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?

To add context DC1 was born summer 1996, DC2 Autumn of 1998.
If we count 9 months back from DC2's birth date, it looks like you might have been busy doing other things around the time of John's death and aftermath.

But I still can't work out why I didn't even realise he had died for years - by the time I listened again Tom seemed to have morphed into John.

Well, it was confusing: Tom and Hayley took over John's pig business, so not a lot had changed there. Both those young men, with similar names, treated sexual fidelity as something that applied only to other people, and each looked as if he had lost his One True Love as a result of it. It was all rather rinse-and-repeat, in fact: sexually predatory idiot in his twenties replaced by sexually predatory idiot still in his teens.

And Hellin was horrible to Hayley after John died, for which I will never ever ever forgive her. No matter how much the SWs try to airbrush her character.

Yes; first Helen went off after the funeral, first to college and then for a few weeks' holiday over the summer, and left her mother to cope as best she could until six months after his death. Then when she did deign to come back she bitterly resented the fact that Hayley had stayed around and been incredibly kind and helpful to Pat, and determined to rid the farm of the interloper as quickly as possible. That took her until the following year to achieve, in spite of her hints about not understanding how Hayley could bear to stay in the village where John had died.

Helen is a nasty woman still. She hasn't changed.

Glad to see I'm not the only one with a lasting grudge against Helen for her behaviour at that time

I cried when I listened to John's funeral on the omnibus. I had always thought that it was because I was pregnant and hormonal, but I found myself tearing up at Eddie finding Joe the other week, too

Hello, AskingQs and StationView - I'm another who was deeply scarred by Hellbent's behaviour towards Hayley after John died, and I still have a deep-seated resentment of Helen to this day. I didn't listen whilst the Rob coercive control storyline was going on because I didn't care at all that it was happening to that character. I wasn't too enamoured with Pat's acceptance of the exclusion of Hayley at the time, either, but I grudgingly suppose Pat can be forgiven more than her daughter, given she had lost a child.

It's funny what you do and don't remember. I remember Tony finding the tractor but I don't remember the subsequent Helen/Hayley stuff. Therefore I don't hold that grudge against Helen but I can't think when she has ever been a character for whom I hold any sympathy, her narcissism is abhorrent (to be fair to her, narcissism is endemic at Bridge Farm. I don't know if it's nurture or nature).
Tony soliloquy on finding John was very moving. I'm afraid the Eddie and Joe one didn't match up.

Yes. Tony saying "You're so cold. I'll just put my jacket over you" to his dead son makes me well up as I type it!

Back on 11th October I wrote:
I am trying to find any mention by Phoebe of Oriel during the time she was applying and before she went there; I did not hear one at the time, in spite of listening quite carefully because of various discussions about where she might end up, and so far there has been none in the recordings I have listened to. (She wasn't in all that many episodes in which it might have been discussed between 6th October 2015 when Jennifer said she was applying for Oxford, and her setting out there the following year...)
because MUM had said "Phoebe mentioned it at the time."

There were 16 episodes in which Phoebe spoke between 8th September, 2015, and 2nd October, 2016, and I have now listened to them all. She did not say the word "Oriel" in any of them. She spoke of "Oxford" every time she mentioned going there. To Alex, to Jennifer, to Roy, to Elizabeth, to David, to Brian, to Josh...

(She apparently had not chosen a college on Tuesday 8th December, 2015, when she said, "It would be great whichever college accepted me." That was after she had had an interview, which I would have thought would have been at the place she chose...)

There are a couple of episodes in which her having got a place at Oxford is discussed by other people, and I could have a listen to them just in case they say the college name, but between applying and leaving for the college Phoebe herself seems not to have named it.

(Yes, I know, OCD and ridiculous, but I have a cold and I was feeling I had gone mad, so...)

Yes, I know, OCD and ridiculous
Ah, but it saves the rest of us having to do the OCD and ridiculous research..
Much appreciated and understood.

I must have misheard. How strange. Sorry to put you to all that trouble Asking.

The horrible thing is that I almost enjoyed it, MUM. Back then, Phoebe sounded like a real person, and it was quite pleasant to hear her being real.

Interesting episode tonight. Why write new storylines if you can simply reminisce about old ones?

At another time I might have enjoyed it as a depiction of what people actually do after a death, but at the moment TA is showing its cogwheels and inner workings too clearly. We're no longer overhearing people going about their business, we're hearing SWs push pieces around the board.

Not exactly relevant but am I the only one who feels really sorry for Joy?

Don't get me wrong I've cut out dear friends because I can't handle people who outstay their welcome - think days not hours. I just can't help feel that she's new to the area, she's doing all the right things to get involved, representing the houses to the council, setting up a stitch and bitch, looking after an elderly neighbour so her carer can go out
I know she's awful but I can't really bear it.

she's doing all the right things to get involved
But if you want acceptance isn't there a little give and take? Joy can, and does, talk the hind leg off a donkey. She never comes up for air. She never gives any thought to the poor person on the receiving end of her onslaught.
Lynda can be forceful but she does it by pressing the right buttons. She knows her victims - because she listens - and knows how to talk them into doing things.

Joy has the self awareness of a brick and the conversation skills of a television stuck eternally on the One Show.

The impression we're given is that it's not really a conversation with Joy, but a monologue about Rochelle and Shieldfield. I'm sure she'll get her comeuppance at some point and she will then either leave Ambridge forever, or she will mellow into a more tolerable character, once they've decided whether to keep her around or not.

I find it weird that they brought back Carol Tregorran and now we don’t hear from her. They introduced us to her daughter - nothing. Nothing about Mike, Vicki & Bethany - how excited would Mike have been about Phoebe graduating from university? Richard Locke - brought back & disappeared. Jacob new man in the village & has gone away. Now Joy has appeared, why? How long will she be around for.

Where are Tom, Natasha, Ben, Josh, Alice, Chris etc? I saw Debbie in Official Secrets the other week so I know she’s ok, just a bit busy.

Richard Locke was the weirdest of that lot. Lots of info about his family and situation and then ...gone.

It has been extremely unsatisfactory, LizziesTwin. I imagine (since I don’t see much TV) it is a combination of actors being just a bit busy and the BBC imposing 37 different editors, with 37 different sets of plans, on the show over the space of about five years.

The thought of Hayley and Mike in relation to Phoebe’s graduation makes me want to cry. It should have been the most beautiful thing. All the years of love they poured into her - and we were denied even a single word to communicate how they felt about it all. (Brenda might have felt a touch of regretful envy, given her own academic history, but I’m sure she’d have been full of pride and congratulations for her (apparently) clever niece.)

Is Doc Locke still living in Ambridge, with his difficult daughter occasionally showing up? Maybe he moved out during one of the two or three episodes I may have missed ...

Yes, all that lack of continuity makes me cross too. Having said that, I did enjoy last night's episode. The reminiscing about Joe from different points of view rang true.

Re Phoebe not knowing which college might make her an offer, if any - that's realistic. My son applied to Oxford. You can make an open application, not naming any college, but he decided to apply to one in particular. That college invited him for interview. He stayed in Oxford for two or three days (normal practice) at that college. During his time there they arranged for him to have an interview at another college (also normal practice). It was the other college which made him an offer and where he spent three extremely happy years. I can't remember now if he might have ended up with an offer from a college that had never even seen him. I believe that could happen at Cambridge with their pooling system.

Odd about Oriel. It rings a very distant bell with me too, but I can't for the life of me think why.

Never mind Tom, Natasha and co, where's the New Intern?

I remember now that I fell asleep thinking it will be quite fun if Alf is used all week as a device to prompt reminiscences of Joe from all and sundry. (Particularly since we got dull Brookfield out of the way first.)