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!

Not a Queen of Crime, but same vintage - I used to enjoy my mother’s John Dickson Carr/Carter Dickson. Not forgiven my father for disposing of them, but since there’s no way of holding a coherent conversation with him nowadays, I have to vent elsewhere.

More recent are the books by Hazel Holt about a woman called Sheila Malory who solves crimes occasionally. I haven't by any means read all of them, but I have enjoyed the ones that I have read.

I was waiting for Debbie to say "I can't come back to Ambridge; you can't afford me"

I’ve tried hard with Albert Campion - but I always feel so empty at the end of each story, and wonder what the point of it all was. Whereas with Harriet and Peter I’m left with a lifetime of deeply felt discovery and satisfaction.

And Josephine Tey’s novels are just a masterclass in structure. With DLS I’m in love with the characters, with Tey I’m in love with the writing.

I wonder if Adam overheard Brian offering (management of) the farm to Debbie over his own poor head. That would be a heap of trouble coming …

I love those Mrs Malory books - I like the way the small town background meshes in with the plots - very Ambridge.

For an appalled moment there I feared Debbie was going to accept the offer to stay - even Stella's fury wouldn't be compensation enough. I also got very distracted wondering what Jim and the room smelled like if he hadn't been able to get to the bathroom for 18 hours or however long it was. Maybe he'd been tottering over and back along the corridor on an hourly basis and the dopeys were too dim to notice

I remember you mentioning the Miss Silver books a while back (at Another Place which shall remain nameless) DeanV. I downloaded one from Faded Page (which is basically the Canadian version of Project Gutenberg) and ended up reading all of them - or those they had, about 30 or so. Very enjoyable.

Peter and Harriet reign supreme - I watched part of the TV adaptation of Strong Poison in the eighties, and ended up reading the books to work out how the story ended. Have loved them ever since.

Just listened to this evening's episode. Ridiculous characterisation of an older person not understanding social media. Jim still has all his faculties, he isn't a poor old man who can't get his head round modern technology, he would have done at least some research.

I did think he carried off his exit splendidly. You would never have known from his demeanour that it was a complete failure.

Still, since he said it was nothing David needed to worry about perhaps he has taken in the utter futility of having a feud against David, who is completely powerless in the matter.

As clerk of the parish council Jim would have known about this proposed change-of-use and development before the pc discussed it in order to put forward any objections, and would know perfectly well that David was not the proposer and therefore not the person he needed to defeat.

Even if he had "won", he would have gained nothing whatever..

Even if Adam didn't hear that brushing aside, WE DID!

Do we put Ngaio Marsh in the Queens of Crime category? I enjoyed some of hers, though she did get a bit precious over Drama and Art, both definitely with capital initial letters.

Yes … Only I try never to recall the trauma of the first one of hers I read. It was so shockingly gruesome I couldn’t face another for years. And now I’ve forgotten them all - which is a shame.

They used to put Christie, Sayers, Allingham and Marsh at the 'top' (possibly just on the basis of sales) and the critics often add in Tey and Gladys Mitchell. I have never understood why Patricia Wentworth is always left out - afaik she has never been out of print.

If you think Marsh is gruesome, never read Peter James.

Noted!

Poor SW! Laboured over a week’s worth of scripts - and no one has a word to say about the omnibus!

Is this a vote of no confidence in Jim’s unlikely protest antics?

No confidence, or no interest?

No confidence. Nonsensical. Out of character for Jim. So unlikely that anyone would do this. Surely, even if the campaign was a logical step, he'd be pestering the developers?

Paying your opponent to let you stay in his house for the night is a sure-fire way of defeating his evil schemes, to be sure.

Long time Archers lurker, just popping in to say hello to other Josephine Tey people. “The Daughter of Time” was a set text in my first year History degree, to illustrate how history is written by the victors. I think Tey’s most enjoyable book is Brat Farrar, and it’s perfectly narrated on Audible by our very own Carole Boyd aka Lynda Snell.

Very fond of dear Miss Silver, and can recommend Diana Bishop’s narration on Audible. A kind, intelligent warm bath of a listen, if that makes any sense.

God, Alice was annoying tonight.

I wonder if Brian's move is intended to show (in time) the perceived unwisdom of making major changes in the first year after a bereavement. Having "a fall" and all that.

At what time of life does "falling" become "having a fall"?
It's the same with the difference between Gosh, I've been so busy lately, with the head-tilting Have you been keeping busy? I detest the latter, with its connotations of an achingly empty life that needs to be stuffed with, er stuff. As opposed to just living.

Phew, I'm glad I got that off my chest.

Perhaps if Brian has a sudden heart attack, or a stroke, he would prefer to die before he is found, since now that Jennifer is dead the only people that he has to live for are his grasping children. And since that could happen quite as well in Willow Cottage as in Blossom Hill Cottage, I don't think that particular major change would be all that relevant.

If that isn't what he would want, perhaps Brian ought to get an alarm to hang round his neck, and put a key-safe near the front door. He doesn't have to give the key-safe's number to any of his children, after all!

(I remember the heartbreaking moment, about a year after my mother's death, when my father asked me – because I was doing a doctoral thesis on plants in Mediaeval literature so he thought I might know – whether hemlock would grow in his greenhouse, and I had to break it to him that the sort he wanted almost certainly wouldn't. He was very cast down; he had been researching poisons and felt it would be less horrible to die of than most.)

Your poor dad, AskingQuestionsAllThe Time. I support people's right to take their own way in these matters, but it must have been grievous to know that's how badly he felt.

I've supporting an older neighbour in setting up one of those pendant alarms and, it's certainly given them peace of mind. I'm amazed at how sophisticated they are these days. I get notifications if the battery is running low!!

As a follow golden age detective fiction reader/archers listener, I can recommend a podcast called 'Shedunnit', a lovely discussion of themes and ideas in a variety of authors from the most popular to the least read. I tend to listen to TA via podcast so am often days or weeks behind this chat, so pretty excited to be able to chip in here!