Archers thread #202: How are you finding your visits to Ambridge? Fill in your feedback forms 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 working as a hotel receptionist is a perfectly reasonable career choice for a graduate from a family with a stately home, 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-12-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.)

Over to you!

SWs

Do we know what the mystery ingredient is in Keira's cake? Loving the idea of wee radish cardinals.

Hash.
Like brownies.

Eta Liked the radish cardinals too.

@Abra1t Plus the fact that small babies don't actually cost that much in the first months, if you're sensible about not going overboard on buying lots of clothes and equipment they'll grow out of and especially if you feed them yourself.

Can you imagine Amber doing any of those sensible things? I mean, she has her social media followers to impress, and George will back her up.

You are absolutely right!

Ha ha, I thought that about the cake, too.

I seem to remember that Kate accidentally fed hash brownies to Jennifer because she left them out on a cooling rack and Jennifer ate some.

Recreating Conclave with radishes as cardinals was genius - it could only have been improved if Pip (the Pope of farming herself) had been its creator.

I love the Conclave radishes. It reminds of years ago at the National Garden Festival in Gateshead. A child had made an Angel of the North in sausages on toast.

Radish Conclave really made me chuckle, and I glad it pleased Alan as well. I was hoping Lily would get the ick from Harrison and his dull small talk, but apparently not. Nowt so queer as folk.

The vegetable tableaus were always my favourite bit of the Anglesey Agricultural Show.

I hate the celebrity cameo thing. Big yawn from me.

I like The Repair Shop too. As it's the 75th anniversary year for The Archers I foresee a special edition of The Repair Shop coming up where members of the cast and production team take things in to be repaired and Dom works on restoring a model tractor to present to David Troughton (Tony), tying in to tonight's episode.

Me too. And the TA characters are so star struck by minor celebs. But it's only once in a blue moon so ...

I liked this cameo and found the scene touching. Tony’s continuing sense of loss of his son and the significance of a small toy.

The thing that crossed my mind was do actors from TA turn up as celebs at Flower and Garden/opening of a mindfulness garden/village fetes, etc.?

It would be very meta.

They used to, certainly, back in the fifties and sixties; Dan and Doris and Phil in character, quite certainly, and I think also a little later Eddie Grundy complete with his hat with the cow's horns on it.

The cameo was one of the better ones. He didn't sound false and it was a

There used to be a shop near me that was owned by a tv celebrity. I had no idea I was served by a celeb.

Celebrity in question had been on prime time BBC for about 20 years at the time.

They did say that, or something like it, would be happening in the new Repair Shop series in the back-anno last night, Gasp.

Poor Clarrie if the F and P show is the highlight of her year…

Same. Tony apologising for saying that John is dead, and the genuine delight that it might be fixed made me tear up a bit.
And generally I hate all of the Bridge Farm Archers (apart from Natasha).

The way that people in Ambridge hang onto broken toys whose owners have been adult or dead for decades is quite remarkable.

The toy tractor was only discovered by chance a few weeks ago, wasn't it? Clearly written into the scripts to lead in to this Repair Shop tie-in [a cynic writes].

I don't think there is a single toy that belonged to any of my adult children in this house; they stopped living in the same house as me some time around the turn of the century, and if I had found a broken toy of theirs I would have thrown it away rather than giving it house-room.

I saved lots of my children's toys so that potential grandchildren could play with them when they visit (they do) and my parents had saved my old doll's pram which still gets played with now.
It works but I wouldn't mind someone from the Repair Shop giving it a makeover.
I too found the scene with Tony touching and thought Dom was really good in it.