Archers thread #147: Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder how old Ambridge is. Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Many thanks to @PseudoBadger for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to have the general public watching you work and asking questions, 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/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-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.)

Title comes from this poem, with which I drive my family to distraction at this time of year.

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is.
The bird is on the wing.
But that’s absurd, the wing is on the bird.
Or so I’ve heard.

Ogden Nash

Apologies to @TeenDivided for ignoring her good ideas for the thread title. Here they are to kickstart our ruminations:
'window on the world of cheesemaking'
'how long until the intercom is fatal'
'will Brian settle in new pastures'
'Springing towards Easter with Widowers, Windows, and wails'

Over to you!

Yes it's a definite laugh/cry situation imo!

It’s not so much the numbers as the fact that a clear majority are silent or neighing only.

wonder if Adil and Usha have met? I imagine she might have come to some of the community meetings etc (or sent his husband and stayed home to watch Silent Witness)

wonder if Adil and Usha have met?

But why would they want to?

He might need legal advice about GG and we all know she's the only solicitor for miles around.

Yes he did. Played by Alex Caan.

Think you missed my point, @CaptainMyCaptain !

I’ll be disappointed if they’ve only brought Debbie back in order to exile her conclusively, forever …

I didn't. It was meant to be humorous. I should have put an emoji.

My bad! 😂

Because I was idly wondering if The Archers has ever passed an ethnicity version of the Bechdel test (e.g. have two named black or Asian characters ever talked to each other)

Does race/colour have to come into everything ?

Who said they come into everything? 1) I was just musing! 2) We've had extensive chats about scarves, terrines, edible forests etc. 3) Apparently I had to give a good reason for wondering whether two characters have ever met. I've asked similar before about the likes of Elizabeth and Stella (probably not exact example) and no-one asked why they would want to meet.

Oh calm down.

Aaaanyway I wasn't trying to start an argument! Back to moaning about Debbie's d d delivery.

Ironic you say to calm down as I actually wrote that on my post and then deleted it as I thought it was unnecessarily provocative.

Latif spoke several times, when he was helping the attempt to destroy The Stables' business because of a bad review by a sacked stable-hand who had mistreated the horses. When Anisha stopped being the horse vet, and walked out leaving Alistair in the lurch, Latif took his custom elsewhere, as well. Not a particularly likeable person, on the whole.

Amir and Asis were horses.

Adil is a slightly shady character.

Asif is what the person Justin was whispering to down the phone (because he didn't want to be overheard in the crowded pub but couldn't possibly have waited to get home before ringing up) sounded as if he were called.

If it were not for Latif, people might start to think that only Asian-heritage people or horses whose names start with a vowel or have four letters, or both, are allowed into Ambridge at all.

I honestly don’t think the two are equivalent, @GoldenCupidon.

Two people of apparently similar minority ethnic backgrounds might actively avoid being seen to acknowledge each other in, say, a cafe in Wiltshire or a petrol station in the Lake District, for fear of having assumptions made about them by the majority population. (The assumption being that they lack the social capacity to speak to anyone else.)

I like Debbie's d-d-d delivery. This is peobably hypocritical as I don't like Pip's delivery much.

Probably. Sigh. This hunt and peck approach to typing is sooooo laborious.

How is the hand @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g ?

Still in a cast but only a little one. No sling now. Loooong way to go, I think, but things are improving a little day to day. A very young doctor told me the other day that at my age I have to expect it will take months to get back to normal. I felt about 100! (Thanks for asking.)

Oh no! (He’ll feel ashamed one day …)

Hunt and peck is, shamefully, my normal method of typing.

(I’m hoping the socially inept doctor was male!)

No, female! I am a touch typist normally.

Hunt and peck?

One finger typing. Looking for the letter and jabbing it.