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.

@PrincessFiorimonde Sammy Whipple is a new one one on me too!

Will hasn't been talking to MG since the gun business. Eddie has most definitely been filtering his communications back to Will, given his faltering delivery of them.

The appearance of Brian always improves an episode for me and I love a Brian-Jennifer-Kate scene. I thought their interchanges were great, showing the change when they had a kitchen big enough to host the hunt ball to one where only two people can get in at a time.

I have missed bits of some episodes here and there due to interruptions from family who Should Know Better... have we heard Adam or Ian or Lexi say at any point that the men will be in the room for the birth? I am just curious as to whether this would be expected.

I've been in hospital and caught up on almost a full 7 days on iplayer last night. I am not convinced I was awake for all of it but I could have shouted at the last bit; surely to God the is NO WAY Emmur, Ed or Wills dad can even entertain him going back to work with a gun?? It only takes one of them to dob him in and my money would be on Emmur especially the mood she is in. I know it's a tied cottage, I know losing his job and house etc etc is all awful for his recovery, but keeping a GUN isn't going to be too good for his recovery or those around him either.

It's an utterly utterly unbelievable plot line if Emmur keeps schtum.

Though from Sarf London originally

Ooh, me too! I grew up in Earlsfield, but the last few years before I left London, I lived in S. Norwood.

Well Coffee, Neil did say he wasn't going to let Will continue having a gun, but so far he's only been trying to get Will to give it up voluntarily. Not sure if he'd be willing to dob him in, if he won't.

Hope you're feeling better soon.

ArgumentativeAardvaark, what I find extraordinary is that Brian seems to be supposed to have given the Home Farm shoot, complete with its gamekeeper, to Borchester Land and received no payment for it, and also to have given a Home Farm cottage to Borchester Land without receiving any payment for that either.

It has always worried me, ever since Matt suddenly seemed to be William's boss back in about 2005. Matt had never been William's boss -- but there he was behaving as if it were up to him to fire William if he felt like it. Very strange.

Sammy Whipple was a bit of a non-character mostly, and as easy to miss as Jeff as a Home Farm worker. He was the Home Farm shepherd, quietly in the background getting on with his job apart from never being prepared to take an order from Debbie, and was eventually (after an awful lot of time off to be different sorts of "ill" about which Brian was very doubtful) made redundant in 1998. He was living in the Home Farm tied cottage now called Greenwood Cottage, and Brian wanted him out of it so it could be given to Brian's new gamekeeper, Greg Turner. Sammy reckoned it was unfair dismissal and didn't want to move house, and Usha took up his case and they went to an industrial tribunal over it. She won, so Brian then bribed Sammy to leave; Sammy accepted the money, and Usha was absolutely furious about it.

This last bit was happening at the same time as Kate was having her baby, and got slightly lost in the excitement over that.

Good background Asking! Sounds like the Sammy story was more about Usha really then. I bet there isn’t a single person on the SW team who could explain what happened with the shoot and Will’s job, and whether it was ever properly thought through. I wonder if the Brian and Will actors have ever questioned it?

I remember Sammy Whipple.

Keri Davies ALMOST explains it here:
www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thearchers/entries/c86114a3-244e-3497-8c70-d310dabfc7f0

His scripts are back on this week, aren't they?

Warning - the above article contains photos !!

And why is the first photo of Brian Aldridge with Charles Collingwood in brackets but the one of Matt gives the actor’s name first with his real name Matt Crawford in brackets ? Almost as if one is only acting and the other a real person?

I think the joke about scrap cake will be the xxx ingredient. I have found a recipe from Mrs Beeton here if anyone is interested and can’t say it sounds like it would be especially delicious. Allspice is the only ingredient that xxx could be here, but I’m sure Jill / Doris knows better than Mrs Beeton

It sounds a bit like lardy cake. A speciality round here.

It sounds disgusting although I have had pies in France, a bit like mince pies but with actual meat in them.

Madcats, that's a very interesting potted history.

"The Home Farm and Estate shoots were run in conjunction with the shooting in Grey Gables Country Park. When fading Jack Woolley sold the hotel in 2006, Borchester Land bought the park to consolidate the shoot. It also bought the adjoining land land used by Ambridge Golf Club."

really doesn't explain why the Home Farm shoot, which was being run in conjunction with the Estate and Grey Gables shoots, seems to have been completely subsumed instead of remaining a junior but separate enterprise which happened to employ and house the only gamekeeper all three seem to have. I remember that Greg Turner and Brian managed to con Jack Woolley into letting Greg run the Grey Gables shoot as well as the Home Farm one after George Barford finally retired and Jack found it impossible to replace him, when Brian wanted to take over the GG shoot and run it with his own, and I remember the GG shoot being bought by Borchester Land, but why Brian apparently at some point gave his shoot, his gamekeeper and his cottage to BL/Damara Capital free and for no payment to him is definitely not explained, is it. I assume he still owns the land they shoot over at Lyttelton Covert and Leader's Wood, which were Home Farm land in 1976 when he bought the place.

I just go on thinking it strange...

It sounds a bit like lardy cake. A speciality round here.

It was a big shock to me to discover lardy cake is regional, and colleague had never heard of it. I have found one bakery round here that does it, so have now educated colleague. We seem to be at the edge of its range, though.

But yes, crap cake does sound like lardy cake.

Er, scrap cake. Obviously a Freudian slip there...

I'll eat almost anything so I'd give scrap cakes a go. I've had lardy cake, I think, but it's not often available in London.

I do hope they don't end up in the vegan category, though. I don't find humour in vegans and vegetarians inadvertently eating things they have made an ethical or medical choice to avoid, especially if somebody else has deliberately made it happen. Also, as several tragic recent news stories have made clear, allergies need to be taken very seriously so if somebody says 'I don't eat X', rather than assume they are being a precious snowflake, why not just make sure they're not given it?

Lardy cake is very delicious. But extremely decadent.

I remember having to make Lardy cakes at school (respite from the various pastry). It was a bit of a faff. That was In Sussex.

I'm tempted to buy the Ambridge cookbook due out shortly - I hope it has none of Ruth's recipes.

MysticBore™️ and her 🔮 wish to remind you all of their prediction re Tracey and Ollie getting it together.

It's all falling into place...

How old is Tracy meant to be? Mid/late 30s?

Tracey is in her 40s