Archers thread #112: Quelle beau de lollox! And yet we stick with it. 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 Alf to stay around, 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 @DoctorTwo for the thread title! I was strongly tempted by R4's suggestion of Wildlife on Four: Jonneh is wild at Lily, Phoebe rewilds by Occam, Joy is in the wilderness and David is bewildered by a marriage proposal.

So we did make it past Joe's funeral at last. Are we heading for a Christmas octogenarian wedding now?

No she was not magnificent. She created a bloody stupid and unnecessary situation and was extremely rude to Jim.

It was not 2 grown men squabbling. It was 1 grown man behaving like an adult and another behaving like a spoilt , petulant child and Elizabeth treated them both like spoilt , petulant children.

Most academic men are spoiled petulant children in my experience as an engineering academic! Maybe that colours my opinions. Not that Russ is an academic in any sense.

“ Most academic men are spoiled petulant children in my experience as an engineering academic!”

Is that what you got from Jim? Wow.

Actually I’ll correct that, most male professors are spoiled petulant children, many more junior academics are fairly normal.

Spot on, MissBarbary

She will, no doubt, not live up to my expectations by listening attentively to Russ whining about Jim
Remember that CMR has already poisoned her mind by sowing the seed that Jim is difficult.

As ever, detail is missing. Is Jim volunteering or being paid? Is there a verbal agreement or an enforceable contract? If I was Jim I would have uttered the "choose him or me" ultimatum by now.

“We’ll pay you, of course” - is what I remember Elizabeth saying to Jim when she offered him the ghost reader role. Plus plenty of mince pies and ... mulled wine maybe. Some seasonal beverage. Those of you in touch with Internet archives can confirm?

But they're not married and Lily doesn't own LL anyway. Isn't it actually Freddy's? Or at least held in trust.

That's not going to stop him feeling he is owed big time for all the sacrifices he has made.

I’m hoping CRM is on his last legs. Maybe a new year story. Lily will have Christmas Party fun with her call centre mates and Freddie’s mates at GG and CRM will languish at home until clumsily makes a pass at Elizabeth and gets told to leave.

The childhood theme and foetal position, combined with asking for compliance so as not to upset Elizabeth was a bit much for an abuse survivor I thought

It was disturbing, wasn’t it? I wonder if Nick Warburton thought he was doing something awfully clever - putting an image inourminds that CMR wouldn’t have been aware of?

That was the only reason for doing it. As a set direction it made no sense. There was no reason for CMR to frame it in that way. CMR might actually have a talent for stage setting but this one doesn't work unless the listeners know Jim's back story.

Jim was definitely going to get a few £'s for his efforts. It was remarked (not sure whether it was by Lizzie or Jim) that it would help pay for his planned extension.

That episode was even more ridiculous than the last ridiculous episode. On the plus side I do find that I am channelling enormous amounts of anger at R4 (to the benefit of everything else).

“We’ll pay you, of course” - is what I remember Elizabeth saying to Jim when she offered him the ghost reader role. Plus plenty of mince pies and ... mulled wine maybe. Some seasonal beverage. Those of you in touch with Internet archives can confirm

Totally. He was not getting a star trailer, in fact my memory is that LL was bloody lucky to get him. All this de haute en bas shite from Elizabeth argues a memory lapse on the part of the SWs.

Snurk at Bagpuss renaming CallMeRuss as CustomerRelationshipManager. It quite fits his manipulative character.

I am channelling enormous amounts of anger at R4
gulp.

@birdsdestiny, it's been a while since I made some cheese.

I like Rex but he is a bit dull.

Yes, Elizabeth lured Jim with the promise of £££ to help with the extension costs. But SHE is the one who wants HIM. Because she was so taken with the marvellous idea of doing something 'different' at LoLo for Christmas, and heard that Jim was fantastic at telling ghost stories (as indeed he is), and they have these atmospheric old attics, and......

........and then she completely ruins the whole thing by being an utter idiot, fawning over CMR and his supposed artistic genius (on what evidence???) as a theatre director. Then gets impatient with Jim - with JIM, who's basically enabling her whole so-last-minute-it's-ridiculous Christmas event to happen!! - and insists that CMR will continue to be a major part of it.

Do you think the SWs thought it was funny ? Because if they did, I despair.

And I too was praying that Jim would tell them both to stick their ghost stories where the sun don't shine.

Unfortunately he didn't and won't, out of consideration for Elizabeth, who should be ashamed of herself.

More and more I think she and CMR will become an item.

I wondered if we were supposed to do a compare&contrast with the way that Lizzie treats the TellTales and they way she treated the twins in the past - all ice queen, barking out orders and instructions, not listening to their POV. And look how well that turned out.

My hope is that it comes down to a Jim or Russ situation and the scales fall away from Elizabeth’s eyes. But that would be based on her having normal behaviour, which the SWs can’t manage. We know Jim will be reading the ghost stories because there is no other candidate for a Christmas special.

I daresay it wasn’t in the SW’s mind (and, now I’m writing it down I fully expect to see the theme appear in the next Ambridge Academics schedule) but Elizabeth’s “you’re both academics” or whatever she said, was so clearly the sort of thing that might be believed by someone with her own relative lack of education.

We’ve fulminated plenty about the squandering of graduate female potential in Ambridge, but it’s increasingly clear that at least an undergraduate degree ought to be compulsory for those Ambridge women who marry great wealth and influence.

Just look at Peggy and Jennifer, as well as Elizabeth. No critical thinking skills, getting by on pure instinct ... Nice for them, infuriating for us.

Elizabeth has heard Jim reading, hasn't she? I just don't understand why she thinks he would need directing at all, let alone why she would choose someone with zero experience of directing for the job.

And would even someone as crass as CMR think it appropriate to make an elderly man lie on the floor in a foetal position? Other issues apart, it hardly makes for dramatic effect watching someone struggling to get up from that position.

Come out from behind the sofa R4. I meant the radio station (as if the Archers wasn't bad enough they have started putting all manner of utter drivel on in the evenings - is it a ploy to get me to delve into BBC Sounds?). Huge apologies!

At this rate I might need to write In to Feedback...in green ink.

@ Madcats.
I don't listen to Radio 4 half as much as I used to; there is a lot of bilge, especially the 'comedies'.

Lizzie's reaction to the Ghost Tales is ridiculous. After the fiasco of LL's Hallowe'en-thing and the success of GG's dinner-thing you think that she would be all over it like a rash, not delegating it to two people with opposing artistic interpretations.

The foetal position thing was bad enough. It was the insistence that Jim adopt the quavery high-pitched voice of the elderly nurse that did it.

I had visions of that Fast Show sketch with the actor who sits in front of a mirror while crude lines are crayoned onto his face and then proclaims ‘......I spent SIX HOURS in make-up!’

It’s a good think the Ambridge Mental Health Fairy’s been visiting. Otherwise Jim might have found that a little unsettling.