Call #111 for Archers advice: Is Hilda breathing? Should Joy be breathing? Could Nelson Gabriel be in cryogenic suspension? Discuss The 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 Joy'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 for all the input on title suggestions. I'd missed the significance of 111, but @R4 and DDD, our resident numerologist, were right on to it. Strongly tempted by Bore's suggestion but couldn't resist the chance to mention my favourite ever Archers character, Nelson Gabriel. Have not managed to incorporate a cricket reference, so you'll have to read up on that for yourselves. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_(cricket)

I wonder if this thread will last till Joe's funeral.

"Helen is a bit singular in her doings."

campion, that is a cracking good line!!

You've made me smile for the first time today - thanks so much 😊

I loved Jim and Robert in this episode.

I enjoyed them in that they work well together, but it didn't ring true that Robert would be getting scared and believe the story being told. I'd like more Robert and Jim with less feuding over silly things and more credible discussions. Well, I suppose telling ghostly tales at Halloween is credible, but Robert believing it all less so.

I'm in the North East and I think it's unlikely that Joy and Heatherpet would have crossed paths. Heatherpet would most likely have gone to Hexham shopping rather than Newcastle.

I also don't understand why they've plumped for Shieldfield (well I do, they've never been to Newcastle and just stuck a pin in a map they Googled). It's just so specific and there's nothing there except a few houses, some industrial units and a big supermarket/retail park, it's not even moderately famous for anything like maybe Byker or Kingston Park.

With regard to people not travelling, that is dying out a bit but in some areas people are aghast to have to get 2 buses somewhere. Previous posters are right in that new builds in the pit villages are changing communities but family ties in those areas are very very strong. I also think changing the school leaving age has helped as most of the younger people go to FE colleges now, usually on buses provided by the Colleges (where previously there was no transport) so they are getting out further into the world. I know someone who works with people in East Cleveland (Loftus, Skinningrove) and he says they are very insular and a bit odd.

It us sad to see though so many villages and small towns in the middle of nowhere which no longer have their economic purpose. Forces them to be either dormitories or people are stuck there.

Ghost stories don’t have to be believed to be scary. Read the Woman in Black by yourself in an empty house at night with only a reading light on and tell me that you don’t feel just a little uneasy.

Bucking Frolics

I haven't listened for a week now; just keeping up to date on storylines via this thread. It doesn't seem that I'm missing anything, but I'm sad that almost forty years of listening may be coming to a close.

I can do this. I really can. Just got to have a distraction at 7.02.

Pleased to be of help WheresThatCatGoneNow
Hope your day's going OK now. No one would rely on Helen to cheer them up, that's for sure. Poor Lee is doubtless still wondering what he did wrong.

Poor Lee is doubtlessstillwondering what he did wrong.

Whereas Jakob will never need to wait too long for all his failings to be revealed to him...

EBearhug.

in some areas people are aghast to have to get 2 buses somewhere. Well, no wonder! Getting two buses inserts a half hour or longer wait at a draughty bus stop into your journey, and takes it toward the 3 hour mark.

Which retail park is it painting? I can't picture one in shieldfield. I can only picture the little Sainsbury.
I appreciate this may be of limited interest to anyone else

I think it is interesting. They could have made up an area in N-u-T.
I wonder what is the point of Joy?

Kirsty is from Wirral. I don't think they specified where.

I enjoyed the ghost story and Jim being sniffy about Robert’s camera and phone.
Is it just me, or is there a lot of recapping at the moment? E.g. Jim or Robert asking the other if they’d heard if ‘Carmen’ had been found.

There is a feeling or marking time and filling in, maybe they were leaving room for brexit stuff as a PP suggested.

I’m convinced they are aiming to be decomissioned.

Or even decommissioned.

Oh, bollocks, I give up.

Betrand - your second attempt at decommissioned is correct, isn't it? Don't give up!

Ah I enjoyed Helen’s joyless angsting over Trick or treating and could well imagine bratty bored Henry kicking off about the babyish party whilst knowing his friends were out getting sweets. He is destined to disappoint his mother. But I had sympathy for her view about the plastic tat explosion (sniff, Beechwood chavs of course, all true Ambridgeites will be carving a simple mangelworzel and water boarding their kids in the name of apple bobbing).

I also suspect that the Archers is winding down towards its unnatural end.

MereDintofPandiculation
Getting two buses inserts a half hour or longer wait at a draughty bus stop into your journey, and takes it toward the 3 hour mark.

in Ambridge they have Schrödinger's buses, which may or may not exist. They seem mostly to have been there before someone just missed them (Annette, Pip) so she could talk about something in a car when offered a lift.

Finally! An episode I enjoyed rather than tolerated.
All is well in the world 😄

I’m convinced they are aiming to be decommissioned.

I also suspect that the Archers is winding down towards its unnatural end.

I seem to remember we had similar suspicions on this thread during the inglorious period of Ambridge Extra! Lots of serious BBC head shaking over a falling listenership on Radio 4 - just as they sexed-up AmEx. I for one was certain they fully intended to move the whole thing over to 4 Extra. Still hasn’t happened ...

An enjoyable episode doesn't contain a crying baby. Especially one (fictionally) deprived of a mother.
The off button was employed.

I really feel The Archers has lost its way. I know it's the most listened to programme on Radio 4 but I'm feeling less inclined.

I agree campion, I feel it has run its course now. I keep listening in the hope that it will improve, but it just seems to be getting worse. Very sad.

in Ambridge they have Schrödinger's buses, We have them too. There's an electronic sign in the bus-stop giving the count down to the next bus ... 6mins, 5 mins, ....2 mins, 1 min. And then it suddenly stops. Disappears from the sign, doesn't appear on the street. And then the count-down re-starts at 23min. Slightly different variety of cat from the Ambridge buses but just as mysterious.

Just imagine how Felicity Jones’ life would have turned out if written by the TA scriptwriters. She definitely wouldn’t have been building a career on a radio soap at the same time as studying for a degree at Oxford. And then, once graduated, she’d have gone straight home to take up an arduous job doing the admin for the local pantomime ...