Archers thread #195: Run, Amber, run! 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 think 19 is an ideal age to have a baby with a convict, 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.)

Emma spoke sense to George and Amber tonight. Goodness only knows where this storyline is going. I can't see George being Father of the Year. Oh dear.

Over to you!

I wish I thought Paddington had the gumption!

My brother, in his eighties, calls people who behave in a certain way "jerks"; it's been in use in this country in my hearing at least since the fifties, and it is in the Collins dictionary from 1998 with the meaning "a contemptible person" as having originated in America but now being used here, and also in the 1993 S.O.D. And dictionaries lag behind usage by twenty to thirty years as a rule. (I prefer "what a prune" myself, because jerk is a bit of a cliché-word, but I am unsure how widespread that may be. I caught it off my nephew.)

I think I first heard "take a rain check" in this country in about 1985, so possibly used by someone who would now be the same age as Brian. The 1993 S.O.D. lists it as "mainly American", but goodness, we have been getting American films and television programmes since I was a child, and there is no reason to think people didn't pick up vocabulary from them then just as they picked up Aussie from the daytime soaps.

Also, older people do not necessarily never use any slang except that from their own adolescence. (Vivid memory: my father, who was writing a book in which the term happened to be mentioned, ringing me up to ask what "cool" meant. i did my best to explain, and he listened very carefully and then said, "Ah, what we used to call 'hot' when I was your age." He later took to calling fast, noisy jazz "cool", possibly just to annoy. I didn't have the heart to mention hot babes to him.) Sometimes they adopt the language used by their children, or even grandchildren, if they think it sounds apposite or amusing.

New thread.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/5492007-archers-thread-195-run-rex-run-discuss-the-archers-here

i was so happy when he fell in the pig shit...

Thanks for the new thread, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g .

Is Pip meant to be completely ghastly? She seems to have no redeeming features whatsoever.
She was ghastly as a teenager but she still is at 33. I can't decide if Pip-actor is absolutely dreadful or is brilliant. (I think the former but she's been playing Pip for how long and she's still not convincing.) The Pipistrelle SL is batty - so unconvincing.

Josh is better but not particularly likeable and poor Ben is a bit drippy.
Fat Rosie seems to have inherited her mother's personality.

They are meant to be the future of The Archers FFS.

With the Bridge Farm Archers, Helen at least is an interesting character andwell-acted, Tom is consistently a twonk, and Natasha has enough about her to be both likeable and dislikeable.

Like Brian's 'couch' a few weeks ago. He wouldn't have used that word for 'sofa'.

I can't bear Pip's "elocution lessons" accent.

And no, Brine would never have used the word "couch".

I can't stand the way she seems to snort. I've not seen/heard Pip-actor in any other parts to know if she is really as bad an actor as she seems.

Though if he were feeling rude he might describe Rosie as a couch potato.

That's insulting to couch potatoes.
I think Brine might use the word couch. I'm not Brine's age but growing up we said couch for a chaise longue and sofa for a sofa.

Y'know, I have a feeling we did too: long seating with a back and a headrest was a couch (and only one person would use it, reclining) and long seating with arms at each end of it was "the sofa", which the three of us children plus the dog might well sit on all at the same time. I don't think we ever said "settee", and a divan was a narrow bed with no head or foot-boards and lived in the bedroom. Does an ottoman always have a box as its body? I never encountered one, anyway, and in fact I don't think I have to this day.

Hey, I have just realised: the fainting couch is a chaise longue!

We didn't use a couch but my friend's house had one. It wasn't used much from what I remember but may be it was when I wasn't there.
A sofa had a back and arms. We didn't say settee and would think it pretentious.
A divan was a bed without space under it.

An ottoman was a blanket box usually covered in fabric.

We had antiques and when my parents were selling them to make room for improved models they acquired fancy names like chaise longue (sic) or bureau.

otter man

Now I want one covered in cloth with otters on it.

Not sure where I would have room for it, though.

You'd make room. MW - Otter Print – London, UK - MacCulloch & Wallis

Sorry the previous photo was of poor quality - it was meant to be a Lloyd's Loom one with a chintzy fabric lid.

I was going to look for beaver fabric but thought I might get more than I bargained for. I once made the mistake of looking for what sort of feet desert beasts of burden have. I was not prepared for that I can tell you.

Otterly beautiful
Otter Fabric, Wallpaper and Home Decor | Spoonflower

I remember you live not far from London and not in Ottery St Mary, but how many ottermans can you fit in a private jet?

I've been beavering away...

want an otterman, man

No. A chaise longue is a chaise longue.

Unless he is referring to a Victorian fainting couch, he would not use the term "couch". Just as he wouldn't say serviette, or toilet, or use fish knives.

I think you misunderstood, @WMW .
A couch is a fainting couch or a chaise longue.

Brine wouldn't say settee, serviette or toilet.

Yes. I meant (clumsily) that unless he were referring to a fainting couch, he would never use the word couch.

Agreed that Brine would never say settee, serviette or toilet.

I looked at the picture and thought "that chaise longue is the wrong way round!" and then wondered why I thought that. I have always envisioned them as having the reclining bit to the right of the back, not the left: like the rococo one at Wikipedia. But why?

Chaise longue is a bit nouveau, after all.
The couch and two matching chairs were not unusual in the part of the world I'm from.

How To Get On In Society by John Betjeman
Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know that I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime , because if you were lying down, your right arm would be the free one.

Yup, that would explain it.

I always thought it must have been awkward at banquets for left-handed Romans.

Oh, were the things they reclined on called couches? People generally seem to do so when describing such scenes, but what's the Latin for it? Hmmm.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/radioaddicts/5492007-archers-thread-195-run-rex-run-discuss-the-archers-here

Thanks everyone.
See you there!

The word "couch" originates from Middle English, derived from Old French "couche," which in turn comes from the Latin "collocare," meaning "to set in place."