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.

My question was whether it would be ‘normal’ for people with Lily and Johnnie’s exact degree of blood relatedness to forge a permanent relationship. (In their own culture - not somewhere on the other side of the world ...)

They're really not that closely related.

Dan and Doris had three children.

Lily is the granddaughter of their younger son Phil.

Johnnie is the great-grandson of their elder son Jack, Peggy's first husband.

That's so far apart that most people don't know the names of those relations. I certainly don't.

Mike, I thought it might have been you, but I was too lazy to check!

Was it ragout? I thought spag bol, which sounds more plausible - I'm thinking of the kind of bolognese you see sometimes on an Oxo advert, made in ten minutes while the spaghetti cooks. Very tasty, but not a ragu.

The one and only time I ever remember hearing David cook was the night Ruth set off for her tryst with Sam the Cowman in Oxford on the pretext of going to see an old college friend, but she turned back when she hit heavy traffic on the bypass and got cold feet. They kept intercutting to David and the children in the kitchen back at Brookfield where he was making his 'famous' spag bol. Heavyhanded device to show what Ruth was teetering on the brink of throwing away.

What a tedious storyline that was. I loathed Sam. I don't warm to Ruth. I tolerate David. So never likely to engage me in the way the Brian/Siobhan storyline did.

Second cousins once removed. Lily and Johnny's father were second cousins.
I never believed the Sam storyline as it was quite implausable, but I like Ruth.
The Brian/Shovehorn SL was believeable because she was desperate for a baby and he had form.
David's ragout recipe was in a cookbook that Emmur was organising a few years back IIRC.

Ok. I’ll repeat - I wasn’t asking for the family history. (I. Know. All. That. )

What I’m asking is if anyone personally knows of contemporary long term relationships between English people with this degree of relatedness.

Yes Surprise Interesting how the SWs seem happily to have hidden Ruth's inheritance in the cereal cupboard. David's always complaining about being poor.

Either they've put it all into a pension or Ruth's pissed it away

I know of two couples of first cousins who married. One of the marriages didn't last more than a few years.

Spar, I have found Home Farm and Grange Farm on Rightmove.

Excellent R4! Home Farm looks exactly right to me, though I imagine GF as less chocolate box, more solid and dour - maybe plain greyish white stone. And with farmyard / buildings / paraphernalia more visible and obvious.

But if those were the relative prices then I guess it would be more feasible for the Aldridges to take on Grange Farm.

Neither looks right to me.

Oh I found the Sam story very plausable.

Eek, I'm looking at houses. Stoppit Mike. Now.

more solid and dour - maybe plain greyish white stone.
We don't have much stone round here. It's ancient forest land (eg forest of Arden) so old buildings are mostly half-timbered.

Didn't the inheritance get invested into the farm?

Show and tell, Mike ...

(I meant houses.)

Oh Noooooo!
Want one of Hilda's kittens. Don't think CharlieAlphaTango would like it.

My paternal grandparents were 2nd cousins, and married for just short of 50 years.

a ragout is a tomatoey stew type of thing.

bolognese traditionally doesn't contain tomatoes, it's basically boiled mince...

Bring me the voice of Antony Head

I always visualise Mr Head as Mr Gently Benevolent, but I quite like thinking of Robin as a pantomime villain. - I see other Archers listeners have the same problem. Dum Tee Dum have even posted a sound clip from Bleak:
dumteedum.com/forums/topic/mr-gently-benevolent/

I am very disappointed with the photo Lily found - I really wanted it to be of Lizzie and Robin.

I wanted the photo to show cmr and some young unknown woman

I love that 'Home Farm' link, R4, especially the fact that it has a 'useful boot room' (as opposed to a useless one, obviously) and 'The second floor offers two further large double bedrooms both ensuite and a space to sit and reflect'.

Both houses are very nice. I imagined Home Farm as (even) grander with more garden at the front.

I imagined Home Farm as (even) grander with more garden at the front.
Agreed, but I couldn't find one on Rightmove!

I'd be more inclined to believe that he would look after his mother if he had done anything remotely similar before

Well quite. Like most men when he says "we" can look after Jill he means "someone with ovaries can look after Jill".