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?

Oh, but who would, chemenger? Not Brian or Jenny, and Elizabeth probably wouldn’t have initiated the conversation with Ruairi. It was all so awkward!

Further to your recollections @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I seem to remember Debbie also seeing a photo of Alice at around the same age as baby Ruairi, and that confirmed it. Then a fairly lengthy rift with Brian.

It was 17 years ago so some details may be now vague. I do clearly remember sitting in my car outside a launderette, gripped,listening to Ruairi's birth on a rainy November night!

Yes chemenger Joe was a rounded character, of course he had his faults, he was probably bought up in a poor family that ducked and dived out of necessity; having to keep food on the table, hence the poaching, meanness etc.

It also makes TA basically a more believable picture of a village with a social mix of people.

Not to mention the 2nd WW and rationing, though of course the rural population would have been luckier than the urban When it came to food supplies.

Yes, I had an uncle who lived rurally, and he would shoot rabbits for the pot. I also learnt about "scrumping" from him. I remember we were driving along a country lane, and he pulled the car over, said he'd be back in a minute, and returned with a carrier bag full of ears of corn! We were parked next to a field of corn, and he'd helped himself.

There was also legitimate foraging, of blackberries and crab apples.

There's quite a bit of food in the countryside, if you know where to look.

I found myself stress-eating cocoa-nibs at that little exchange between Brian and Elizabeth.

Jennifer isn't going to like this.

Just as an aside, has anybody ever agreed to take in their husband's lovechild as a favour to his dying ex-mistress, who had chosen her erstwhile rival, who'd never even met the child, to bring him up, over her own blood family, who did know him?

It happens. A famous popstar from the 1980s took on his wife's child after she left him then went back to him.

I hope after her recent baby hysterics Jennifer shows her other side. It may be uncomfortable for her but it is not Ruari's fault and it's not healthy for him to feel unable to broach the topic. I can't see her not doing the right thing.

mikeuniformmike which pop star was that? Thought for a minute you meant Bob Geldof taking in Paula Yates' daughter with Michael Hutchence but they were v different circumstances.

Over the years it's become clear that Jennifer cares about Ruairi but I don't know if we've ever had any hints either way for whether Jennifer managed love.

I've always felt it was pretty clear that she does love him.

Have they really had Ruari since he was, what, four (ish) and given no thought to the idea that he might miss his mother? Ambridge is another bloody world.

How long are we giving Ed n Emma until they're Meaned again? I vote for 5 minutes after everyone has left Joe's wake.

chemenger, thank-you for the kind but totally unwanted advice not to listen. Have you heard about the bench dedicated to Somebody Or Other "who hated this park and everyone in it"? Th at is the spirit in which I listen to The Archers.
Loyalty to a nest of rlated scumbags, and extreme dedication to scrounging through emotional blackmail may be virtues in your eyes. Each to their own. I, for instance, happily speak ill of the dead. And the living. And the constructs who infest Ambridge.

MereDintofPandiculation
"I never felt the least need for soliloquy over the body of either of my parents."
Did you not, at the very least, ponder at the exact nature and timing of their going?

No, because I knew exactly how and why each had died -- I was there. Why would I need to ponder about the fact that they were dead? And what possible point would there have been in pondering over the timing of it?

How long are we giving Ed n Emma until they're Meaned again? I vote for 5 minutes after everyone has left Joe's wake.

Oh, thank you. Rubbish day; that thought is the cheeriest thing! How I wish it could come true.

(Please let the fortune Joe squirrelled away and forgot he had be enough for the Grundys to buy Grange Farm. Emma would forgive Ed if they owned it. And he would feel adequate to her ambition.)

I would LOVE the SWs to plant a fortune under Joe's mattress. The trouble is it would be in obsolete coins...

crispylava, www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/665608/Paul-Young-wife-Stacey-love-child-Jude-affair-age

I do clearly remember sitting in my car outside a launderette, gripped,listening to Ruairi's birth on a rainy November night!

I also sat in the car, ducking out from socialising with the in laws at Christmas that year to hear the crucial events. Didn't Jenny throw a party and wear an expensive red dress to tell the world all was well with her marriage?

How we take iPlayer for granted. If you weren't there at 7pm you missed it!

Was the dress red? I seem to remember Brian all stirred up with awe, telling her she looked/was magnificent.

That Christmas was one of the greatest things TA has done. The Aldridges all torn apart, Jenny and Debbie confronting broken marriages and then, on the other hand the Tuckers all coming together in sweet solidarity for their first Christmas without Betty.

(Go on, tell me I’ve mixed everything up. I can take it ...)

Yes it was red. Jenny held her head up high.
Imagine having to deal with that IRL.
I do know of couples who have stayed together despite him having another family, but not of someone bringing up the affair lovechild as their own.

I think you're right that it was red. I do remember Jennifer deciding to face the whole thing out and force Brian to make a decision between her and Siobhan, which I suppose was understandable, given that she knew he was a philanderer and had stayed with him for the money the sake of the family.

I felt the SWs had missed a big opportunity, though, to feature a messy divorce. IANAL but AFAIK Jennifer would have been entitled to a big settlement on the grounds that she had contributed to the farm business and by running the entire household and family life made it possible for Brian to focus on running the business. It would have been a great story. He and Siobhan could have settled in some much smaller house nearby with Ruairi so he could continue to run the farm, and there would have been animosity between all concerned for decades.

I felt they chickened out by making Brian decide to stay with Jennifer and Siobhan decide to leave.

To be fair to Brian, Siobhan went all out to get him. Not that that's an excuse.
I like Ruairi, he's the most well-balanced of the 5. I liked Debbie enormously but she's not much of a character now.

Have you heard about the bench dedicated to Somebody Or Other "who hated this park and everyone in it"?
www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/the-roger-bucklesby-bench-plaque-is-real-sort-of

No, because I knew exactly how and why each had died -- I was there. Why would I need to ponder about the fact that they were dead? And what possible point would there have been in pondering over the timing of it? Ah, different experiences and different reactions, then.

I feel it was wrong of Elizabeth to go running to Brian and snitching like that.

Ruairi is gently trying to piece things together for his own personal and private peace of mind. It's no-one else's business but his at this stage.

I choked up at the reconciliation of Clarrie and Susan, yesterday afternoon. T'was lovely.

There are a lot of families who 'don't refer to momentous pasts" they seem to think that that means either it didn't happen, or that the protagonists will have forgotten about it. Brian's reaction to Lizzie suggesting he actually SPEAKS to poor Ruarhi about his biological mother was typical and a BOOP (for a change) to the S.W.