Archers thread #169: Denise rocks the boat in more than one way! Will Chris find a message in a cider bottle? 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'd have liked to have Harrison's behbe, 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 https://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 @LikeTalkingToLassie and @BrightYellowDaffodil for title inspiration. Is this the end for Denise and John? It does seem odd to introduce John now if he's going to disappear. He has a lovely voice.

Over to you!

Lovage is good in curries.

Lovage is one of my favourite things in the entire world! It used to be the centrepiece of my physic garden - and used in every possible dish.

I used to use it a lot until I heard it interferes with calcium absorption which is an issue for me.

My cat has cystitis/a UTI so I have been back and forth to the vets this past week. Thankfully he is on the mend now but I got a follow up email today asking if I had considered a supplement that is supposed to help with general bladder good health - £24 for 100 capsules. It made me immediately think of Ali-stare, upselling and the scene in the stock cupboard with Denees and the bags of dog food supplements!

I just love the randomness of this thread!

It had not yet been published: this was in conversation, not in print. So no reading around was involved for that particular bit. (I think he later used it when he was writing introductions to a new edition of Dickens, but I had a complete Dickens already so I didn't read it even then.)

My favourite work by Dickens is "The Magic Fishbone", which I don't think has ever been filmed. “Be good, then, and don’t!” has been part of our family language for a long time. (And before anyone asks, The Young Visitors was published in 1890 and "The Magic Fishbone" in 1867, so he wasn't making fun of Daisy Ashford.) www.gutenberg.org/files/23344/23344-h/23344-h.htm

Yes, all of these. I was inspired to read the books in every case and as a result read lots of novels I might not have been inclined towards. Therese Raquin is a good example - I had never heard of it before I watched the BBC adaptation.

Ha, thank you for ’The Magic Fishbone’ @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime - I’ve never come across it before.

It’s much better spelling than Daisy Ashford used! (I’m a big fan of The Young Visiters).

I find a lot of Dickens a bit exaggerated, but Bleak House is a masterpiece. That reminds me, I haven’t reread it for a few years.

If we are digressing into Victorian literature, I have to recommend ‘The Diary of a Nobody’ by Charles & Weedon Grossmith.

Meanwhile, back on track - surely a ‘quote’ is just that; the buyer can go back and say they want various bits deleted. It’s hard to believe a businesswoman of Natasha’s experience would’ve bought personalised items without having at least a deposit and a signed contract.

Emma is clearly oblivious to the increasingly frosty reception that her comments are getting. I do hope somebody turns around and points out her own hardly blameless past! (‘So, is it still adultery if the other person is your partner’s brother …’)

I thought Elizabeth's reaction was comically predicatable. She just about managed not to voice the thought 'I gave you that advice thinking it was about some anonymous pleb. Obviously with darling Freddie you should have come down on the perp like a meat cleaver through a carcass. My son's bully should have had his testicles handed to him wrapped in pages from your grievance procedural handbook.'

Apparently no other worker is a beloved son of anyone, only Freddie matters. 🙄

Also, I'm not one to prefer tv and film adaptations to books in general, but I do find Dickens on screen more palatable than the original. I can't be doing with a 20 page description of landscape or furniture, just show it with a picture.

Why can't effing Pip talk to Natasha.

It's not Natasha's job to do it

Elizabeth is out of order.

As for organising the village fete, pantomimes etc. In the Archers it's all last minute. In reality these things are planned months in advance.

My mum used to make a potato salad which had three ingredients - potato cubes, peas and Heinz salad cream.

I made it for a pot-luck lunch and some people really liked it!

“Why can't effing Pip talk to Natasha”

Fallon mentioned she had already spoken to Natasha several times, so seems to have taken on a coordinating role. I think it was someone else who suggested Fallon could then ring her about it getting out of hand and Pip said if she could that would be great as whenever she rings Natasha she does not listen.

So seems Pip has rung herself but let Natasha talk all over her. Pip should have just replied to the email. STOP buying thing none of this has been confirmed.

Speaking of ingredients - did I really hear Susan (possibly) say yesterday that Brian had popped into the shop ‘for a tin of corned beef’?

Now, I know he must be missing Jenny’s cooking skills, but I thought he’d addressed that. I’m astonished to hear that corned beef is still available to buy in England - even more astonished that Brian might be buying it. One can at a time.

Corned beef hasn’t ever been unavailable, both Fray Bentos and own brand. Complete with little key to aid you in cutting your fingers on that coiled up strip of metal.

Corned beef and crisps sandwiches were one of my lunchtime staples (I had my own office)

Corned beef hash, yummy, but far too much for one person in a can.

Don't add the peas and that is the potato salad for me; with a little garlic salt. People will mess it up by using Hellman's mayonnaise.....

This is best eaten with corned beef sandwiches on sliced white laundry bread, with a little mango chutney.

Sometimes childhood comfort foods are a great deal more palatable than foofy nouvelle cuisine with herbs scattered on it so you have to scrape them off...

@TottersBlanklyTowardsImaginarySunlight , You did (2 minutes in).

Oh @MerelyPlaying I LOVE that book! Mr Charles Pooter. What a hero. It just makes me cry with laughter every single time I read it. See also Three Men in a Boat.

There are a number of what I decided a while ago are "one-off" books even if the author then wrote sequels – which are rarely if ever as good. Or scads of other books, even.

Off the top of my head:

Diary of a Nobody
Augustus Carp, Esq., By Himself: Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man
Three Men in a Boat
Cold Comfort Farm
No Bed For Bacon
The Brontës Went to Woolworths
1066 And All That
The Rose and the Ring

and I know there are others but I can't at the moment remember them.

And thinking of Three Men in a Boat, did anyone else, when Elizabeth realised the bullied one at work was Freddie not some nameless faceless pleb, think "It isn't my shirt – it's yours!" ("I never saw a man’s face change from lively to severe so suddenly in all my life before.")? Which led me almost at once to the meditation on the habits of tow-lines, and the tin of pineapple. And avoiding Henry VIII when he was wooing.

I love corned beef. I always buy it in a tin. My mother always buys it sliced. I love it with potato in all its forms. I like it in a sandwich. It goes very well with baked beans. Great stuff. I always knew Brian and I would get on.

Keeps well in the fridge. I am the only person here who will eat it, so it has to keep. <makes mental note to see if there is a tin in stock at present>

I suspect I'd get on better with Kate.

I even put the last third of a can in the freezer one time. Excellent stuff.

Here we go.... George in the pub coming close to confessions