Archers thread #160: Ram a lamb a ding dong! To rate the mass wisteria in Ambridge, tap the feedback tablet 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'd have given a home to Hilda the Hellcat, or other unusual views.

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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 @MerryChristmasToYou, @OverArmour and @LillianGish for the thread title ideas.

This week is a bit better than last week, but the Brad/Adil/Lily stuff is very odd. Coming up to the anniversary of Jennifer's death (22nd January last year). We need a new matriarch - could that be Natasha? I find her quite an interesting character. Sometimes she's awful and then she has moments as last night where she utterly redeems herself.

Over to you!

The flowers were on the graves in the graveyard.

Grimchmas
They were talking about putting up (temporary) netting fencing in the episode, I thought? I imagine they took them in a livestock trailer to a certain point but had to go through the churchyard(!) to reach the cricket field.

Ed optimistically had put up netting round "the wickets" (I expect he meant the square). This will last for just as long as the sheep don't notice it is there, at a guess.

It is clear from the map (I linked to it upthread: page 19, 4th post) and what was said on air that they started on foot at Grange Farm herding the sheep, and went through the churchyard on their way to the bridge over the Am, which Eddie mentioned on air as being the next tricky bit. After that bridge they would have had to go through the whole village to get to the cricket field, which is at the far end of the village from the Am.

They also said they had a hundred sheep – I suppose this is the thirty ewes, plus fifty-something last year's lambs that Ed had not sold, plus this year's lambs, but that arithmetic makes no sense unless he got his act together and got rid of some at least of last year's that he still had in November. I doubt the Grundys have the size of trailer they'd need to load that number of animals into once they had got them across the bridge. And if they were going to load them, why not do it at Grange Farm rather than after the bridge, in full view of the whole village, where people would have been pointing and laughing and telling their children to "look at the funny man!"

There is a track which leads from the road to the cricket pavilion, so if a trailer had been used at all it would have been able to get straight onto the cricket field. I do hope Ed has made a decent job of fencing that track to be sheep-proof, or they will be all over the road in to Borchester in no time flat. Unfortunately I am not sure how good he is at confining his sheep even with permanent fences; they've got loose at least twice that we've heard about on air.

I also have my doubts about the sheep-proof nature of the fence between the cricket field and the country park. I suspect that it isn't.

BrightYellowDaffodil
And yes, the timing of the funeral seemed odd. If it was dark enough that the sheep were being moved under the cover of late dusk, that’s nearly 5pm now.

The sheep were being moved in broad daylight, starting at 2pm according to when Brad had been told the day before that he had to be there. Brad wondered aloud why they were not moving them after dark so they wouldn't be seen, and Eddie scoffed at him and asked if he had ever tried to move sheep in the dark.

I don't see why a funeral should not be happening at two-thirty or three in the afternoon if that was what the bereaved wanted, say if they needed to get to it from a distance and didn't want to stay for two nights in an inconvenient place? Mind you, I also don't see what the point was of having whatever was going on in the church being a funeral at all, since it was totally irrelevant...

Well, I just had 9 episodes to catch up on and what a load of old toot. Harry has the least sexy voice I think I’ve ever heard. I remember when he first appeared someone mentioned opioid addiction and now with his doctor’s appointment that’s looking more likely. I’m worried about Brian and hope to god it’s just Hildafever. Eddie and the heels - wtf? Ed’s grazing problem is ridiculous and his Eeyore tendencies are extremely boring. Eddie gives me the absolute rage and between him and bullying Susan I could barely get through last night’s episode. Couldn’t give a fig about the stupid fucking drinking competition rubbish and I hate it all 😤. Aaahhhh that’s better!

And where was George during the sheep moving?

And why do they always go along with Eddie’s stupid ideas? If he was an abusive arse they were all afraid of I could understand it. Grazing on the outfield was a good idea (thank you Adam) but why why why could they not wait for permission. Just ridiculous.

They have interpreted a throw-away comment from Adam (which he proba ly doesn't even remember)as permission to use the cricket field, which will come as a surprise to Adam when someone comments on all the sheep there. Anyone else would have said, "that's not a bad idea, who do we need to speak to about it?" And could even spin it as eco-friendly grass maintenance- but it's a Grundy storyline, so no.

I suspect that sheep-proof fencing all round the cricket square and all round the cricket field would cost Ed more than a week's rental for a field would cost. There is no need for a secure fence between the country park with no livestock in it and the cricket field with no livestock in it, so any fence or barrier between the two is not likely to be proof against stock, just for a start. And then there is the problem of somehow blocking the track between the road to Borchester and the cricket pavilion, which seems to have no gate.

It is just another example of a Grundy scam to save a tenner ending up costing them twenty.

@MereDintofPandiculation They have painted marks too, don’t they? So you can tell at a hundred paces whose sheep has got into your field.
Ours did. The marks were the first letter(s) of the farm name.
Brookfield a blue B, Bridge Farm a red BF, Grange Farm a green GF etc.
We had a local farmer, a bit of a character, who used to joke about grazing the Long Field. Presumably the road by Grange Farm doesn't offer such good grazing.

@Trivium4all , most of the sheep would be lambing outdoors, I think. The lambing would be staggered because the tupping would be staggered.

@BrightYellowDaffodil , Much as I love proper cheese (we have our own version of Borsetshire Blue made locally, and it’s AMAZING) I’m also partial to plastic cheese. Those singles in the wrapper? Cheese strings? Bring ‘em on.
Aye, an occasional guilty pleasure. Shropshire Blue?
White bread of any sort is an abomination although as a child I thought that sliced white bread must be terribly fancy as I'd only seen it in cafes and the sandwiches that the catering van at the auction sold. I've never actually tried it.

Shropshire Blue?

No, they’re a tiny dairy. The name is very specific and would give away my location!

I’m partial to the very expensive poncy sourdough at nearly £5 a loaf but sometimes factory made bread is where it’s at. Waitrose do a really nice sliced white loaf, makes lovely afternoon tea sandwiches 🙂

@BrightYellowDaffodil , I was thinking local version of Borsetshire Blue, and it was the only one I could think of with a county its name.

I'll eat garlic bread even though it's white. it doesn't have that white bread smell and taste.
Sourdough is something that I have tried once and won't be in a rush to eat it again.

If she were to die or develop a serious illness or disability, the Grundy clan would be absolutely at sea, as mentioned above Not just the family, the dairy too. Clarrie may well be able to lift a yogurt bucket by herself, Susan would not be able, being smaller than Clarrie. That's why i thought it would be interesting - people in Ambridge would see the Clarrie-shaped holes much more clearly than they saw Clarrie herself.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime - thanks for that terminology. It was taking a holiday from my brain when I needed it. Would that refer to the whole area on which, during the season, wickets might be prepared at at least a dozen different locations?

I also don't see what the point was of having whatever was going on in the church being a funeral at all, since it was totally irrelevant Not totally. A wedding interrupted by sheep would be amusing, a funeral similarly interrupted would be Improper.

No, they’re a tiny dairy. The name is very specific and would give away my location! Hmm - I wonder how many tiny local dairies doing a decent blue there are? Not more than a dozen or so, I would have thought?

MereDintofPandiculation
@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime - thanks for that terminology. It was taking a holiday from my brain when I needed it. Would that refer to the whole area on which, during the season, wickets might be prepared at at least a dozen different locations?

In the case of the cricket field I grew up overlooking from my bedroom window, the manicured grass in the middle, which was sacrosanct and had a single-rope fence round it, was called the cricket square, but this may not be universal. It certainly could have the wicket moved about within it as one crease or another got too worn for use and needed to be rested.

There was a terrible occasion on which I was practising archery very near the square and the wind took an arrow onto it. In fear and trembling I went and found the groundsman where he was lurking in his hut and confessed what had happened, and he fixed me with a terrible eye and told me to take my shoes off and go and fetch it carefully! I think now that he was having a giraffe, but at the time I was very impressed.

Around our way, the timing of funerals is dependent on the time slots available at the graveyard or crem. The church funeral is scheduled a set time before. The latest start time is around 2pm. When there's no burial or cremation afterwards (e.g. the body is to be repatriated for burial abroad), the priests will do a church funeral pretty much whatever time the family wants, within reason.

Well that episode ended stupidly. I liked the Brian/Azra/Hilda bit as my dog went bonkers trying to locate the cat - well done BBC sound effects. But the toss the coin? Please.

I do hope Brad isn't going to be the comedy clever working class lad who never uses his mathematical skills for anything except trivia.

Also well done to whoever predicted a cat allergy.

I feel sorry for Hilda.

Does anyone else really not care a tuppenny damn which silent won a totally uninteresting non-competition as the "cliffhanger"?

Cats have been portrayed in quite a nasty way over the years in TA, haven't they?

I feel sorry for Hilda too.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime I am absolutely on the edge of my seat...how can I bear to wait till Sunday?

cat allergy, disappointingly boring

Yeah, I really don't care about the drinking competition, unless the lights going out is going to be like an Agatha Christie scene where the lights come back on and somebody's dead, maybe from having the coin toss coin rammed down their throat. And then somebody else has to adjudicate which way round the coin is facing while it's still trapped in the corpse's trachea. That's the only way this would turn out to be an actual cliffhanger.

It's health concern central, like the ads that used to run on the TV when I was child about closing gates when out rambling. In this case, always get checked out if you are older/chest pains, etc. etc.

Well meant, if ham-fisted.

I don't mean the ads were. Do they still do them? Keep Britain tidy, and the horrific ones with children drowning and coming to a bad end on railway tracks?

It contains distressing scenes

I think the days when it was considered acceptable to show scenes of death and serious injury to young children as a cautionary tale are long gone. As are the days when anyone would pay attention to a video clip over 5 minutes long.

Also, that video kind of sent out mixed messages IMO: the children were only doing what the adults around them were telling them to do. Is the idea that you shouldn't obey grown ups because they'll give you some really idiotically dangerous instructions and then gloss over the consequences?

If we're on the topic of public warning videos, the one that really used to annoy me was the 'downloading pirated films is theft' one at the beginning of some DVDS (that I still have, and that have been set up so you can't skip it, you have to watch it again every time you turn the DVD on even if you were part way through a film). It has a list of 'You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a handbag. You wouldn't steal a television.' How do they know?! I might steal a car! Some people do, after all, and they probably also watch films.

They later had to pay out damages because the music in the advert was stolen. And it allegedly led to a rise in video piracy.

Bring back the 5 minute long grainy videos of graphically gory ends to stupid acts!

a more useful/important health message would have been the other way round though-
don't ignore a persistent wheeze/cough, assuming it to be a cat allergy!
go to your doctor!
you could have tuberculosis|