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!

Yes - not easily though!! I would imagine most people don’t notice.

I don’t like having to order online so won’t be going back!!

not as bad as an insta famous chain that expects you to download their app. Only when a fuss is made do they bring you a paper menu and let you pay in the old fashioned way

Oops sorry - for some reason my style and beauty name has come up here as standard. So irritating

I find that showing people who want me to download their app my 2006 Nokia and saying apologetically "I'm afraid my phone doesn't do that" works wonders.

I like paying by app 🤷‍♀️.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime , that's a good tip. Thanks.

It is a nice venue, has a nice cafe too and convenient for public transport.

Ha ha very good. It’s a stone’s throw from home for me but I’m not sure whether I will go, quite expensive and I’d be slightly embarrassed to tell DH where I was going!

Texels are like sheep shaped tanks.

Ugly beasts.

Papamonkey keeps Southdowns, which are like sturdy little teddy bears.

Click on @Heather37231's screenshot or you will miss one of the joke ticket titles.

How thick would you have to be to greet a disastrous electrical fault in a building that you live in by whining about the difficulty of persuading a cowboy to cobble things back together rather than by saying Thank God we weren't burned to death in our beds.

Kenton and Jolene are old enough to have known people who lost their homes if not their lives to dodgy wiring.

Quite apart from the issue already raised about the legal requirements in pubs.

I just googled them. Bloody hell! Their physiques look like dogs! And the bollocks on them!! They look like the XL Bully of the sheep world!

Ed should move over to Valais Blacknose sheep. Nobody would kick them off the cricket pitch.
https://thefarmatsummitwynds.com/services-view/worlds-cutest-sheep/

Keep the sheep pics coming!

What a moaner Kenton is. Very unattractive quality in a life partner.

I wonder where Mia is going to study next year, and what subject. Rather hoping she goes to Aberdeen or some other place a long way off.

K and J sounded like children last night. Or a young couple who have just moved into their first flat. Of course they would have texted Lilian within about 10 mins of the lights going out.

Heavens! Are those Valais Blacknose sheep real? Never seen anything like them. Maybe a bit too outlandish to be cute.

I’m not much concerned with where Mia does her first degree - but I’ll be desperately disappointed if she becomes another Kirsty, tethered to Ambridge for life when she might have had the world at her feet.

I can’t see many people being willing to take on the texels to get them off the pitch tbh!

I’ve been waiting for someone to post a pic of those Valais sheep. I couldn’t remember their name but they are adorable.

And providing “environmentally friendly, silent fireworks” that turned out to be nothing of the sort. Oh how we laughed! No wait, we didn’t laugh, we were just baffled by the total lack of comeback on Eddie.

He absolutely is a grifter. I agree with PP who said no wise landowner would let Grundy sheep near their land, as they’d never bloody get rid of them. See: Oliver trying to sell land that is his, having been insanely and unrealistically generous to the Grundies for years.

Those Valais sheep look like they have been knitted 😍.
The nicest of all are Herdwick, but I love texels too - a group of young ones once chased me and 2 dogs off a country path .
I was very impressed with their spirit!

I was thinking of going, I'm fairly local, but that is very very pricey for a jolly! Wasn't expecting it to be more expensive than the Chelsea Flower Show. (Admittedly I have never been to a conference so perhaps it's normal.)

Poor Hilda. I have a cat allergy and cats. It usually takes me a month or two to get used to a new cat, I take antihistamine as needed. They really should have looked at alternatives to dumping her. I'd love for her to become the pub cat, every pub needs one. Unlike a peacock!

Oh my God. New life goal is to a Valais or three. They are unbelievably cute!!

My parents kept Shetland sheep. Nimble little buggers, in pretty colours. They had one ewe, Kirsty, who was bottle fed as a lamb and was never really content once reabsorbed into the flock as an older sheep. We'd regularly find her on the front doorstep or in the kitchen if doors were left open, having leapt over a plethora of fences/hedges/streams to get back home 😂

Have a look at Herdwick rams being shown. The bollocks are almost on the floor.

Placing my bet now - that Jolene is a bigamist. And Kenton therefore not legally married to her.

so you reckon the mysterious stranger is her husband????

Yup.

If I’m right I’ll give it a retrospective BOOP. Was beautifully done.