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?

Australian friend used to make them using Birds custard powder - that's the recipe I'd really like!

Custard powder is just sweetened cornflour. If you use custard powder probably have to cut the sugar a bit. If you want to use custard powder just substitute it for the cornflour.

The recipe I use is a buttercream filling but it has strawberry jam added which makes it a beautiful shade of pink.

From memory, Jack Woolley was supposed to be quite wealthy. He owned the Borchester Echo (back in the days that local newspapers had news in them) and Grey Gables and a few other bits and pieces.

The thing is, he needed care and ended up in a home (££). Then when he died, I thought his daughter Hazel had a fair-sized inheritance. She certainly owns the Village Shop and Keepers Cottage?

I don't recall Peggy having money otherwise. I think she and her 1st (abusive?) husband owned the Bull but I think that predates my listening.

I still find it very odd that Peggy didn't step in to help Jennifer and Brian (who really ought to be house -hunting as the current home was just supposed to be a temporary move).

Peggy and Jack Archer owned The Bull (bought from the brewery at some point?) and after Jack died Peggy got Sid Perks in as manager. She eventually sold it to Sid, IIRC - he may have had to rope in Guy Pemberton to buy a share, which is how part ended up in Caroline's hands. She sold her share to Lilian.

Peggy also owned Blossom Hill Cottage and sold it to Usha, who still owns it as far as we know. She owns The Lodge outright and she did get something from Jack.

Still doesn't seem to add up to such a huge estate that she can afford to put half a million into a vanity scheme.

It's long before my time but were Jack Wooley's first 2 wives deaths or divorces?

Before my time too, but I believe he and the second one (Valerie) were divorced. No idea about the first. Hazel was Valerie's daughter (earlier marriage) and Jack adopted her.

I still find it very odd that Peggy didn't step in to help Jennifer and Brian (who really ought to be house -hunting as the current home was just supposed to be a temporary move) The Brian and Jenny thing is very strange - after the initial upheaval of the move it has all come to nothing. In fact I've almost forgotten they had downsized. It is a most bizarre storyline since we've had no mention of the new occupants of Home Farm, in spite of the fact that the farmhouse is smack, bang in the middle of the farm. Even if there has been no-one around you'd think Brian or Adam would have commented on that fact and speculated about what was happening. Never mind how Brookfield are going to get on at Christmas without chief cook and bottle washer Jill, how will Jenny survive without her kitchen? The more I think about it the odder it seems.

Custard powder is just sweetened cornflour.
No sugar - it contains cornflour (maize starch), salt, flavour and colour (Annatto).

So who's in Blossom Hill Cottage at the moment?

This is from my Mother's BE-RO recipe booklet circa 1964.

Oh, that brings back memories @WheresThatCatGoneNow.

Jack Woolley owned Grey Gables as well didn’t he?

Sorry, I see that was mentioned

Still doesn't seem to add up to such a huge estate that she can afford to put half a million into a vanity scheme

I'm not remotely convinced this vanity scheme was set up properly so that the £500,000 is a charitable donation. If Peggy dies within the next 7 years HMRC are going to treat it as a PET.(Potentially exempt transfer) - the "potential" bit being the requirement to live for 7 years.

As it is , Peggy is giving money to her great- granddaughter and whatever relation Pip is to enable them to run a business. It would be very amusing if HMRC looked to the witless trio to pay the IHT on it (which of course they won't, this being Ambridge)

What's going on!?
First Helen prevails against BeingTalkedOver and has an outbreak of honesty and now Pip, too.
I can't cope.

BertrandRussell
“ AskingQuestionsAllTheTime”
Context? For “bake” I mean- not for Lee and Helen.

OED's definition is "In Sc a biscuit". It offers Robert Burns, "Here's crying out for bakes and gills", and also attributes it to Galt, "We can divide the bakes". They also mention Webster defining it as "the act, process or result of baking".

etyonline offers "bake (n.) 1560s, "process of baking," from bake (v.). As "social gathering at which baked food is served," 1846, American English." but the latter is not really relevant, I don't think, and they never give their sources drat them so the former isn't much help either.

At least one of my elderly Northern aunts back in the fifties would speak of a batch of small cakes or biscuits as being "a good bake" or say "the bake didn't rise/is a little burnt/similar complaint against it" meaning the batch of whatever she had been baking. (Two ofthem livedtogetehr so I cannot be sure whether they both used the word in that way; it may have been only one of them.)

Surely Jennifer and Brian will buy Grange Farm? Or will they buy back Home Farm when the mystery occupants piss off back to the big smoke?

An entire episode of David sighing and groaning. Lord help us.

Although. I’m not sure I’ve heard mention of his and Ruth’s pension plans before (as opposed to Jill’s pension coming out of the farm income). No doubt this presages the whole lot being lost on another hugely expensive, crack-brained farming scheme, resulting in the dull pair having to go cap in hand to Kenton for sustenance in their old age. That would deserve a pre-emptive BOOP ...

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
Peggy also owned Blossom Hill Cottage and sold it to Usha, who still owns it as far as we know.

Lilian owned BHC and allowed Peggy to live in it either very cheap or free, and then after Peggy married Jack#2 Lilian asked her to sell the cottage for her because she was in Guernsey and coming over to do it would be a nuisance, which Peggy did. Peggy didn't at all want to sell it to Usha, who had made the best offer, but when she consulted Lilian, Lilian saw no problem and told her the sale was to go ahead. I don't much like Peggy, really: she also insisted on not going to St Stephen's when Janet was the vicar because she didn't hold with women being vicars, and went to a different church for several years.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime that's not a terribly compelling argument for "the bakes" being common usage in Scotland. And it's using "bake" singular, to mean a batch of baking, rather than the neoligism Clarrie used.

What on earth is “Making Mince Pies with Jill Archer” that has come up in my podcast list? It literally is a monologue of the sound of making pies, interspersed with a ticking clock. Is it part o a series of boring things?

I wondered too but life is too short to listen just now - glad I didn’t. We are also about to get Jim Lloyd ghost stories as a stand-alone programme over the holiday.

I didn’t know Jill and Jim etc had links with bbc producers nor agents etc - this should be the talk of ambridge ‘jill’s on radio 4!’ Type chat. Or have I become hopelessly muddled as to how drama and real life interact ?

Making Mince Pies with Jill Archer
there was 'a day on brookfield' as well.
with cows chewing, birds tweeting and rain.

Yes, the birdsong was fine, but rustling baking paper is slow radio that is too pointless for even words like "can you weigh out the lard?"

Not listened to either although auto play tried to make me. Still better than godawful podcast ad from Caitlyn Jenner I’ve been getting recently. Why the algorithms think I’d be interested when my listening diet is TA, Desert Island Discs, More or Less and the Now Show I don’t know.

I'm so up for ghost stories with Jim

Hope it's not too scary