🍾 Archers thread 123: Goodbye & good riddance to 2020 – to Philip too? The Archers is 70 on New Year’s Day – celebrate or vent about it 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 wish we heard more from Shula, 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/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, 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.)

So! 2021 beckons. Big anniversary next Friday, 1.1.21 (and to mark that we have episodes Tuesday-Friday next week). What would we like to see happen? I may be in a minority of one, but I'd like a nice gentle character-driven episode. I don't think we'll get that, but I really, really hope they don't kill someone else off, just for the headlines.

[Title edited by MNHQ at OP'S request]

I listened again this morning and Kirsty and the biscuits did seem very heavily flagged. Twice if you include the munching noises while she was talking to Helen. Pregnant or comfort eating. Hmmm.

Cursedy said she was craving biscuits. 'Twas not missed here.
A mosslet is on the way.

The Ambridge of the future will include Jack and Mosslet. Will they be moustache twirling baddies?

It seems to me to be more likely to have been chocolate biscuits for comfort and aspirin for menstrual cramps; she did buy aspirin at the same time, and I don't think taking those is generally seen as a sign of pregnancy, is it?

Do people still take aspirin? I thought paracetamol was more common nowadays but maybe that's just me.

@CaptainMyCaptain

Do people still take aspirin? I thought paracetamol was more common nowadays but maybe that's just me.

I thought that too @CaptainMyCaptain, it really stuck out to me. Paracetamol or ibuprofen; I think that aspirin is advised against due to problems it can cause with the stomach. As a child the go-to was Disprin, which was just soluble aspirin, and I still remember the taste of it and watching the little tablets dissolve. I don’t think you can get aspirin for children at all now.

I hardly ever take aspirin but won't go anywhere near paracetamol. Ibuprofen seems to be what people seem to take.

I think ibuprofen is aspirin based which is why children can't take it.

Maybe Kirsty knows that aspirin is the best of the painkillers against muscle inflammation? Period cramps are muscular, I think. Or perhaps she takes aspirin as a blood-thinner against developing a heart condition or having a stroke, as taken by doctors in preference to statins, though I would have expected her to ask for the 75mg sort if so. (Also, hence the biscuits; you are recommended to take aspirin only with food, to protect your stomach.)

Maybe she is like me and gets weird visual effects if she takes paracetamol, and ibuprofen gives her a nasty rash.

Paracetamol makes be nauseous. Don't trust ibuprofen. If I take aspirin I take the soluble one.

Did any other Latin students on here use Kennedy's Shorter Latin Primer? Title always changed by any self-respecting schoolchild to Shortbread Eating Primer.

🤮 the taste of Disprin! What a memory!

Yes aspirin is quite an unusual thing to buy these days I think, certainly for someone of Kirsty's age. Goodness knows why it was in the script.

I much prefer aspirin, it’s excellent for migraine and paracetamol has a weird aftertaste that lingers for hours.

I had Kennedy's as a grammar ref book, yes. In fact, I still have a copy on the shelf.

Aspirin and ibuprofen are NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.) Paracetamol is not. (I prefer aspirin and then ibuprofen, but NSAIDs are contraindicated against some prescription medicines I'm on, so can't take them any more.)

My mum used to dissolve Disprin in milk for us. Tasted vile.

Aspirin is contraindicated for under 12s, if I recall correctly - Reye's Syndrome, or similar name? This was known when my children were babies back in the early 90s. Calpol was the drug of choice when they were unwell - paracetamol in syrup form. By the mid 90s there was a syrupy ibuprofen available for little ones too, but we never had it.

We take ibuprofen mostly when we need a painkiller, paracetamol occasionally. My husband takes low dose aspirin a couple of times a week for cardiology reasons. I never think of taking it for pain these days. Odd that Kirsty did, I agree.

I never think of taking it for pain these days. Odd that Kirsty did, I agree

I think the SLs wanted to avoid the knee-jerk reaction some have when people buy paracetamol in soaps. It often heralds a bungled suicide attempt, particularly in Casualty...

But that still leaves the question of why she buying painkillers at all. Quite strange.

Sorry to read about your brother's accident CheetasOnFajitas.

I didn't 'get' what your name meant either Chemenger. I thought it was something French too or a tribute to the Austrian economist.

I think Gavin is hunting for Blake, Kenzie and Jordan. Victoria said she was not planning to keep them as a unit and Gavin was upset by this so this may be why he is trying to find them.

Impressed that everyone has remembered so much Latin. I did Ecce Romani too but have remembered hardly anything.

Does anyone remember Trimalcio* and “The Millionaire’s Dinner Party”?

We had to stand up when the teacher came into the room...
“Salve Magistra”
“Salve Discipulae, sedatae”,
and if you did good written work, she would write “Bene”.

*sorry for spelling errors

But that still leaves the question of why she buying painkillers at all. Quite strange

Not really. It just underlined how stressed out she is. It’s not unusual to take a painkiller for a headache. Or eat a packet of biscuit —in one sitting—

So sorry to hear about your brother @CheetasOnFajitas. I'm not confident TA will get much right about the HSE investigation as I fear it has been usurped by the slavery investigation for plot purposes. Another Latin A level here (I actually changed schools so I could do it!) - the only thing I really remember with any reliability is this quotation from Aeneid 4: Interea magno misceri murmure caelum incipit which I am prone to quote whenever it starts to thunder. I do feel Jim's expertise points to more than school Latin (or Greek for that matter). I love it though - he's one of my favourite characters.

Oh, oh! Got all excited that Elizabeth might be on a podcast being discussed on Woman's Hour today

Duchess is the new podcast from Duchess of Rutland Emma Manners and daughter Lady Violet in which they talk to titled women who are responsible for ancestral piles around the UK. They have their own huge place, Belvoir Castle, and they join Emma to discuss the pros and cons of running such a business.

Then remembered that she lacks a title. (Other than M Out of Law of CMR.)

(A at O'Level. Too long ago to recall which textbooks. Would have liked to take it further but swerved for some reason. My DM, who was at school in a far away country in the 1940s, is still delighted at how useful Latin was in her subsequent health related professional training in the U.K.)

When DS was a student, he used to be able to get more lucrative clerical jobs in the NHS or working for private doctors because he could spell all the Latin names.

My favourite sentence from Fabulae Faciles was “The old man snapped his fingers and dried his hands on the young boy’s long hair”, I remember painstakingly translating each word and failing to find any coherent meaning.
I think we are overthinking the aspirin and biscuits, they were just a way to get Kirsty into the shop for the scene with Jim and Brian. And maybe to show that she’s so stressed she’s eating unhealthily and having headaches.

We did Trimalcio's feast at one point, @agiftofknives.

Any Samskrt scholars here? It's my love, just above TA!