Thread #106: Jim’s in a jam, Peggy’s made a pickle and Lexi is blooming - sounds like the entries are lining up for this year’s flower and produce show, but who will be on the organising committee?

[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 for the title of this thread.

Holding episode tonight, I thought - not much progress on any current storyline. I was a touch surprised Natasha wasn't offended by the postnup idea but I suspect she's biding her time.

Re Shula, there is also the little matter of proclaiming herself a committed Christian but deciding her marriage vows were expendable when she got bored. And all for nothing, given that she hasn't done anything remotely exciting since regaining single status.

And is Eddie now taking part in 2 bids (increasing his chances of getting some of the money) his own one, and Tom and Natasha's?

Have you learnt nothing about the way the SWs think? We will have a scenario where Eddie knows he needs to find a tactful way to tell Natasha that unfortunately he can no longer be part of her scheme, while simultaneously Tom and Natasha will agree that Tom should be the one to tell Eddie that his services are sadly no longer required.

Then, they'll meet, talk over each over, then one will come clean and the other will bemusedly have to pretend that it's a great disappointment, but they're sure they'll manage...

It will be hi-LAR-ious

Despite not liking the subject, I like the Alistair bits. I always like Shula (just don't mention Dr Locke, grrr) and Fiona is good too. The half a mil story is pants.talking of which who stole the underpants?

Of course DDD, that's definitely the way it will go. Gawd, they're so predictable.

I was saying to my husband today, that I don't know why Shula bothered divorcing Alistair, because they spend as much time together as they did when married. And she never did go off on that jaunt she really wanted to go on.

When Alistair said she was godsent, I knew that would mean she's going to go back to wanting ordination.

She so was eavesdropping when he was on the phone!

Shula gave him the number to ring! Presumably therefore the number of a historic-abuse-helpline. At which point he should have said, "hang on: why have you given me this number? Oh, did you think it was relevant? Oh dear."

He gave his word to Jim that he would tell nobody what Jim had "confessed" (like the victim of a crime confesses, grrr), and he is a complete unspeakable unprintable untrustworthy little shit for going back on that promise. Which he has done by allowing Shula to force him into letting her know that she has managed to force Jim's secret out of him.

I do think Shula gets an unfairly bad press. Lying about Rob and the sab is the only thing she’s ever done wrong. And she was a git to Usha. But apart from that she’s pretty sound.

There was the whole affair thing in the autumn of 1998, which wasn't as sound as all that.

(I can date it quite precisely, because my mother was sending updates by letter when I was in Borneo. Sometimes, I got updates about my own family as well as Ambridge...)

EBearhug My mother sometimes used to send me cassette tapes for when I couldn't listen to TA. Then my brother gave me a pink hula hoop contraption (aerial) so I could listen to R4 on my radio whilst living abroad. Then came the internet!
Re: Shula having put two and two together about Jim - can anyone tell me which episode that was in, please, as it passed me by completely and I was shocked to hear in last night's episode that she seemed to know what was going on with Jim?
For some reason, last night, in his first scene, Adam reminded me even more than usual of John Finnemore's "one of the men who always sound tired" and I completely cracked up when he said "Actually, I am a bit tired" in his last scene

It is annoying me that Eddie, Emma, Phoebe etc all seem to view the half a million as prize money for a good idea. Surely the point is that it would be used to set up and run the project. It would have to be carefully accounted for and none of it should end up in the personal pocket of the winner.

Or is it box set? I think I use both

It was "boxed" back in the day, when boxed sets first cam on the market, rather in the way that "packed lunch" became "pack lunch".

Box set and pack lunch make me grind my teeth.

“There was the whole affair thing in the autumn of 1998, which wasn't as sound as all that.“

I must have missed Shula’s affair- who with?

He gave his word to Jim that he would tell nobody what Jim had "confessed" ... and he is a complete unspeakable unprintable untrustworthy little shit for going back on that promise.
Jim can't act in a uncharacteristic way and not expect people to notice and, in some cases, worry. Jim was being so weird that Fiona hot-footed it back to Ambridge (for only the second time in a decade!) to find out what was going on.

It certainly looks as if the Jim plot line is showing how to help those who have been abused.

Alistair's a well-educated man, so how can he not know that talking about trauma is not the M1 to recovery, indeed it can impede it? It's been out there for years. I found the whole being coached to pick up the phone vomit-worthy.

This not researching basic stuff is an aspect of TA that gets on my threepennies big time: google it you moron, like RL types do.

Richard Locke? (Though he was the one having ‘an affair’ as he was attached. Wasn’t Shula single at the time? I can’t recall when Alistair came on the scene.

Oddly enough, while ‘box set’ seems harmless, I find ‘pack lunch’ an utter abomination and feel a quite irrational hatred towards anyone who writes it. (And that’s only here - have never heard anyone use the term in rl.)

Bert - didn't Shula have a fling with Doc Locke whilst she was engaged to be married to Alistair, and Doc Locke was living with Usha, at the time Daniel's juvenile arthritis flared up? I remember sitting outside Regent's Park Zoo in the car with toddler daughter raring to go, listening to the end of the omni in July (I think) 1998, when the whole thing came to a head and Shula dramatically decided to forsake Doc Locke - or he dumped her, I can't remember which. Usha bailed out, certainly.

Oh, better remembered MerdedeBrexit! I only recall Shula’s melodramatic rejection of Richard’s lovely plan for their future life together (was it Birmingham?) - and how furious I was with her for her part in the breaking up of his previously settled Ambridge life.

Such a shame the 97 editors brought him back and then completely forgot him ...

Sorry, QuaterMiss, my memory is not all that accurate - here's a link to what the Beeb says about Doc Locke and Shula, I can't remember well enough to know if it is revisionist or not!
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thearchers/entries/560b36d2-ff8b-4027-a3d7-e77cd4222dcc

It was in 1998 and Doc Locke had been treating Dan for juvenile arthritis when he and Shula became 'close'. She was already seeing Alistair at the time, and the Doc was (living?) with Usha. From the BBC website:

Shula went to see Alistair and told him it was over between them: there was someone else but she didn’t say who. She then went to Richard and told him it was over between her and Alistair.

August: Richard told Usha that the other woman was Shula. Stunned, Usha turned to Ruth for support.

David let the cat out of the bag and told Alistair that the other man was Richard. Alistair was shocked and angry. Then Shula told Jill that there were two men in her life - Richard and Alistair.

Doc Locke wanted them to move to Manchester but, as no Archer can ever leave Ambridge, St Shugs refused and the affair ended. Alistair forgave Shula and they eventually got married.

It must be the allure of her cream cardigans.

I've just x-posted what Merde has linked to, I suspect

But your own words are so much more amusing than mine, 5000Flapjacks

Where do I get a cream cardigan? Would M&S be OK or should I ask my mother to knit one?
Do I need not-going-out jeans - I can't remember the exact name of them?

So, Shula caused the breakup of Usha's relationship with Doc Locke, and now she's close to Usha's husband? Hmm, if I was Usha, I wouldn't be happy about that, especially after she divorced Alistair, because she was bored.

To be fair Richard caused the break-up of his relationship. It was his to maintain, not Shula’s.

But yes, having Shula around must be a constant cloud on the horizon for Usha. They always seem to want the same one, whether professionally, personally or spiritually!

Oddly enough, while ‘box set’ seems harmless, I find ‘pack lunch’ an utter abomination and feel a quite irrational hatred towards anyone who writes it. (And that’s only here - have never heard anyone use the term in rl.)

That’s because the two expressions are not quite the same. A “box set” is a set in a box, as well as a set that has been boxed. Similar to a “pub lunch” or a “car radio”. In other words, “box” becomes an adjective in that expression. So you’re not hearing/reading it as a mistake by someone who should have said “boxed”.

On the other hand, a pack lunch is not a lunch in a pack. It’s a lunch that has been packed. So it just reads as not having used the past tense properly.

(At school we used to call them “packies”. I suspect that phrase is avoided nowadays in case of unfortunate misunderstandings...)

Round here it's a 'pack up'.

Or 'snap' but that's probably dying out.