Archers thread #192: Village of the Dammed. Discuss the beavers here. Throw in the odd word about the Archers if you must.

[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 love to have Kate present as you give birth, 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.)

I'm more excited about the arrival of the beavers than anything else going on in Ambridge at the moment. I hope there will be a webcam.

Bets on how much of next week is set in the castle or on the way there/back? I'm bracing myself for at least 50%.

they literally said, though, that she practically had to drive past their house. So all she needed to do was stop, see if he was home and pick him up.

Jennifer was a very popular name in the 1950s to 1970s and then became very unfashionable. I don't think it's on its way back up yet.

Margaret was less popular after the war (in England - it held on longer in Scotland) but Mrs T dealt it a death blow throughout the UK, especially in strong Labour families. I believe it's having a bit of a revival in the US but it will be a slow return to favour here. Meg, Meggie, Margo(t), Peggy, Daisy and (perhaps surprisingly, given it was so often used for Mrs T) Maggie are all more common, benefiting from the trend to put a short form name on the birth certificate and the revival of 'old lady' names, i.e. names the new parents' grandparents and great-grandparents might have had, rather than their own parents. I don't know if Ms Thunberg has inspired anyone to call their daughter Greta. Megan has other associations now and is a stand alone name anyway. I don't have the impression there's much interest in Rita, Margery, Marjorie, Marguerite and Margarita.

Not many other names have this number of variants! Mary and Elizabeth are the only ones I can think of.

I find the move to semi-canonisation of a recently deceased relative perfectly credible. In her later years Peggy was not able to interfere very much in her family's lives. Tony has more reason than anyone else to remember what she used to be like and very satisfyingly we heard this week that he hasn't forgotten. Lilian escaped much of that. Jennifer would probably have come somewhere between the other two. I miss Jennifer.

I' e always thought Kate was
a good value character, scenes including her are usually good listening, and I've warmed to her a little,but over the years. She is so awful that I liked her.
however, being willing to leave to her family stranded while she takes the car, then hiring a taxi and driving past the father's house without calling in, is unforgivable really. Then using Jacob’s credit card! Hope he demands the money back!
you can go off people!

I shouldn't think the budget would extend to Mark Bonnar staying in the Archers for very long.

There is a tendency amongst those who live further south to glance at a map of Scotland (and Wales) and think 'Oh, X is just round the corner from Y' when in fact by road rather than as the crow flies it can be a very long journey, because of single track roads with hairpin bends and steep gradients and constant detours to avoid hills, mountains, glens, lochs, sea inlets, raging torrents and boggy moorland. My uncle used to complain about this when he worked as a sales rep covering the whole of the North of Scotland. Head Office would send him a schedule of visits he couldn't possibly manage in the time allotted.

No.

'they literally said, though, that she practically had to drive past their house.' could mean anything, and literally and practically do not always mean that.

People can be clueless with locations, and like @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g pp, 'just around the corner' can be a long journey by road.

Do guest stars get paid more than regular characters?

Going back a few weeks:
Re neighbouring farmers' names, I asked my mother about the neighbouring children's names, and they were unremarkable names e.g. something like,but not, Catherine and Sarah). We didn't really socialise with them - different school, church, village etc - so it is possible to not know.

Helen sounded a bit desperate when she was going on to Mark about how lonely life as a crofter might be. I was a bit embarrassed for her.

She also was a bit dismissive about her love for Bridge Farm which she made sound like a boring old office job. I am glad Tony didn’t hear that bit of her attempt at flirtation as he sees BF more of a vocation…

Helen always seems desperate when it comes to men.

The actual words were 'you would have pretty much passed the house."

Whenever I do a parcel return I get suggestions of where it can be dropped off. The first few are a mile or so away in a straight line, except it's a fifty mile round trip by road. Must learn to walk on water.

When my Mum's bank closed the only branch on the island, they told her the location of the nearest branch, pointing out that it was only a few miles away. They did acknowledge that getting there would mean getting the ferry to the mainland and they helpfully explained to the islanders, all regular ferry users of necessity, how that worked. This was at the height of the ferry debacle so a simple visit to the bank was about to turn into a half-day trip with an outside chance of getting stuck on the mainland.

(I don't actually disagree with the decision to close the branch, because hardly any customers were going in there except for my parents and the other over 80s, plus a handful of technophobes like one of their neighbours, who is in her 60s but has decided she can't use computers or smartphones - she is going to be in a world of trouble soon, sadly. When her current car fails its MOT she plans not to buy another because all modern cars are full of computers and she won't be able to drive any more.)

This misperception is not helped by the way that maps of the British Isles on for instance the weather forecast make Scotland look about the size of Devon, if that, because of foreshortening.

To be fair that sounds like an average day for an Evri driver

I shouldn't think the budget would extend to Mark Bonnar staying in the Archers for very long

Dont the guest stars get paid the same as the regulars? Isn't MB a jobbing actor who won't have a "wouldn't get out of bed rate"?

Peggy is just so awful a name for a baby/little girl/young woman. Jenny would have been much nicer.

Unfortunate connection "Jenny Wren" might make Tom implode, mind.

So it was all a Strictly Blackpool Week plug …

I've never seen Strictly so when the dancing started, I thought of David Tennant and Sarah Parish in "Blackpool":

How have I never seen that before?! (Had to stop it halfway through though, as I find filmed musicals unbearable.)

How desperate must the BBC be, to be begging their 76 remaining TA listeners to turn on the telly tomorrow night for the glittery slow motion car crash they forgot to cancel?

If the castle is where a pp suggests, the taxi to Blackpool would have taken about 5.5 hours.

The misperception works both ways.

@echt, thanks. I ❤ David Morrissey.

Has anyone mentioned Roy at all this week??

Old names have definitely made a comeback in my area. I hear Margot, Esme, Matilda, and Betty(!) quite a bit in the park playground. When I was a young girl at least half the girls in my school seemed to be called Katie, Hannah or Sarah.

Good point.

Would have been cool if Lexi had been in labour this week, too …

But yes - either Kate or Phoebe should have mentioned his name. Massive fail on the SW’s part.

… And Hayley!

Jennifer was a very popular name in the 1950s to 1970s and then became very unfashionable. I don't think it's on its way back up yet.

I don't think that's so. Through various diverse connections I know or know of quite a few Jennifers in their 20s and 30s. According to Google AI around 500-600 Jennifers are registered per year in the UK currently.

Can anyone remind me of when James and Leonie were married? Because I don’t remember it. And neither of their BBC TA character outlines mentions it. And yet Lillian mentioned their ‘marriage’ this evening - as an established thing. (As far as I was aware the significant fact that impacted Ambridge was the birth of Mungo - which made the Snells Archer grandparents.)

Maybe I missed the happy event …

Could be the name was popularised in the 90s/early 2000s by Jennifer Aniston.

So I don't know how Helen can carry on with Angus anyway.
Firstly..she has a very busy hands on job that needs her attention 24×7. Im surprised she went away in the first place.
Secondly.. Angus is a Crofter and also a part-time Fireman or he could have been RNLB if they were by the sea , or any volunteering job that made him sound extra wonderful. ( why was he alone if he is that wonderful?).
So either of them would not have time to meet up. I think though something happened, cuddle wise, because they said she couldn't look him in the face when they all said good bye.
Peggy is a horrible name for a baby especially because Peggy was a horrible person. Im glad she didn't get the starry twin window in the church.