🌟 ⭐ Archers thread #138: Two new stars on the Ambridge firmament, but will Peggy’s retirement leave a black hole? 🕳️ Join us here for a window on The Archers.

[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 think commissioning a stained glass window for two of your great-grandchildren and nothing for all the others is a sensible thing to do, 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 @LillianGish and @MuddlerInLaw for title ideas, which I have played around with a bit. I'm sad to have heard the last of Peggy. An era starts to draw to a close.

What a relief to be out of the Steph Casey phase, which I hope was an unfortunate blip, not to be repeated. [Triumph of hope over experience there ... ]

@BoreofWhabylon has asked the 🔮 about Adil and it predicts that he is actually the Mysterious New Owner of Grey Gables but won't be revealed as such until he has won Kirsty's heart (or some similar Mills & Boon level tosh - apols to the 🔮 but it does seem to have a mushy side). I still cling to the idea that the mysterious silent and invisible Gills who now own Home Farm may have some role at GG, but why not name them?

No mention of the heatwave in Ambridge, but budget constraints probably severely limit their scope for topical inserts these days. IRL I believe this has been a tricky time for farmers. Perhaps the SWs will catch up with this over the winter and start putting in some farming chat about diversification away from oats to olives, or similar. We already have at least one vineyard in the Ambridge area, at LL. (I understand there was another, in the heart of the village, decades ago, but the SWs have now forgotten all about it, sadly.)

Over to you!

Trying to remember when we last heard Jill - it wasn't that long ago, was it?

Not very long, no, but I thought she didn’t sound on form even then. This time she sounds worryingly unwell, but whether she has a cold/hoarse voice or whether it’s down to something else isn’t possible to say. Not great, though 🙁

Agree- Jill sounded terrible. If I was a relative, I would be quite worried.

Jill sounds dreadful! I came to see if others thought the same.

I think the prostitution storyline would have been better ‘fleshed out’ by comparing and contrasting Ben’s reaction with others. I’m sure other teenagers (maybe Freddy?) would think of it as a great scam.

I agree teens seem to have very different attitudes towards sex work Vs my generation of feminist teens. The ideas floated in Misogynist Feminist Pigs (remember that book?) was bang on the money.

I wonder if the BBC will say anything about Jill, it was so marked.

I kept thinking that someone would say to Jill that her throat sounded really sore.

Hopefully Jill just has an allergy or a cold, which made her sound so hoarse. I can't help thinking that they should have tweaked the dialogue a little so she didn't have to strain her voice as much. For me, it was all the more striking as I've not really heard her recently and, when I have, I've had the Archers on in the background. Her foghorn delivery is a distant memory, I fear.

The main thing that strikes me about the prostitution storyline is how odd it seems to have a middle-aged lady and a twenty year old use their phones as telephones (not messaging devices)!

I agree she sounded very very frail. I don't think she's ill though, just aged-related voice change.

Looks like we will be losing Jill soon, as well as Peggy. Wonder if they'll write them out or if they'll both be relegated to silents? Unless either actress wants to be deaded, I don't think they will be killed off. Would be a bit tasteless when the actresses are so very old.

I haven’t listened to the latest episode yet, but like @Octothorpe I thought Jill sounded ‘off’ the last time we heard her.

She's sounded older and frailer each time we've heard her, which has not been frequent since the first lockdown.

Sadly, she appears to have reached the stage in life where what was a gradual decline starts to gather speed, see also HMTQ

So - I guess they couldn’t have replaced Jill in those scenes because it’s essentially her handing a ‘Next Brookfield Matriarch’ badge to Beth before moving on to radio silence herself?

I can’t help feeling a little concerned about the Ruairi thing. First major bisexual character in TA (wasn’t there a peripheral boyfriend of Fallon’s in Ambridge Extra?) and they make him a prostitute. Does that not seem a bit off? Or at least poorly thought through.

I don’t want to sound as though I'm quibbling too much over technical niceties but is Ruairi a prostitute or more what might once have been termed a Kept Man? He seems to have only one, ahem, client…and is at her beck and call exclusively, from what we’ve heard.

Gigolo. Eurgh.

I hope Jill just had a cold. My mother is a year younger than Patricia Greene and has just had a chest infection, which knocked her for six. Fortunately making a good recovery now, and I hope the same goes for Ms Greene.

He’s a sex worker.

Wouldn’t a kept man be someone with whom one co-habited? They may not have any significant paid employment but they’d feed the cat, and join you with your friends for a drink at the pub, cook dinner sometimes, tend the garden and holiday with you. Ruairi is entirely peripheral to Julianne’s life, kept in a box for particular occasions.

And really, thinking about it he must look extremely odd as her companion at networking events - unless she introduces him as an intern.

So many words for what he does!

It sounds like a sugar mummy arrangement to me, though I've only really heard of sugar daddies.

I think he is more of a male escort. From what I understand hiring an escort may or may not include extras - sex is definitely not obligatory.

Would be more realistic if his special friend was male. Not sure that TA is ready for a rent boy s/l though.

Yes, but what glamourous and sophisticated professional woman is going to hire a 19 year old to squire her around?

Gah! glamorous

If Julianne was Julian, he'd be a catamite

Excellent vocabulary knowledge on display here!

Jill may have a bad throat but she is still a compulsive baker. Quiche and cake!

Escorting is definitely prostitution. The idea of being paid for company is bollocks.

Very good word, not often seen nowadays. Cf the opening sentence of Anthony Burgess’s Earthly Powers -

’It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.’

(I may have inadvertently strayed a little distance from Ambridge, admittedly)

"Catamite" is a rather splendid word! I might have to read some Burgess.

I am just deeply puzzled by the Ruari storyline. Had they waited until he'd graduated, perhaps that would be more believable. Julianne sounds mid-40's to my ear. Does she introduce the young lad as her nephew? I wonder who came up with the idea?

So soon after the Lily and Russ storyline too.