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.

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 @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!

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime They look like welsh sheep. It looks like the Valleys somewhere. Bus stop is Safle bws. (zoomed in on the sign).
@MereDintofPandiculation , oops!
@newtlover , beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Image of cute sheep:

Those are cute. I mean the Texels are cute in a way but I wouldn’t want to come across a flock of them down a dark alley

Better stay away from Ambridge then, @Bruisername
I was looking at them with a stockperson's eyes. The dorset downs look a bit too cute to eat.

So, Ed has access to 38 more acres than the local equestrian centre and can’t run a few poxy sheep yet the stables have build a successful XC course, full livery, hirelings AND riding school on 2 acres…

Also, all sheep are beautiful, we currently have a single regular escapee in our village and I’m tempted to rehome it in the garden as a pet. It keeps popping up in people’s Ring doorbells 😆

One of my earliest memories is of sheep escaping and following the milkman down the lane. Maybe he got the milk at the farm I don't know. The sheep all gathered in our front garden and when they'd gone there were tufts of fleece on the thorns on the roses. It was a very isolated place to live. This happened in 1957 or 8. I went back for a look round about 20 years ago and not a lot had changed although the house had a bathroom extension.

Fair advice, with or without sheep...

Once upon a time, I was crawling through a low bit of cave, a bit apprehensive at some scrabbling noises (especially as there had been animal bones at the entrance) when I emerged at the bottom of a daylight rift. I located the scrabbling sounds to a narrow tunnel leading off the rift, and saw a pair of 👀 which I worked out belonged to a sheep backing away from me along the tunnel. Not quite a flock of Texels in a dark alley, but close.

@ClickyHeels now those are cute
but quads???

Wow! What did you do?

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g Backed off and called out cave rescue.

I didn't have the gear to haul it out of the vertical daylight rift, and I wasn't going to wrestle it through flat out crawls.

That’s fascinating, it’s a window into another world

“empty gimmer”! Things priced in guineas!

I just wanted to let people know there is another Academic Archers conference, it's in London this time and you can go for one day or both. Here is the link: www.academicarchers.net/2024-conference

Oooh! Isn’t that the same place the inaugural conference was held? I enjoyed that but haven’t been back since …

And eeeeuw! Listening to omnibus - hadn’t noticed that oblique reference to Susan’s sex life before!

It's close by but a bigger venue. It's owned by the Quakers and sounds nice. The cost also includes catering which is nice.
I have met a few MN people at previous ones.

@ClickyHeels The dairy near me is a place name but a village 🙂

Texels are a lamb only a ewe could love. I agree with the PP that said they’re the XL Bully of sheep, they definitely have a whiff of the ovine bulldog about them.

I'd feel sorrier for him if he hadn't decided to hoard last year's lambs and take no profit from his sheep in 2023.

I agree, the Grundies never future proof themselves. Living for the day is all well and good but you’ve got to have a plan for the future. Or a back up plan, and it can’t be “Find someone to pick up the pieces”.

And some people are just bloody grifters anyway. Less Ed but definitely Eddie. Remember his efforts with the fete where he was going to put up some ramshackle “tarpaulin on poles” and pocket the money that should have gone to pay for a proper marquee?

Here in the Forest of Dean, sheep roam freely. I often see a flock grazing the patch of grass outside the library in what passes for the local town 🐑🐑🐑🐑

We even have a Grundy-esque figure, in the shape of one Jeremy Awdry, who was served with an ASBO way back when they were still a thing, for using his free roaming sheep to intimidate locals by shutting them in the back gardens of people who had annoyed him.

Unfortunately even if Ed were to move here, the free grazing rights are exclusive to born and bred Foresters known as "sheep badgers". Some sort of ancient law that hasn't yet been repealed. Those born in the Forest can also claim miner's rights to freemine coal and iron, but unless you have a home birth you can't actually have a baby born in the Forest since the maternity unit shut a while ago.

I feel like the Grundys (Grundies?) would rather like it here actually. I can imagine them with a health and safety nightmare of a mine in the garden and sheep all over the place.

@MollyButton, thanks for that link to the conference.

Even if one doesn't intend to go, it is well worth clicking right through until you get to the ticketing options. Which have hilarious yet appropriate names.

I'm hoping to go. I once went to a Buffy the Vampire Academic Conference in Norwich!

I haven't been listening much lately.

Do we know what the doctor told Harry the other day?

No. I think it was meant to be a cliffhanger that we would care about.

I thought the non-paper pricing for the fashion show was interesting. I've been to a couple of cafes that like to run their menus like this, and it's very hard indeed to have a grasp of the menu - the human eye can range over pages far more quickly than scrolling - at least this human's eyes.

I always insist on paper, which they always have.

It's like music in restaurants, "giving" the customer something no-one ever asked for.

I was in a restaurant yesterday where you have to order on the website and then get your own cutlery etc. they bring the food to you. They had an automatic service charge of 5% which I was surprised by - I would have expected them to be cheeky and ask for 12.5

gosh that would annoy me - can you have the 5% taken off?

Does anyone here happen to know the legal requirements for the testing of electrical wiring in places of public entertainment such as pubs? I think it has to be done every five years, but it might be every three, and all I can find on line is the (non mandatory) ten yearly recommendation for private dwellings.