, but just had to comment

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

fairly useless dribbits of information

My new favourite word

Alice and Pip are truly horrible.

"Worth every penny" hmm. Wonder if Tom has any idea how many pennies have been spent.

Tony was 100% in the right tonight about Peggy's stupid competition.

Lass They were pissed, there was nowhere to sit except the bedroom. I think their discoveries said everything we wanted to know about Gnasher. She spends money like water; Dermal Fillers don't come cheap. Pat is right to be worried.

She's all fake.

They were pissed, there was nowhere to sit except the bedroom. I think their discoveries said everything we wanted to know about Gnasher. She spends money like water; Dermal Fillers don't come cheap. Pat is right to be worried

We already knew most of that. Wanting some time out from the main room doesn't excuse them going through her drawers and wardrobe. They didn't sound that drunk.