Discuss The Archers #107: Beware of the Dragon! Peggy's in her den awaiting bids - who gets the hoard and who gets flamed?

[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 @MrsGrindah for inspiration for the title of this thread. I was hoping to find a way to combine it with @C8H10N4O2's inspired suggestion of '"The Assumption of the Ambridge Angel' and @chemenger's comment 'I hope she gets kicked in the head by a horse and wakes up an atheist', but it all got a bit too lengthy.

Odds on Joe shuffling off this mortal coil before this thread ends? We've been marking/anticipating his passing for a while now.

I wish Shula would speak normally.

Couldn't agree more. I hate her tentative, uncertain delivery - it just does to ring true.

Almost as bad as the old Pip.

doesn't ring true.

I hate her tentative, uncertain delivery - it just doesn't to ring true.
To me, Shula just sounds like ... Shula.
But Adam sounds like an actor putting on his this-is-the-voice-I-use-for-TA voice. It always sounds strained and unnatural, especially when he is doing his angry-but-not-shouting thing.

It is his TA voice. I was astounded to learn that Andrew Wincott plays Clare's husband's friend in Clare in the Community. Sounds completely different. He developed the Adam delivery because way back when Adam returned from Africa listeners complained that he was indistinguishable from several of the other men. Plus ça change.

I expected a more professional approach from Lynda. Not her suggesting to Roy that Tracy's interview need only be cursory. Nor questioning her employer's decisions. I had thought that Tracy was destined for the Bull, but this is better! Let's hope it won't be treated as "comedy", with Tracy pissing guests off, and getting the push.

It is his TA voice.
I know, but it shouldn't sound like it. For example, when David Tennant played Dr Who he sounded like Dr Who. He didn't sound like DT putting on his English voice.

I could see Tracy doing really well at GG, eventually taking on Lynda's role, like her quip to Lynda about Oliver looking for fresh blood.

Nothing rings true about Shula I'm afraid, well not as a stable owner anyway. She's far too quavery, dithery and anxious to be around horses and as has been said before, running a stable is 24/7 - you don't get time off ever - certainly not enough time to wander about searching for one's life's purpose, giving advice to all and sundry, cleaning graves, organising sculpture competitions etc. You are constantly mucking out, feeding, watering, grooming, schooling, exercising, lunging, cleaning and mending tack, tidying and brushing the yard, washing blankets, leg and tail bandages and numnahs, scrubbing out feed buckets and drinking troughs , overseeing farrier/dentistry/veterinary checks (I concede there has been a bit of that!) mending fencing, organising feed and bedding deliveries (or cutting, drying, baling and storing your own hay as we do), as well as giving lessons and helping to prepare your "residents" for shows and competitions (more schooling, grooming, plaiting,loading on and off transport). Absolutely no talk of starting to get hunters fit for the season either! And as most stables are on the verge of bankruptcy nowadays owing to the price of hay shooting up (among many other things) it's not feasible to have a surfeit of staff to do everything for you! It's all hands on deck! Gah, it's absolutely ludicrous and it's obvious the sws have done zero research. Never mind an entire stable of hunters, you could barely manage a pair of your own (stabled) horses and do everything that Shula gets up to, in a beige cardigan fhs! Imagine how long you could wear that whilse looking after horses! I'd give it 10 seconds before it was stained with mud or saliva or worse ... .

And at the risk of droning on, it's the same with the cheese-making. The sws haven't grasped that your life revolves around "the set" which happens at different rates and times according to the weather! And your staff have to work around that not vice versa! But no mention of it during the heat wave! The sws would only have had to ask a Countryfile presenter never mind visit an actual farm to get a better handle on it all!

Incidentally, was there any mention of the heat wave at all and it's profound effects on livestock (spontaneous abortions) grazing, implications for fodder later in the year?. I live in a farming community and those things were discussed constantly when the heat was at its worst.

Boop Linseedlil!

Boop 2nd! Really interesting reading.

Linseed I did think that Shula had enough to do running the stables, let alone The Hunt ,without soul searching and mid life crises. She maybe has volunteers\paid help. Livery is expensive isn't it?

Lynda wasn't very well written in those scenes with Tracey.

I couldn't decide if she was being a snob (which, despite her supercilious facade, she is definitely not!) or whether she was just concerned about maintaining 'standards' at GG.

She came across as uncharacteristically unkind, and I am disappointed with the writer(s)

In other news...... I love Freddie

Was Freddie riding to his GG interview?

How cool.

But Lynda's feeling threatened, I liked Tracey's comment about wanting new blood. No doubt her interview outfit showed quite bit of her!

I thought the same about Shula having no spare time. I've always thought it would have been good to have some stories about running a stables. After all, Shula is an Archer, and we've heard a fair bit of Alistair's work.

I agree Thesilverypussycat! A few more equine tales/tails would be good!

I must say I love the portrayal of Freddie, even though I don't always love certain aspects of his character!

And gosh, I feel very honoured to receive Boops, thank you

Ppeat yes, liveries are expensive and that's after shelling out anything from about four to twenty thousand pounds for a good hunter. It depends on which part of the country you are in, but a full livery could be approx £150 a week and around £200-250 for a full hunting livery which includes all the prep, transport to and from the meet, second horses etc). You can also make money out of "hirelings" for people without horses who go out for a day's hunt now and then.

I don't think it is clear how many horses Shula has in her care is it? I think they keep it deliberately vague. But there are at least ten I would have thought if you count the mounts of the various characters plus a few more hunters. She couldn't survive on that income alone with so few though I would would have thought?

Most horses eat 2.5% of their bodyweight daily. If you consider a 16h hunter weighing 480 kgs or so will eat approx 10 kg of forage a day (22 lbs) plus scoops of hard feed (more in hunting season), plus chaff it all adds up!

Wages for grooms are low (in fact recruitment is so difficult atm that there has been an industry-wide drive to raise them across the board) and you will have arrangements where people earn rides by volunteering to help. But that is happening less often nowadays owing to insurance regulations and risk of injury etc.

Anyway, the cost of tack, feed, veterinary care, dentistry, farriers, transport, field maintenance (harrowing and re-seeding in some instances) and fencing are all high and most people do not make huge profits. Unless you are breeding very top end race horses, you don't do it for the money, particularly given the long hours involved in all weathers. It's more of a vocation I would say.

I need DadDadDad to construct a spreadsheet!

oops for a day's hunting that should have said

And I know Shula gives lessons ... a one-to-one if she is an advanced instructor, again depending on the area, might be around £40-70 perhaps?

Interesting reading, Linseed. We'll add Equine Matters to the very long list of things that the SW know nothing about. Not that that stops them writing about such things.

A few more equine tales/tails would be good

Most discussion on here that I have seen of vaguely equine matters suggest they get a lot of details wrong. I think you mean, "a few more well-researched equine tales..."

Fascinating reading LinseedLill , thank you. DS has recently got into riding and it’s a whole new world to me. A 1:1 (1/2 hour) costs £27 (Midlands). I gave to ask though, what is numnah?

Emma + Will ...

I don’t know why Shula gets so much air time as a character. ( Well I do actor scheduling etc) . Yet other juicy storylines and characters just get mysteriously dropped. Also I realise they can’t maintain tense storylines indefinitely, but I hate the way they jus quickly shoe horn in a random one ( Philips neck, Kate and Jakob, the bloody bunting)

They can't be pursuing a will/emmur story line surely?

I agree that Shula sounds way too nervous to around horses.

Shula gets airtime because she is an Archer. She doesn't seem to get meaty SLs though, just the odd out of character ones.

I know I shouldn’t admit this on this thread but I always forget who's an Archer and who isn’t!