🎲 Archers thread #134: Ambridge as human board game. We’ve had Pandemic. What now - Game of Life or Trivial Pursuit? Go! 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 warm to Hazel Woolley, 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/4197199--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-6-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.)

Thanks to @LiterallyKnowsBest for the thread title idea. I also liked @LillianGish's suggestion which was Conversions abound and it’s not just Harrison - Lily’s kitchens, Hazel’s flat, Jazzer’s finances, Bert’s bungalow...come and discuss The Archers - are you a convert or could you be converted? and that seems like a good place to kick off this thread.

Who'll get the bungalow? Pip, Josh or A. N. Other?

Will Lily leave the cold calling behind and launch a bid to run LL when Elizabeth hangs up her clipboard?

Will Jazzer become a financial whiz after mastering Tracy's state of the art budgeting techniques, viz, writing it all down in a little notebook with a kitten on the front?

Over to you!

Yes, and so strange to introduce new characters and then totally ignore them. The whole village just ignoring the existence of a new family and the inhabitants of one of the major properties in the village.

@BoreOfWhabylon

The 🔮 is in no doubt that the Job Fairy will use Feeble's departure to Kirsty's advantage. Possibly also with a side-order of True Lurve blossoming between Kirsty and Rex.

Ooh this would be fabulous, mainly because it would probably really annoy Pip.

I’m here to put my hand up and say I haven’t the foggiest clue where the highlands is, and saying “north of Glasgow” was quite helpful for me. But then I failed geography.

I think many people are actually fairly ignorant of UK geography especially if they haven’t had a chance to travel about much. You hear a lot of things like “he’s moved to the south-west” and on enquiring which BIT you get blank stares, most people can’t tell Devon/Cornwall/Somerset apart.

Gosh! Would it help if I said if you look at a map of the UK, it's the bit at the top of the big island? Lots of mountains. Also includes the islands to the west (arguably). Inverness is the biggest city up there.

It’s not unreasonable that people wouldn’t know where specific places in Scotland are. I’m pretty good on parts of the U.K. but ask me to point at Northampton or Oxford on a map and I’d fail. The Lake District, yes, the Peak District I would not be confident. Cardiff I can find, Swansea would be a guess. Fort William, Oban, Ullapool, I would be spot on.

Yes, good point. I'm not great at that. I can point on the map to London, Glasgow and Edinburgh, greatly helped by knowing they're on estuaries. I could have a stab at Hull and Bristol for the same reason. After that it all gets a bit more vague. I know more or less where all the English counties are. To my shame, I'm a lot less confident with the Scottish ones.

I saw a mindblowing fact on MN the other day, not for the first time, but I always forget this and have to check that it's true. Maps are deceptive but in real life Edinburgh is further west than Bristol.

Oh dear, it might be my fault for starting this, just to say I have absolutely no problem with people who are not from Scotland being unfamiliar with its geography and the location of its major cities. I’m still learning about where certain English counties are (like Shropshire at the recent by-election!) and I’ve lived here for over half my life.

What jarred with me, I think, was the mention of Glasgow and “The Highlands” in the same breath because they are polar opposites - one is urban, gritty, crowded, rich in modern culture and well-connected to the rest of the U.K., Scottish Central belt and the world. The other is sparsely populated, full of natural beauty, hard to get to and very quiet. It would be fab for Phoebe to move to Glasgow, but I’m a bit disappointed to think of her moving to the Highlands.

I see what you mean Havering, like saying "Dartmoor, west of Bristol"?

Top of the BIG island was v helpful thanks

I have tried to learn e.g. where all the counties are through things like Sporcle quizzes, but it's inevitable that you know where things are mainly through personal connection. So I know where RAF Lossiemouth is but not Inverness, even though they're in the same neck of the woods.

Exactly @BowerOfBramble!

To illustrate this I’ll admit that I actually have little idea where Ambridge is meant to be, while some people on here could locate it to within 10 yards. It in the middle of England, somewhere, is my best guess.

I'm quite good at counties but i've moved around a fair bit.

i know some intelligent people who are clueless - for example, would struggle to identify which was Wales and which was Devon and Cornwall on the map, or thought that Birmingham was half way to Edinburgh from the south coast.

I find that people who haven't travelled much or have no interest, tend to see large regions as being barely more than the largest town or city in that area. Scotland might be 'Edinburgh +Glasgow, a few lochs and some hills and islands', Wales might be 'the Valleys and Cardiff', The North might be 'anywhere north of Wolverhampton,
A geordie might be anyone from anywhere about 80 miles of the scottish border

I live in the South East, and some of my relatives struggle to grasp that I'm not near places like Dover, Stansted, Cambridge, Dorset, Somerset, Brighton etc

Re pronuncation of Scottish place-names - there are two main hurdles. One is that some of them sound nothing like you'd expect from the spelling. The other is the inability of most non-Scots to pronounce 'ch' properly, as in 'Loch'. Not surprising, as it's not a sound required for Standard English, but it does grate.

I think I was probably ok on Milngavie, and I can say 'ch' but sometimes I need to ask.

As an aside, a question for the scottish only - do you sound the g in Menzies?

Milngavie - Milguy

The others I mentioned just have the 'ch' issue. Also, as with all place-names, people may put the stress in an odd place.

Welsh place names are usually consistent but have 'rh', 'ch', 'ng', 'dd', 'th'. 'ff', 'ph' and 'll' as letters in their own right, and vowels forming diphthongs, Welsh is completely phonetic, but the words won't sound as they look in English

A man on Ramblings yesterday said 'Beth Arthur' for Bedd Arthur (bathe ARR-thirr), which made me wince, but he declined to try Twrch Trwyth.

Nick Robinson usually manages to mangle welsh names. I suspect he has no ear for languages. Often though I suspect that newsreaders and reporters are not advised properly. Even Ffos Las sounds weird (both the o and the a should b long)

Eek, Ive just realised that Auchtermuchty is what it sounds like - something like Upper Pigsty, so I guess Auchterarder will be something like Upper Upland. I always thought Kirk was church but it's more likely to be fort or settlement cf Car, Caer

I wonder if the missing consonant sounds in some scottish place names (e.g. Kirkcaldy) are from centuries of use. (cf. Llanbedr being said as Llambed, or Abermawddach being said as Bermo)

Just found the LearnGaelic web site and it says something like
cry-g dhoo (short oo) with the dh something that sounds to me like a throaty rolled R.

ch cam sound like welsh ch or welsh ll depending on the letter that follows or precedes it.

And i thought Welsh was difficult - it isn't but learner's are taught colloquial Welsh, which doesn't give a sense of what things mean

Sorry, going off on my own ramblings

back to TA. How's Dayveed getting on? Is his knee getting better?
Have all the Brokefailed livestock perished under Pipnjosh's care?

@SparklingLime

I might have missed it, but has anything ever been said about the Gills and the future of Home Farm? Or was that storyline just dropped?

I find this far more irritating than Phoebe's description of where her new job might be (I took this to indicate she hasn't a clue, has never been to Scotland and was therefore flapping about herself trying to situate it). Home farm is slap in the middle of Home Farm land, not far from the new Home Farm office, its inhabitants must occasionally use the village shop, go to the Bull or even belong to the Health Club at GG. It's completely unacceptable that they have never been referenced beyond giving us a name. Jenny - squished in a tiny semi with only room for one tagine dish would surely be beside herself with curiosity about what had happened to her garden and kitchen. I would have found it more realistic if the new owners had completely demolished Home Farm and then given the land to rewilding than they should be living there entirely unnoticed and remarked upon. And breathe...

Yup.

The SWs ABU.

It is strange that the Home Farm house isn't mentioned any more but maybe JD tries to ignore it - surely it must hurt. The woman is amazingly resilient

My childhood home was bought by someone and a close relative takes too much of an interest IMO. I take the snippets of information on a 'need to know'' basis. It is quite amazing what non-farmers do to agricultural land. Spraying it with weedkiller then seeding it with wildflowers - they got fields of thuggish weeds and not pretty flowers. but hey I'm sure that this is right up Carrie Antoinette's street

I'm glad that Phoeble is getting a proper career if it is that
even if she has to go tho that part of the Highlands that isn't south of Glasgow which narrows the location down to only 100% off the Hghlands

Why couldn't she just settle down with a nice young man from Ambridge and send Pip instead

why do i miss some keys and hit others ttwicce??

@HaveringWavering

Oh dear, it might be my fault for starting this, just to say I have absolutely no problem with people who are not from Scotland being unfamiliar with its geography and the location of its major cities. I’m still learning about where certain English counties are (like Shropshire at the recent by-election!) and I’ve lived here for over half my life.

What jarred with me, I think, was the mention of Glasgow and “The Highlands” in the same breath because they are polar opposites - one is urban, gritty, crowded, rich in modern culture and well-connected to the rest of the U.K., Scottish Central belt and the world. The other is sparsely populated, full of natural beauty, hard to get to and very quiet. It would be fab for Phoebe to move to Glasgow, but I’m a bit disappointed to think of her moving to the Highlands.

No one is expecting everyone to know where every place in Scotland is but it's the mixture of the 2 references which together tell us nothing.

"The Highlands" are 6 large counties. Huge swathes of Scotland are "north of Glasgow" and are not in the Highlands. It's just laziness because they couldn't think or be bothered to find a suitable location.

In real life one would say "[place name nobody has heard of] - it's 40 minutes from Glasgow/ 40 miles north of Glasgow"

In real life one would say "[place name nobody has heard of] - it's 40 minutes from Glasgow/ 40 miles north of Glasgow"

It's a fair bit further north than that

I’m here to put my hand up and say I haven’t the foggiest clue where the highlands is, and saying “north of Glasgow” was quite helpful for me. But then I failed geography

It's actually not helpful at all

Pheobe is somewhere in the dark green area on the map.

@WhoppingBigBackside

In real life one would say "[place name nobody has heard of] - it's 40 minutes from Glasgow/ 40 miles north of Glasgow"

It's a fair bit further north than that

Not sure what your point is. "40" is an example only to tie this obscure place to a known place- rather than referring to the the land mass of "the Highlands"

Highlands is bigger than Wales but with only about a fifth of the population

The 40 miles reference is probably my fault because I gave the example of Arrocher which is in the Highlands, to the north of Glasgow and 40 miles from Glasgow. I would describe it to someone as “just north of Glasgow” if they were unfamiliar with the area, to distinguish it from places that are “in the North west” places “way up north”, places “near/just north of/west of/south of Inverness” etc.