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.

the general synod finally approved the ordination of women as priests in November '92.

I remember. I cried. I’m only nominally Anglican and have no personal ordination aspirations ...

My shepherd's hut doesn't really fit in my tiny garden. At least its bedbase is strong enough to frlic on.

*frolic - frlic sounds much more obscene somehow

I’m listening to His Dark Materials at the moment- so far Lizzie, David and Jim have appeared.....

I didn't know Will had a dog. Never heard mention of it before.

What is it called? Is it Kai? Didn't quite catch what Jim said.

Tony went a bit OTT, didn't he, I thought

I liked Tony’s rant. Rare enough that we hear anything of the un-pretty side of farming.

I wish Alf would leave. I guess art reflects life here, in that a death brings little seen friends and relatives to the surface. But I’m tired of so much of the emotional energy accorded to Joe being wasted on a stranger. And it would be really cheap to replace Joe with his tiresome other son.

Yes, Will's dog has been mentioned many times over the years. I think the current one is Meg. I'm a bit surprised he kept her after giving up the keeping job, she's a working dog rather than a pet.

I was right on Tony's side. Not the snobbishness about the new estate the other day but incomers not being able to behave in the countryside. I would have given short shrift to Joy as well. She's lucky it was only a picture of the scar and not the open stomach.

I thought Tony's robust defence of the leaflets was excellent - and he actually appeared to take the wind out of Joy's sails. It was probably a good thing they'd done the ridiculous cat thing together so she can't pretend she doesn't know he's a good egg re animals.

(Btw, I missed a bit of this thread, so maybe this was discussed, but I was very surprised that Peggy would have left Hilda unspeyed. )

To be fair to Joy whilst she may not know about the country, if she has lived in shieldfield she is likely to know more about some of lifes harsh realities than Tony.

I guess art reflects life here, in that a death brings little seen friends and relatives to the surface. This is definitely true. When my dad died we had all his siblings in the house the night before the funeral, plus a cousin and his wife that none of his brothers and sisters had never met (Irish catholic family, at least 60 first cousins). I still suspect that he was actually no relation at all.

Meg died in July, 2013, and Will replaced her with Baz, whom Ed shot in a fit of temper at the end of November that year. I assume Will must still have had Greg's dog Mitch, who was a year or so younger than Meg, because as a gamekeeper wouldn't he have needed a dog?

Eventually (like about two years later) Will got a new dog, Kai, to replace Meg, who had miraculously been able to go on being his working gun-dog until she was sixteen. Mitch has not been mentioned by name since Will inherited him from Greg, so whether he is alive or dead I have no idea but I expect he is dead by now.

Meanwhile, Ed bought Holly-the-Dog in December 2013 as a Christmas present for George to make up for having shot the puppy George had loved, but refused even to apologise to Will for having killed Baz. Holly has now vanished; where she is I have no idea, but it is just as well if she's not living with Emma at Susan's house because she never did get house-trained and was still making messes in the house when she was last mentioned. It was all she ever did: she never got taken for a walk or had to have inoculations or anything at all after she had been allowed to stay in Susan's house because she emptied a waste-paper basket all over the floor and a winning lottery ticket was found as a result.

The only dogs in Ambridge that are treated properly belong to Lynda Snell, as far as I can make out.

How is Ben's dog? Is she called Bess?

Ed shot a dog in anger?!!!

Iirc it was after some incidents of dogs worrying his stock.

I'm sure Ben is looking after his dog very appropriately. And afaik, although her acquisition was contra all DogHouse advice, Lillian and Justin seem to be doing fine with Ruby, aren't they?

ErrolTheDragon
Iirc it was after some incidents of dogs worrying his stock.

It was not. It was because he had decided, in spite of being told otherwise by a vet, that the only way three of his stock could have got a disease was because it had been spread by a dog in his fields.

Will's dog was not worrying stock, and had never been in the field where the disease had probably been caught.

Ed was in a nasty temper and took it out on the first dog he saw while he was carrying a gun.

Ben probably is looking after his family's working dog appropriately, you're right.

But why is having been given Ruby as a present contra DogHouse advice? Lilian didn't exactly set out to acquire her: she failed to refuse to accept her when the animal was left on her doorstep one night. We were told Ruby was of a breed that people who knew the breed said at the time was utterly unsuitable for people who had no time for her (she is a Patterdale terrier and would chew the contents of the house to bits out of boredom if left alone, and Lilian and Justin are frequently both out at the same time) but that's not something Lilian would have known.

Buying a puppy as a Christmas present for a child, on the other hand, is thoroughly contraindicated by every animal welfare organisation I know of, and it was utterly shocking that it was a vet, Alistair Lloyd, who told Ed where he would be able to get the poor animal.

Oh yes, I'd misremembered, just that Ed was wound up about his stock.

But why is having been given Ruby as a present contra DogHouse advice?

Because no sensible dog-lover would ever recommend giving a dog as a present - Tigers fault, of course. Despite the dodgy start L&J seem to have stepped up to being dog owners pretty well,which is to their credit I'd have said. (I'd somehow missed that Ruby was a Patterdale. Maybe she's just more chilled than the norm.)

So David and Ruth are on a diet then rubs hands with glee.

This could be the downfall of Brookfield. If their isn't some hangry griping I'll be disappointed.

How stupid is Elizabeth?

She sees that CMR might have fallen out of favour with Lily but instead of quietly thinking "yippee" she's giving CMR advice.

What whingefest by CMR, and he called his divorce "letting it go"!! I loved the way his post-modern greetings card assemblage was seen in quite a different light. What snob he is.

Thinking of Jill, at what stage does a person stop falling over and start to "have a fall"? - definitely age-related. I suppose it's because children fall off scooters/skateboards/out of trees, but it's more than that.

Robert's comments were probably about the best that could be said for it, I suspect.

Somewhat OT, this had prompted me to look up the reason for the derogatory use of 'Philistine'. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Philistine - I'd been vaguely wondering about it since hearing there's some evidence the Philistines might be descendants of the Minoans/Mycenaeans. In which case, ironically, using 'philistine' as 'pertaining to lack of appreciation of culture' could be deemed to indicate a lack of cultural knowledge.

Why is david so creepy around the female members of his family. Sooo needy.

Aside from Jill's cataracts, she seems to have fared remarkably well for 89.

Is it likely that an elderly lady would have simply sprained her wrist, and received no burns, when falling with a casserole for 5+ people in her hands?

It could have made a good storyline. It is easy to overlook how frail a parent has become if you see them every day. Hopefully one of the other siblings will put the Dopeys straight.

I think the implication is that if you "fall over" it's essentially your fault (you were doing something silly, showing off, whatever) whereas "having a fall" is something that happens to you, without your agency.

It's just another way of indicating that older people can't be held responsible for their own actions, poor things, and need to be Cared For and generally patronised.

But I think Jill really needs to learn how to fall, if she is going to make a habit of it; sticking your limbs out to try to break a fall is a bad idea even if you are not eighty-nine. She is getting accident-prone: ankle, wrist...

sticking your limbs out to try to break a fall is a bad idea even if you are not eighty-nine. What are you supposed to do? You can't just go down like a ninepin, that's how you end up hitting your head.

I assume it's the start of an osteoporosis public service broadcast - typical presentation of osteoporosis is supposed to be elderly person with wrist fracture sustained in a fall.