The Archers #110: Game(keeping)'s up for Will. Game on for Lillian & Vince, Tracy & Oliver? Game over for Joe? Stay ahead of the game with all things Archers 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.

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 idea. Very tempted to go with MrsGrindah's suggestion of It’s all a bit crap and boring at the moment but let's be positive, maybe things will look up in the coming days ... Also very taken with Lexi's Midnight Runners - Burpers, maybe? - from Madcats.

Not at all happy about Lily not going to university. Yet another bright Ambridge woman not fulfilling her potential. Why do they do this?

If she's her mother's daughter she will be reliant financially on her family for the rest of her life.

Yes theoliphant Just because Feebs went to Oxford doesn't mean she'll be a lover of stress filled city jobs. Maybe she prefers the countryside. Though I'm not sure how much financial support she'll get from Kate and Roy .

she is using the skills she acquired there
Really? I was never convinced that Phoebe was Oxbridge material in the first place and I'm not convinced that she has improved much during her three years there. No proper sourcing and referencing of data, no presentation skills, no ability to think on her feet, no idea how to run a group project, ...

Or would we prefer her to do a law conversion course?

I would have preferred the writers to:
a) Celebrate her graduation properly
b) Send her somewhere outside Ambridge for two or three years at least to gain the sort of work experience they failed to give her during her degree. And then to have her return to Ambridge with some actual qualifications and knowledge!

Lily did explain why she didn't want to go back to Manchester. She didn't like it, and she was really happy in her job.

Lily did explain why she didn't want to go back to Manchester

Yes I heard that too Motoko.

When Lily told Elizabeth about not going back, she sounded like she had thought it over properly. Although she did present it as a fait accompli, so if Elizabeth had come up with some compelling reason for her to go back (admittedly unlikely), it was too late anyway.

And then to have her return to Ambridge with some actual qualifications and knowledge!

Can't she learn on the job?

I envy her her close extended family and being able to create a role for herself in her community. I moved away at 18 and never really went back. So often we read on MN about mothers of young children feeling isolated with no family support near by. Or women struggling to support their elderly parents 200 miles away.

“Can’t she learn in the job?”

Who from, Pip?

Yes Oliphant it's interesting how academic qualifications seem to be valued now more much more than actual experience. DM had a couple of plumbers servicing the boiler and the younger was talking about all the exams he has to take, surely doing the job itself is just as valuable as book learning (if not more so in some cases),

“surely doing the job itself is just as valuable as book learning”

Of course- if you’ve got someone to learn from. Who is Phoebe going to learn from?

Visiting actual schemes, (talking to their instigators) on line computers, as well as up to date books of course. I didn't say 'instead of books'.

Maybe she prefers the countryside - yes of course that is perfectly possible, but then why study PPE? I just don't find it very believable - neither the the fact that she got into Oxford in the first place (that felt like rather a SW leap), nor (having come to terms with the fact that was obviously Oxbridge material all along) that the whole episode has now been dismissed with a throwaway mention of Roy attending her degree ceremony. I agree that not everyone who goes to Oxford goes on to have a stellar career, but I just think there would be a bit more discussion about it. I must have blinked (or whatever the aural equivalent of blinking is) when Lily was talking about not going to Manchester. That's another major storyline abandoned halfway through and then returned to months later to be dismissed in a couple of sentences.

How many students know exactly what they want to do or study at age 18? Many continue, after uni (or drop out) to try new subjects, careers etc. That's normal ain't it? Life is not a carefully followed one way journey , not in my experience anyway.

Is phoebe receiving a salary from Peggys fund. If not then the decision to not do anything with her degree is problamatic.

If Phoebe has been unemployed ever since she took her degree in June, she must be getting a little short of money by now unless she is scrounging from her father and mother.

How is she planning to feed and clothe herself in future?

She could go into teaching. That's a graduate profession which she could plausibly train for and work in locally. Long time since we last had a teacher in Ambridge - Kathy?

She could sign on. But then she woukd have to look for a job.

If Phoebe graduated last weekend she could have gone to my old college. I saw some nice graduation photos recently.

As a female studying PPE she probably got a 2i, as PPE is one of those subjects where females underperform compared to their entry grades (despite lots of efforts to change things).
Of people I knew doing PPE now or recently, one did accountancy training, then became a trainer and now runs their own business and is in politics. Another became a teacher. Another did an internship with a top consultancy and has a job offer already for next year.
I think with Phoebe they are keeping her hanging around until the conclusion of the Russ and Lily story arc. Then maybe they will let her and Lily go off and do something.
We need more Tracey at Lower Loxley to declare the Emperor (Russ) has no clothes.

Wait a few years, Molly. I knew quite a few PPE-ists (because I was involved in union & OUSU, which attracts them) from the early 2000s. Nowadays I turn on the Today programme and at least once a week there's someone of my vintage who's an MP or spokesperson for a think tank or NGO. Phoebe has a dark future ahead of her.

Poor Kirsty. I don't know why people buy a home together without having the baby conversation.

I realised that I very much disliked Philip for the way he behaved this episode.

Poor Kirsty, she’s too young to be stuck in a ‘safe’ place.

It felt like Kirsty was being punished this episode. Not sure what for, though.

The only time I ever want to hear Joy again is if she's having a willy-measuring contest with Susan.

Every time Joy appears I am reminded of a WW2 programme we were shown in GCSE History, back in the 90s. It consisted of voiceovers on genuine footage intercut with dramatised vignettes. The only pro-Nazi characters who appeared throughout the vignettes were a pair of thick German squaddies, who, for whatever reason, spoke with broad Geordie accents.

Just to clarify, I am from Newcastle and experience Joy's characterisation as a personal attack.