Archers thread #157: How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless clan! Discuss The Grundys here. Bicker about The Archers as well if you like.

[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, 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 the idea of making it clear in the title many of us are inveterate bickerers!

Now over to you, as we are about to eat and I won't hear tonight's offering till later ....

an ‘outdoor arena’ could mean an all weather xc course I suppose - this would be in keeping with the recent course build too (but is clearly not what is intended as it’s not that hard to clarify). That said, I find all the ‘horsey’ conversations incredibly tedious. Even allowing for layman interpretation it’s just not how horsey people speak/converse/use terminology

I find them tedious too, which is because I know nothing about horses. Something in common with the SWs at last ...

I was delighted to hear Sykesy again. I like him.

Sykesy sounded well - I thought he was sent off to another home because he wasn’t well?

Yes, that was a bit odd. Clearly no dementia. Mobility issues The Laurels couldn't cope with? That doesn't seem very plausible.

I don't know about much about Anglican funerals, but that wasn't at all true to life for a Catholic funeral (I would have thought they'd be similar): the priest gives a homily, the family and friends give the eulogy separately. The homily is religious, it might have some anecdotes about the deceased but that's not its main focus. The eulogy is the place for the full biography (although I prefer eulogies which give more of a flavour of who the person really was rather than what year they started working at Tate and Lyle).

Sykesy told Ben he couldn’t stay at the Laurels after he broke his hip because he needed nursing care that they couldn’t provide. He was mentally fine.

So. A stand up show for Christmas. Please please please tell me that hasn't been the entire bloody point of having Jasper Carrot (much as i like him) in the show.

Please, I'm begging you.

Natasha and Justin. A match made in heaven. She KNOWS he's after the land, surely? she isn't stupid (just tedious and horrible). And my guess is she may have been hoping to build a house on that land anyway? Good to see Justin get a bit of a come-uppance there though.

Sykesy ended up somewhere too far for Ben to visit and with mobility issues. I find his spritely appearance odd

there's a lot of weird stuff going on at the moment

Thanks, @KingsleyBorder. That's odd, though, isn't it? There's a place near my Mum which decades ago was an old people's home. People went to live there because they were starting to find it difficult to manage at home without help and/or were lonely. Nowadays they only take people who genuinely can't live independently, even with carers, which often means they have dementia and/or serious mobility issues. Surely this is fairly typical of most residential homes?

there's a lot of weird stuff going on at the moment

Never a truer word!

I've been to funerals where the vicar/celebrant did the eulogy, generally I think because the family didn't feel up to it.

this has cemented in my mind why I don’t want a funeral tbh

and I’m not keen on special guest stars and unlikely sl built around them.

are farmers famous for their stand up routines?

I've been to funerals where the vicar/celebrant did the eulogy, generally I think because the family didn't feel up to it.

We had the vicar and a school friend do Dad's - they had both known him very well for many years, so it was 2 parts.

I too dislike Justin's voice. He could easily be a silent.

Justin's "Damnation" in that episode was pure Dick Dastardly - so Wacky Races it is @Fink.

Yes quite normal I think. My parents both had Methodist ministers conducting their funeral and that is what they did. with information given by us.

Sykesy fell over and broke his hip; he was sent to a convalescent home to recover from the resultant operation, in spite of The Laurels having been perfectly able to take care of Christine Barford when she broke her hip falling over Hilda-the-Evil-Cat, and broken hips generally not taking twelve weeks to recover from.

He was told at the time he would make a full recovery as long as there weren't complications, and in general there are not complications after a straightforward hip replacement operation.

It still couldn't possibly be 10 acres - even half of that would be absolutely eyewatering to put an all-weather surface on in terms of costs. A standard 20x40 arena would be in the region of £30,000. A quick back-of-a-fag-packet calculation suggests that 1 acre of arena space would be in excess of £150,000, and that's just the surface. Fencing and equipment such as jumps would be extra!

But in sykesy - why was there such a fuss made when he was moved then?

Because plot. I have long since given up expecting TA to make any particular sense.

True

Perhaps he'll have his glorious triumph before keeling over on stage and finally being written out.

Sounds like we're luckier than I thought as Catholics then, I didn't realise our practice wasn't what other denominations did. I like a nice eulogy given by the family, you get to find out so much about what the deceased was really like.

My sister more or less wrote it and the minister used what she said but uplifted it somehow making it even more positive. I wouldn't have done anything differently.

I went to a Catholic funeral earlier this year. It was as Fink describes. I think technically it was a requiem mass. It was certainly longer and more complex than any other funeral I've ever attended. The deceased, an Irishwoman who had lived in the UK for most of her adult life, was a very devout Catholic and the funeral was in the church where she had worshipped. Her daughter had very carefully carried out her mother's last wishes when arranging the funeral, with just a nod to the daughter's own beliefs, which were rather different, and I found that very touching.

At my Dad's funeral (Church of Scotland, so Presbyterian), the lay reader standing in for the minister read the eulogy as I don't think any of us could have done it. I wrote the eulogy based on a document my Dad left outlining his life history. It was quite short and gave an outline account of his family background, career, retirement activities and his interests, rounding off with a bit about what he was like as a person. This is the approach I've usually come across at previous funerals, both religious and secular.

I’ve been to many, many funerals in Anglican churches, a handful of secular or loosely Anglican crematorium services, and a few funerals in Catholic Churches.

I’d say the variation in the Anglican ones is massive. The style of ‘he was born in 1948 to Jane bloggs, a housewife, and Jim Bloggs, a particle physicist’ is quite secular, to my mind. But in most a member or members of the family will give at least a flavour of the deceased’s life, or will give notes to the priest to do so. A religious sermon will either be given in addition to this, or the notes on the person’s life will be merged with a religious message.

It seems to depend very much on the priest, the church, and whether the priest knew the family.