The Archers #109: Pulp Fiction! Hammer Horror (Tracy), Carry On (Brian & Neil), Call the Midwife (Adam, Ian, Lexi) - but no political thrillers, Ambridge remains Brexit-free. Nitpick here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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. grin

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 Bucking Frolics and LillianGish for the title ideas, which I had to edit down a bit to get under the character limit.

I wonder if Lily will have gone back to Manchester by the time we've filled this thread.

So why would Joy choose to "up sticks" and move to the other side of the country from her darling daughter and grandchildren from a fairly cheap ordinary house to an executive home in Ambridge? This has been my chief objection to Joy all along - what is her motivation? This isn’t a downsize from an empty-nest to free up some capital, it’s an up-size and her paragon of a daughter lives in Leeds as she keeps reminding us so it’s not to be nearer to her. And even if she turns out to be a lottery winner, why move to Ambridge?

I am one myself birds (white rose variety).

No wonder we both like a bit of a barney then!
I wouldn't need much motivation to move from Shieldfield to Ambridge to be fair.

I was thinking exactly the same thing when I saw that pic 😂

She's moved to Ambridge because it is the ideal place to retire. A long healthy retirement is almost guaranteed, as long as you remain active.

I'm from The Toon myself. On introducing that fact I would always say "Newcastle" then and only then, if the person says "oh yes, whereabouts" would I say (poshley) "Gosforth". Then they might say "oh I'm from Blythe myself" or whatever.

Joy may as well have said she was from 101 Byker Ave.

Just to add, I haven't actually lived there for almost 40 years as I cannot stand the cold.

Though from Sarf London originally l have lived in Co Durham for over 40 years. I had never heard of Shieldfield, though I've been to Jesmond, Westerhope etc.

The amount of northerners on this thread is becoming quite scary.
Yes silvery, there are so many more well known areas of Newcastle, it's weird.
It would be useful if there was a poster on here who had an insight into the scriptwriters minds ...

I have been hunting through Lowfield to find out about the haha, and it looks as if there had been one there in the past but it had fallen in and been replaced with a fence; so we were all right about it!

22nd February, 2007:
Nigel's idea is that the fence they see from the house spoils the view and his answer is to restore the ha-ha. Titcombe can do it with a bit of help from a local contractor to dig out the ditch - Eddie perhaps. Lizzie agrees if the cost can be kept down.

1st March 2007:
Eddie is desperate for a drink but Nigel is more interested in playing with the digger Eddie has brought round to dig out the haha.

Then he parked it up, and Elizabeth had a tantrum because it was in her car-park when she was expecting conference delegates, so

6th March, 2007:
To calm Elizabeth down, Nigel decides to move the digger himself. Watched by the excited twins he sets off - and demolishes the shop in the process.

The following year he talked someone who taught dry-stone-walling into using the Lower Loxley Hall haha as a practising place, and got the work done free.

Wasn’t it the arras CMR (or possibly somebody else) was hiding behind? Like another poster I can hear Elizabeth saying both words, obviously on different and unrelated occasions. I also remember at least part of the scenes AskingQ has described in the post just above.

I had never heard of Shieldfield and has sort of heard Sheffield while thinking the accent sounded wrong. I have a colleague from Sheffield and thought she was from Liverpool/ Manchester until corrected by other colleagues, so accents aren’t really my strength!

I didn't realise my GP offered a service where I say "I need two weeks off, I think I'll feel ready to go back after that", they write me a sick note and that's it. Don't GPs have to write the reason why the patient is unable to work: "doesn't feel up to it" is not my idea of a medical condition!

I'm not even sure if he did go to the doctor's, because I couldn't think of anything he could have pretended to have, to get 2 weeks off work.

Why didn't Peggy give some of her money to save the small abattoir?

I thought Joy had said Sheffield too and wondered why she would have a Geordie accent, but she's so annoying I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention.

I imagine the GP would have put "stress" as Will's reason for the sicknote. (If he actually went.) He's been off for quite a while, hasn't he? Surely he would have had to submit sicknotes after the first 5 days of self-certication?

I'm finding the lack of pressure from Will's employer, Martin Gibson, entirely out of character. He's always been spoken of as hard-driving yet nothing until today's phone call. All of this when Will lives in a tied cottage.

Kate as unpleasant, wheedling and conniving as ever.

The scrap cake is definitely going to end up in the vegan category, I agree with the PP who suggested that. Groan.

echt - I think you're right - Martyn Gibson's style would be saying "there's nothing wrong with you, get back to work - unless you've got a sick note, you're fired!"

Anyway, at least they made realistic by having Will saunter up to his surgery and get seen by a GP on the spot.

echt
Will lives in a tied cottage.

Greenwood Cottage, previously Casa Nueva and before that lived in by Greg Turner, was Sammy Whipple's cottage when Sammy was the Home Farm shepherd, and we know from the tribunal when Brian wanted to get him out of it and move Greg in that it belonged to Brian, and was part of Home Farm.

We have never heard that it had been sold to Borchester Land/Demara, and that means it is not Martyn Gibson's to take away or let Will continue to live in. He was always employed by Brian, from the first day he started work there, too. Did Brian give the Home Farm shoot to Borchester Land? He didn't sell it to them; he would have mentioned such a large transaction, surely to God! And if it didn't belong to them, why did Jennifer always provide the shoot lunches and hospitality?

"belong to Home Farm", I meant in that last sentence.

I meant to creep quietly on to this thread, nod in appreciation to Gasp0de and those who thoughtfully supplied the thread title, and then quietly back out again.

However, I've just seen Asking's ruminations on Sammy Whipple, the Home Farm shepherd.

I've been listening to the Archers on and off for about 30 years. Yet I can't remember ever hearing of this Whipple till now!

I cannot enough.

Clearly, I must listen harder...

The cottage is tied to Will's job. He said it today, that if he leaves his gamekeeping job, he'll lose the house. I also seem to remember a time (after Nic died?) when he was worried about Martin Gibson kicking him out.

And I agree that Martin Gibson's had a personality transplant. He's always been portrayed as being hard headed, like when he was trying to oust Brian from being the chairman of the board.

I don’t think Asking was doubting the plot point that Greenwood is tied to Will’s job, just pointing out that the SW had never explained how that was actually possible or how the gamekeeper job moved from Brian/HF to BL.