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.

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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!

Did anyone catch what Jim said in Latin when finishing his conversation with Harrison?! It sounded kind of like .."Viat eustitia rouat ... Ky-lom" ?! Is Viat 'going' or 'travelling'?
Maybe it translates as "Sorry about me, I seem to have entirely lost my marbles"

Because much has been made of that B&B room having no en suite facilities that was my immediate thought.
Not sure what to make of the whole Eurovision thing (apart from Justin's hilarious misunderstanding of which Queen they were talking about) - is this just the BBC trying to promote its own coverage? Harrison's not actually proposing a coach trip to Liverpool is he? In which case I don't really see why they need a treasurer. Surely he can just get his MIL to show it upstairs in The Bull.

Fiat justitia ruat caelum - let justice be done though the heavens fall.

Ah, lovely... I wasn't too far off then 😜 It's been a while since my Caecillius days!

I'm not an academic but I think most people in the UK who attain professorial rank hang on to the title for life. Many retired professors are granted an Emeritus title by their former employer which usually means they can carry on using their email account, library facilities, possibly office space, and may continue to be involved in research projects and teaching. Jim doesn't seem to commute back to Stirling*, but I suppose it's not impossible that he still dabbles in academic pursuits - writing coruscating reviews for learned journals, for example.

*Still marvelling that the SWs picked Stirling University as his last place of work. It has no Classics department and its History department doesn't offer courses in Ancient History. There's no Archaeology department. Why would they have employed an ancient historian steeped in the Latin language?

It is much more likely that his character would be driving a 2nd hand Nissan Leaf and dealing with a lot of annoying questions about how long it takes to charge and what the range is.

i don't think any of this rings true for him, and the Jim we know would be more likely to have sympathy with Brookfield for having been lied to about the use.

Yes - both of these. I found his antics last night incomprehensible.

I remember Dana! Also remember being beside myself with excitement when it was Cliff Richard in 1973. My parents said I could stay up to watch the show - but I fell fast asleep and they carried me to bed.

The thing is, though, that the B&B wasn't Ben's idea. So far as I remember, he just offered to run it to show he's using his time usefully when he's not continuing his university course. He didn't have to make that offer, and in a way he was pressured into that because David kept banging on about how he should go back to university, despite the fact that catching up with all he had missed would have made life even more difficult for him.

But even if you take the line that he agreed to do it so he must do it, I still think that if it was my son who had recently had a bad breakdown and was working full time in a difficult job in addition to helping out with the B&B and the farm, I would be cutting him quite a lot of slack and wouldn't be shouting at him for wanting a bit of help with the venture that was making money for my business. After all, David is quick enough to ask him to help out on the farm as well.

It's been a while since my Caecillius days!

I AM HAVING FLASHBACKS "Caecilius ist in horto". Arghh. I need a lie down in a darkened room

I think Ben's rationale was that the urgent £10k loan repayment was all his fault...and he had to find a way of paying the family back. I can't remember whose idea the B&B was, but I think Ben volunteered.

I would struggle to tell you who has been in the recent Eurovisions (apart from last year's and the Austrian bearded lady) but I do remember Abba winning in Brighton. I was a preschooler when Dana won (but she must have carried on singing for a fair amount of time afterwards as I immediately pictured her as a young singer - she must have been on Morecambe & Wise or Wogan or something similar).

I seem to remember that people were grumbling on You and Yours about how touts had snapped up Eurovision tickets this year; perhaps Harrison will hunt them down and arrest them.

iirc Fiat justitia ruat caelum is what Peter Wimsey said when the Rector shot the gun up the chimney

I remember Dana winning.

The following Monday as I was on my way to school with a friend, she told me Dana had gone into hospital. "What's wrong with her?" I naturally asked.

"All kinds of everything," she replied.

Excellent!

‘There's no occasion for alarm,' said the vicar, popping out his head
like a showman from behind the curtain. ‘Now -- are we all ready?'
Mr Puffett put on his bowler hat.
‘Ruat cœlum!' said Peter; and the gun went off.

Warm glow of appreciation for Peter Wimsey.

Is anyone else on here a Margery Allingham fan?

Yes, but not all her work. Also Josephine Tey.

(I liked Wimsey adapting the tag to fit the occasion; he had foreseen that the heavens probably were going to fall.)

the heavens probably were going to fall

That’s what you get for blaspheming innocent pot plants.

I love Margery Allingham's Albert Campion books, especially The Tiger in the Smoke, and much prefer Campion to Peter Wimsey. I find Wimsey rather tiresome. He didn't deserve Harriet Vane. Montague Egg, DLS's other detective, is much more appealing. Having said that, DLS was a very good writer.

I'm also very fond of the Josephine Tey books, especially Miss Pym Disposes.

Considered purely as a whodunnit plotter, though, Dame Agatha Christie rules supreme for me. She'd have had a field day with Ambridge.

Who do you think would be the best amateur/consulting detective in Ambridge?

I'd like Lynda although she has all the subtlety of an out of control forklift.

Susan would have all the gossip. Jim is the cleverest, in some ways. Certainly not poor Harrison!

mustardland

sorry, that was not really a post. ignore it. ignore this one too.

I stumbled upon Josephine Tey this summer; great books.

On the basis that most of the characters have undergone character transplants over the past couple of years, I will nominate Jakob as super-sleuth. He listens.

Or perhaps Leonard (who seems to be able to turn his hands to anything these days).

Other 1920s-50s female detective I reread for comfort are Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver books. Miss Silver appeared in a novel marginally before Miss Marple, and is fractionally lower in the class pecking order (very respectable and has lots of posh friends) and she earns her own money by working as an investigator.

I'm not dissing any of the other Queens of Crime, have read them all more than once, just suggesting an addition - lots of social observation, and always a romance subplot with a happy ending.

I love those, Dean. I managed to acquire quite a few secondhand many years ago. Very comforting!