Archers thread #151: A Fête worse than death or a reverse ferret? Helen’s got the Borsetshire Blues, Tom’s talking shiitake, George is a rotten apple. 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, 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 think Helen and Tom would do well on Dragons' Den, 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.)

Thanks to @OverArmour for various title ideas! I would have liked to incorporate the suggestion from @Fleetress, which was

‘Do do one Ron, Ron, do do one Ron’

(Rob is Ron for many on this thread now)

Possibly a bit obscure for newer posters, though!

Anyway: we got through that last thread in no time at all. Combined effect of Rob and George, I suspect. I wonder if Rob will have made it to Ambridge by the time we need a new thread. I'm still waiting for Pat's shotgun to feature. That can't have been mentioned for the first time ever for no reason at all.

Over to you!

White-Spunner not Spanner-White

respectable Anglo-Irish gentry family

Apologies! Does Spunner have a Gaelic derivation / meaning?

I reckon Joy would have been a "lady at the council" a kind, but tough and fair manager in a housing or environmental health department who knew everyone and quietly got things done.

Noooooooo, @Ginmonkeyagain - in her former life she definitely carried a gun in her inoffensive handbag, and could make grown men quail in terror with just a word.

who knew everyone and quietly got things done.

Quietly? Joy? Are you sure?

The ‘reason’ Ed shot the dog was that his cows were suffering from some murrain or other and he decided dogs were responsible for bringing it onto their grazing. So, not an accident in any conventional sense of the word.

You mean like Jackie Weaver, Ginmonkey?

For those who’ve read Richard Osman’s ‘Thursday Murder Club’ books (which are entertaining enough if not great literature) - I reckon Joy presents herself like Joyce, loquacious and a bit okay, a lot dithery, but that’s purely a front for the fact that she is in fact Elizabeth - a retired MI5 agent with razor-sharp intellect and skillz.

No, the Anglo bit is more relevant genealogy-wise. But he does come from many generations of farmers.

Spooky, that's pretty much exactly what I was about to say! Joyce wouldn't have that accent, but apart from that, they're now indistinguishable in my mind.

Gasp 😊

@Ambridge @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Same here about Joy/Joyce.

Also @RegimentalSturgeon Quietly?Joy? Are you sure?

Are you mixing her up with Lynda? Joy has recently helped sort several situations recently, in a very sensible way, eg on the morning of the fete she stopped Lynda having a go at Eddie about reading the fete stall plan wrong, and got her to focus on the job at hand - actually getting on with running the fete - instead.

I think the SWs have changed their vision for Joy. She started out being the most annoying neighbour you could ever have but perhaps they found this to be too limiting script-wise. She could never have had a love interest or helped Ben/Eddie/others with her initial flawed, two-dimensional character. So they have gradually redrawn her and successfully given her a PT and now she is a nice asset to the village who can dip in and out of SLs as needed.

Agreed on all points, @EmmasBirthdayEarrings!

They can shift! Awesome machines.

No, I’m not confusing La Horville with the pestilential Snell, but thank you anyway. Joy talks too much, always has; now, what she says may be less irrelevant because not always about the mythical Rochelle, but there are still too many words coming out of her mouth. Snell, on the other hand, is an active menace whom I cannot imagine any real community tolerating in the way the stupefied denizens of Ambridge do.

@RegimentalSturgeon are you the poster who, shall we say, had a very dry take on TA? Then, just as we were getting to know them, they stopped posting. Would recognise user name, but can't recall it.

Actually, after a bit of thought, I got what you meant about Joy talking a lot, but it was too late - I had posted. Joy doesn't do it quite so much now, does she, now she's got over her nervousness and got to know people?

I love Joy's accent, which includes "we" for "us," as occurs in Tyneside accents to this day. It's pronounced wi' - that's the nearest I can get, and she said it in tonight's episode (IIRC) I wonder if the SWs write "us" and the actress says "No, Joy would say "we"

BTW I am a Southerner who came to the NE some 50 or so years ago, and have loved living here ever since.

*last night's episode
I don't have a crystall ball

Ed was convinced, in spite of having been specifically told by his vet that it was extremely unlikely, that one of his cattle having died of a disease was because a dog had carried infection onto his land. He therefore hated all dogs for the time being. When he saw one and happened to have a gun ready to hand, he blasted at it without further thought. (It is to be hoped that this was not on land on which his cattle were being kept; going out potting bunnies with your cows in the same field would be remarkably stupid.) He then neither reported this to the police as he is obliged in law to do, nor offered the owner any compensation, preferring to buy a puppy as a Christmas present for the child who had loved the dog he killed.

Incidentally it is illegal to kill a working dog at all unless it is actively engaged in worrying your livestock at the time. Which I assume (see comment above about guns and cows) was not the case on this occasion. So Ed broke the law three times during this incident; once when he fired the gun over land which he didn't own (it belonged to Borchester Land), once when he killed a working dog, and once when he failed to report having done so to the police. I am not at all sure it was his own gun, either: if he did own a gun, why hadn't he been out shooting rabbits for the pot when he and Emma were so poor that Ed was licking out the margarine tub because he was hungry?

@Reggieismycat I have always envisaged Joy as a retired community matron in a postman pat type village, pottering around in a little car changing dressings and giving old people flu shots and being very cheery and competent.

I think Joy would have been a midwife - she’s kindly, empathetic and quite mothering but also strong, confidence giving and persuasive.

Is it just me getting a bit of a frisson between Ed and Stella? I know Stella is destined for Pip. But there was something there in the Bull wasn't there?

Well, no, I posted much the same upthread. Though I will admit I forgot for a minute about Stella being gay. However, that wouldn't prevent my alternative hypothesis of Emmur deciding something was going on and having a go at Stella, very loudly and very publicly. In fact, George will probably try to make her think precisely that.

Was just about to write that I think George will definitely drop hints in front of Emma to suggest Ed and Stella are hanging an affair.

Emma will go into crazed screech mode and insist Ed leaves his job. Or cause such a horrible scene that Stella thinks it best Ed leaves.

Bingo - George will step into Ed’s job.

I wonder if sometimes the SWs don’t realise the impression certain scenes create. It certainly looked as if Ed and Stella were getting on well in the pub, but I suspect they just dragged out that conversation to fill airtime.

Maybe I’m still bitter about all the hope they conjured up when Oliver was praising Tracy to the skies after she (?) chased some rowdies from the pub. I shipped like I’d never shipped before …

May be Stella is the Captian Jack Harness of Ambridge - flirting and seducing her way round villagers of all sexes and orientations.