DumTeeDum - A show about BBC Radio's 'The Archers'

E-Bike On!

This week’s podcast is presented by Stephen and Jacqueline.

We hear from:

David from Carmarthenshire, who noticed Lynda mangling a Welsh tradition;
Claire from Clapham, who is really happy with Joy but less so with Robert;
Jade, who needs to talk about Emma;
Marie, who hasn’t been enjoying recent episodes and has a theory about why this is;
Katherine, who finds the demands to be on the Parish Council a bit implausible;
and finally Globe-trotting Richard who actually quite liked Scam Safe Week;

We also have emails from Chris in Indiana and Gillian in London.

Plus: we have the Week in Ambridge from Suey, a roundup of the Dumteedum Facebook group from Michelle, and the Tweets of the Week from Theo.

Please call into the show using this link:

www.speakpipe.com/dumteedum

Or send us a voicenote via WhatsApp on: +44 7810 012 881 (07810

012 881 if in the UK) – Open the WhatsApp app, key in the number and click on the microphone icon.

Or email us at dumteedum@mail.com

How to leave a review on Apple podcasts: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/podcasts/pod5facd9d70/mac

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Duration:: 1h 3m
Broadcast on:: 08 Dec 2024
Audio Format:: other

Hey I'm Ryan Reynolds, recently I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation, they said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous to your contracts they said what the f*ck are you talking about you insane Hollywood f*ck. So to recap we're cutting the price of Mint unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month new customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees extra speed slower above 40 gigabytes of detail. Getting engaged can be stressful. Getting the right ring won't be at bluenile.com. The jewelers at bluenile.com have sparkled down to a science with beautiful lab grown diamonds worthy of your most brilliant moments. Their lab grown diamonds are independently graded and guaranteed identical to natural diamonds and ready to ship to your door. Get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more with code listen at bluenile.com. That's bluenile.com code listen for $50 off. This is a dumpy dump production. Hello this is dumpy dam, a weekly podcast about the archers and the goings on of ambridge. I'm Jacqueline Bertho who really she's a challenge so here I am ready to talk terms. And I'm Steven Bowden and I have it on good authority that something has been said. And then those you are lovely dumpy dumplings. You've been waiting your whole life for this moment. Welcome to dumpy dum. A place to talk about the things that are happening in our favourite bar such a village. This week's scripts were once again written by Sarah Mcdonald's shoes whom I used to slip more innuendo into one tire change than Mrs Slocum ever had to deal with. Coming up we have calls from David from Camarvenshire who noticed Linda mangling a Welsh tradition. Claire from Clapham who is really happy with joy but less so with Robert. Jade who needs to talk about Emma. Marie who hasn't been enjoying recent episodes and has a theory about why this is. Catherine who finds the demands to be on the parish council a bit implausible. And finally Globe-Trotting Richard who actually quite liked Scam Safe Week last week. We also have emails from Chris in Indiana and Gillian in London. Plus we have The Week in Ambridge from Sui around the Dump to Dump Facebook group from Michel and Tweets of the Week from Theo. So let's go straight into that Week in Ambridge from Sui. Hello everybody it's Sui Queen Autard here my lovely Dump to Dumpers and what an odd week it's been. So my two long didn't read for you this week. Make reported Emma from this conduct in the public office. There's going to be a creepy Christmas at the ball and Leonard is terrorising the village speeding on his e-bike. So Emma found out from Robert that somebody complained about her role on the parish council. There was a witch hunt they suspected everybody but it turned out to be Mick because he thought joy should have been elected. Mick has been a busy boy this week offering to be Santa for the ball our brunch with Santa. However it turns out that he is channeling Penny Royal from the Stephen King novels and he's likely to terrify any small children with his hoo hoo hoo's. Lindy Boffman maker going to work on a set about Christmas darkness with folktales to scare the punters. Ticket sales safted slowly but even Helen wants to take the boys. Lindy got Jolene and Kenton to stump up a charity donation but I don't understand how the problem of the brunch and Mick talking to the children has been sold for the standard offering. Leonard has bought an e-bike to keep him cycling because he would be having spurned Josh's old bike. Linda threw a wobbly due to his hair raising speeds. They had capped at 15 kilometers per hour or the speed that any cyclist could do going downhill. I can bore for Britain on the subject of e-bikes and their legal status and their lithium batteries but I shall stop at that. Leonard is doing things correctly and Lindy Boffman should shut her trap towards. Leonard buzzed David and Ruth but it turned out more than one person in the village owns a helmet and a hive is jacked and David gave Zainab a scare following her on her electric scooter. Talking of Zainab Azra asked Ben to pep talker into going to university and even offered to pay for a hot chocolate for Ben. The heady smell of corruption starts with an ice cup of cocoa clearly. Robert and Lindy Boffman had a spat as he spent the morning working on taming the garden and Lindy wants to rewild it but we're all be glad to know that she doesn't want Beavers fortunately. Ed and Fallon were chummy over a flat tire. George has apparently got in with a load of wrongons in prison. Wow who'd have thought it and he's refusing visitors. I really hope that the family have stopped sending him money but I think it's unlikely that Emma would ditch. Oh George, Joy was very supportive of Emma and told us it come to creepy Christmas. Stay in the parish council. Live her life in the village and she is going to be Emma's cheerleader. I can't think of a better pom-pom shaker. So let's see what happens next week then. Thank you for that, Suey. Very succinct as always. So Stephen, what have you been up to this week? This week has begun and ended with trips to places beginning with El. On Sunday I went up to Lemington Spa where my son this week was stage manager for production of Glorious which is a play about the singer Florence Foster Jenkins. It very much follows the plot of the Meryl Streep film called Florence Foster Jenkins because it's all based on reality. It was a very good production. The woman playing Florence Foster Jenkins did an absolutely brilliant job of singing very badly. So brilliant. And then yesterday I went up to London for day of Christmas shopping, getting things that I couldn't really get anywhere else including various obscure forms of alcohol from my favourite alcohol shop in Soho. I also went into a Korean supermarket near Paddington by Soju which is a Korean traditional drink. It's a bit like vodka but much weaker in alcohol only about 15-16% alcohol and I was carded. Carded? I'll approve my age. Oh great. Oh well there you are then. Since you've been on this health drive this year you're definitely looking younger. Is that first? It's been a while. Yeah I don't think I've ever been carded in my life. So how has your week been? My week was great and my last adult teaching yesterday which ended with a nice class of probably and as I do it in a building which is just across from my house I brought the rest of the bottle home because everything else was driving. But it's also been a bit of a disaster because we have discovered having said to somebody only on Tuesday well I think we've solved the mouse problem. My house we've now actually seen my running around and this morning I got up, went into my bathroom, came out and I heard scratching and the door from the landing onto the floor where Lois and I sleep in my work room. Somebody's eaten a bit of carpet overnight so I'm sorry that they're coming upstairs. So today I don't know everybody thinks you should be using humane traps but actually we're 40 plus mice trapped and given away released and killed and I'm carrying on killing so it's going to be a massive... I can't bear it. I just can't bear it. I don't like mice. I don't like anything like those roti kind of animals and they creep me out and I can't even deal with them once they're in the live trap. Somebody else has come and take them for a drive. So now it's mouse fest here so I'm getting rid of them and she's low it's birthday next week and I have bought him a felted mouse looking like it's tobogganing on a on a mouse trap so I thought I'd try lighting the mood because it's a bit heavy mouse wise yeah that's more than enough about us. Let's get on to that important bit which is you our lovely cholera noise. Our first stop is David from Camarvenshire. Hello Pusca. Bonita, Jacqueline, Steve and Afa about Af. B.C. Mateo, it's David from Camarvenshire. Cholera in a ring on Tuesday morning after Monday's episode where scam awareness week seems to have morphed into accident prevention week as we hear about the dangers of going on a quad bike without a helmet and speeding on bicycles. The reason I'm calling in today is because Linda mentioned Marie Lloyd although she didn't mangle the pronunciation of course. Marie Lloyd is a Welsh and indeed a pan-European tradition of was sailing and the story of the pale horse that can pass into the underworld. Basically it happens around Christmas and New Year in South and West Wales where you basically you have a horse's skull on a stick, garlanded with lots of ribbons and other decorations and you go from house to house, was sailing and reciting poems and singing songs and something of a competition between the was sailors and the household as to who can offer the best contribution in poetry or music and eventually a Marie Lloyd and her cohort is admitted into the house for a drink and for a celebration. It was very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries and has come back into more common usage in recent years. One other thing I wanted to mention, last week Stephen said that East Enders was the longest-running televised BBC soap. That's actually not true. The longest-running televised BBC soap is in fact Pablo Cum which is a Welsh-language soap opera that started in October 1974. Still going strong, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary and of course was the start of a career for people like Michael Sheen, Yuan Griffith and many other famous actors who went on to other things. Set in the fictional village of Cum Derry right here in Camarvenshire, I would recommend it. It's been broadcast on the whole of the BBC network and even overseas from time to time. So there we go, Pablo Cum, longest-running BBC televised well soap. Thank you for that call David and yes you're right that public cum started before East Enders but I would argue it's not the longest-running BBC soap because it moved to S4C after about eight years I think in 1982 when Channel 4 started up and S4C, the Welsh version of Channel 4, also started up and probably come moved over to there but it's fair to say it has been around longer than East Enders. I was familiar with Mary Lloyd because there was an exhibition a few years back in Chepstow of various things associated with it and one of the things in the exhibition was a fur-felt Mary Lloyd procession made by an artist that I know and I decided at the end that it was on sale at the end of the exhibition and I bought the entire procession which is led by a shamanic badger and there's a couple of mice your favourites. Yeah. Exactly. Carrying the horse's skull and there's a weasel. No it's a stoke carrying a light and then there are a couple more mice carrying a punch and a judy figure because these seem to be a traditionally part of the procession these days and I have it on display in my hall so the first thing you see when you come into the house is that and I will make sure that there are pictures of this on the Instagram. Yes you've used some photos of that. That'd be fantastic. I'm sure I'd be delighted to see that it sounds wonderful and who is the artist who made it? She's called Karen Celestine and she is based in Monmouth. Brilliant so very well because I don't need a known of wasseiling from a Christmas I spent with some friends in I think it was in Devon there was very much apple wasseiling. It was all about the celebration of the harvest and the making of the cider. It was all around this a cider based thing and there was a lot of cider drunk I think but there was a lot of singing and poetry and all the rest of it. Plus my father for many years was a tenor in the Grimsby Orpheus Melvoise choir and they used it in their Christmas camp so I always had that fantastic carol here we go of wasseiling in the trees with the trees of green and just wonderful so I think we'll probably talk a bit more about that when we get to Chris's email. Yeah indeed indeed we will. Who's next? Next up is Claire from Clapham. Hi Dom to Dom. It's Claire from Clapham here. I'm calling in Thursday nights just to say oh I just love joy. I enjoy brilliant. Some people may remember that at the Birmingham academic arts conference I did a paper about how joy had used amazing mental health first aid when dealing with bins breakdown and just listening to her tonight talk to Mick about trauma and processing trauma and feeling like just validating his feelings and saying he's every right to be angry but recognizing that he has to get through it and that there needs to be forgiveness at some point she's just the person you want in your corner when you're having a bad day aren't you and she enjoys such a gem. Also based on this evening I would say that I'm really struggling with times with the new Roberts because the whole argument about doing the garden and re-warding and the textiness of Linda I don't know I just I feel like all Robert would have done that and I feel it's not fair on the action because I'm sure that there are bits about the tone that just isn't quite there in the writing and I know they're made up and everything but it's not it wasn't that it just didn't feel right so I'm really sorry about that and finally I won't even get into the whole Emma and the stands committee thing but I used to be a member of an authority standards committee and so I am enjoying the whole discussion about codes of conduct from Nolan principles very interesting and I think to be fair makes sort of as a point in some ways sorry Emma but yeah there you go keep up the good work I'll speak to you soon bye thanks Claire brilliant I always think of you as the because of the academic archers and dumped it on match up in Birmingham as you as the joy expert I agree I've always loved joy and when we had that phase of saying yeah be more joy I think yes I would like to be more joy and joy is such a wonderful character she absolutely talks with to make brilliantly although I still find it ironic called that she talked about him being honest about her feelings yet we've got this great mystery hanging over joy as to her background and of our shell she did talk with Emma in an extremely and a brilliant way on Friday but I think we'll talk a bit more about Emma after another call later on struggling with Robert now it's interesting because Robert is a lovely character and we all love the original a Robert certainly since this Robert's come back we've had a slight change of the character but I believe that it's logical that the characters change slightly as we get older you know quite as easy going and if you feel if with Lindy bottom for how many thousands of years I'm sure he must feel a little bit put upon we heard that this week she can sweep in and be very generalized and actually can be very bossy with Robert whereas yeah I am struggling a bit like you Claire with the the change of character of Robert slight changes in character back into the logic behind it and that's what happens as you get told and I think you all become grumpy old men I think it's a bit unfortunate that when the new Robert was first introduced he was tachy during that episode yeah complaining I think about overcooking the breakfast and I think we've that probably started him off on the wrong foot almost with the listeners with the result that we noticed every time he's been tachy and perhaps we didn't notice that so much with the old Robert and there would have been moments when he was grumpy but because we were focused in on him being nice that's what showed but with this Robert because of that first scene we're immediately on on our guard against him being tachy again and saying yeah Robert's not the same as old Robert so I think it's if we went back and did something did a statistical analysis of the situation he might not be as different as he feels yeah I agree with you and in fact there are lots of points in history of him being completely and utterly exasperated by Lindy's actions and what it's in it and his implication of him being her right hand man in it so yeah I agree with you I think yeah that first scene when he was crossed with the breakfast which he would never have been because Robert has always been an unflappable background hardworking whereas Lindy was the it's the front front of house person and he's been the background I think yeah I think you've got a very good theory there Stephen yeah maybe somebody ought to do that and do a research for a future academic academic arts conference he really needs to spend more time down at the hide particularly if there is a starling murmuration in ambridge which I think we heard that there was yeah because the hide I think it's down by art right late and that's very likely to be where the starlings are going to be doing their murmurations and roosting and so if it were me if there was a starling murmuration site anywhere nearby that was active I'd be there pretty much every evening I could get to it because it is such a fantastic thing to watch we have the murmurations here and often the first thing in the morning I walk quite early and it's just pre-pre-dawn there's a bit of light in the sky as I walk around our village pond Littang so often I think my dogs send up the birds and I walk two mornings with two different friends and each morning we've seen this amazing uplifting starling flight and then they start swooping around the village hopefully next week you might get to see one that will be great I will be I will look forward to that I think that the saturday evening murmuration won't be available because we'll be in and the friday evening won't be either because I've got there both no exactly murmurations on friday but saturday morning and sunday morning would be possible yeah exactly such a saturday morning early warp especially as we've got to work out logistics recording this but saturday morning yes jolly good right who's next next up we have jade in australia hello dumpty dum it's jade color entering from city australia I first of all really want to thank you for last week's dumpty dum because I was highly confused I don't live in the uk I had no idea it was scammer we're in this week I had to pick up my phone a few minutes into the first episode because I thought I'd accidentally clipped something else rather than the archer who didn't know what was happening and to top it all off I accidentally skipped wednesday's episode so completely missed jim's guest and someone mentioned the archaeologist later in the week and I just didn't know what was going on so series round up alerted me to the fact I'd missed an episode so went back and yes very grateful for dumpty dum thank you and just on this week I've just listened I'm a bit behind I've just listened to choose this episode and I wanted to talk about Emma because I just find it so frustrating I guess that she just cannot recognize that she did wrong she is fixated on finding who complained about her because it's outrageous that someone complained about her to the parish council but like what's Linda's husband name I can't remember what Linda's husband explained to her she didn't act with integrity and she did lie and she did commit a crime you know so I think it's really yeah it's just so interesting she's so fixated on this other person rather than that self-reflection and actually learning from her own mistakes yes she's not responsible what George did but she is responsible for what she did what she seems completely incapable her and her son seem completely incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions and to top it off you had Brian saying quite hypocritically I would never cover up a crime and I was just thinking oh yes there was no chemicals ever hidden and poisoning the am and yes that was it made me chuckle that it was Brian saying that so yes have a good week everyone that's me out of time thank you for your call Jade and I agree that Emma isn't really taking as much responsibility for her chances she should I'm going to be slightly controversial and say I think that I'm on her side over the complaint to the parish council because the Nolan principles are principles of public life so when it comes to integrity Nolan principles say holders of public office must avoid placing themselves under any obligation to people or organizations that might try inappropriately to influence them in their work they should not act or take decisions in order to gain financial or other material benefit for themselves their family or their friends they must declare resolve any interests and relationships this is about what they're doing in public and parish counselors are democratically elected and if you don't like your parish counselor because your parish counselor is not showing the sort of moral character that you would like in them the answer is not to complain about them under the Nolan principles if what you're complaining about is in their private life the answer is to vote them out next time round so I think that this complaint shouldn't be upheld because there's no evidence that it has interfered in any way with Emma's conduct as a parish counselor that's not to fully defend her it's just to say that what we're talking about when it comes to the Nolan principles is about conducting office and I conscious of this because I'm subject to the Nolan principles myself but because I'm not an elected figure in some ways I'm more protected because if I did something a bit questionable people who know me would know that I'm a civil servant otherwise I'm not up there in public as a civil servant well interesting okay now I always said that this story the storyline is definitely showing Emma as a very vulnerable character and I still again I continue to worry enormously about her mental health this obsession has been terrible this week I think that seeing her breakdown and then we heard Ed saying to Fallon that he was worried about their relationship because of it but Emma's always been someone who gets some sessional about stuff she focuses on something and then she impermeates itself into the whole of her life but I'm concerned for Emma I don't know very much about the I don't know anything about the Nolan principles until Claire had mentioned them and I looked them up very briefly didn't understand them at all but you've explained it very clearly but yeah Emma is a very vulnerable character very vulnerable at the moment she's been through this before this sort of obsession and so it was when she was trying to buy the beachwood's affordable housing and I think that her behavior at the moment is similar to that but probably not quite as bad as that got she recovered from that I think she'll recover from this it's going to depend a lot on how it goes until George is let out of what George is like when he comes home yeah it will really boil down to George and George's attitude and people in the village is attitude because that matters to Emma she's really concerned about what people think of her and her actions I thought the conversation at the end of the week that she had with Joy just proved or we asked again what a fantastic character Joy is and also I enjoyed the conversation that we had with Robert and Emma at the beginning of the week and then later on when you went to find out what exactly was going to happen with this on plane I felt that Robert was the old Robert dealing with somebody in a kindly way so going back to Claire's call again you put a very definite thought in our heads or in my head about whether we got off on to a bad start with new Robert and in fact the real Robert is really in there just waiting to come out slowly should we hear from Marie why not hello Jacqueline Stephen and all Dundee Dummies it's Marie calling from Winchester hope you're keeping well I thought a call in my lovely daughter went on her Christmas do with her work and they went to Marrakesh for quite a few days and he got me thinking oh one just a script writers have done the same I think they've all gone away and decided to get AI to do the script because it's awful it's just mind-blowingly boring I've got about on the behind about three episodes so who knows there could be a cliffhanger going on that I don't know about but honestly it's just mind-blowingly bogglingly boring and I really hope the script writers come back from their little jaunty and get back to what they're doing best and write some blooming good scripts because oh it's just boring it's boring it's boring it's boring and anyway let's hope it gets back to normal soon because I can't do boring no more boring no more okay hope you're off well take it out bye well Marie I'm really sorry I disagree with everything you said there absolutely everything now Marie and I we bonded over our ferrets earlier this year I met Marie when we're in London we got on very well and really enjoyed her point of view lovely lovely character but it's not been mind-blowingly bogglingly boring I've found it really interesting that's two weeks they've been trusting weeks different perhaps but I've actually enjoyed it I haven't found it boring at all no more boring last now forget it I tend to agree with you Jacqueline I think that Sarah McDonald Hughes has actually written really really well and last week we talked about quite a few of the lines that came up then the business about Larry talking about Eddie being like lovejoy Yakov's wonderful line about being in the three bears that's the script writing I think what Marie is really suffering from is she's not enjoying the storylines and the script writers don't have very much freedom about that they are given the storylines for the block of scripts that are being written and recorded as a set and they then have to turn the storylines into words conversations the actual script and while they've got a certain amount of flexibility at the end of the day it's doing the best with what they've been served up and I think Sarah McDonald's Hughes has done really well I think that she's captured the characters really well she's come up with these clever lines there's all that innuendo around the tyre change that's super cold out there's their beavers yet again rearing their heads this time at Ambridge Hall yep definitely and it's not AI generated AI writes completely soulless bland stuff and whatever you think about the storylines the scripts have not been planned no exactly yeah I think I you're completely right and Marie probably isn't enjoying the storylines but I have to say I'm very curious who does your daughter work for that she's gone off to Marrakesh on her works do I think that sounds fantastic I love Marrakesh so one of my favorite places so there you go I've never been our Christmas do we're given half a day off so that we can go out for a team Christmas lunch which we pay for well that's good then but then again you are a civil servant I am a civil servant a daughter isn't a civil servant I my if I have a Christmas do is because I do it for myself but my Christmas is this coming weekend those are the first few calls thank you very much for all of those we've got a few more to come and we've got a couple of emails as we've already said now if you'd like to join in by calling us yourself for dropping us a line by message or email statement is here to tell you how and all the details are also in the show notes the first option is to record a message or a plot prediction by going to www.speakpipe.com/dum-t-dum where you can leave a message of up to two minutes alternatively you can send us a voice note or a written message via what's at on 07810 012881 and if you're calling from outside the UK start with plus four four and drop that first oh please try to keep your call to a maximum of two minutes although this limit isn't enforced like it is by Speakpipe and finally we have an email address you can contact us on if you'd rather write to us with your views please aim for a maximum of around 250 words and the email address is dumtydum@mail.com and do bear in mind you need to be least 18 to contribute oh my god it's the coolest thing ever hey guys have you heard of gold belly well check this out it's this amazing site where they ship the most iconic famous foods from restaurants across the country anywhere nationwide i've never found a more perfect gift than food they ship chicago deep dish pizza new york bagels main lobster rolls and even ina garden spamous cakes seriously so if you're looking for a gift for the food lover in your life head to gold belly dot com and get 20 off your first order with promo code gift it took a 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So who have we got up next? Next up is Katherine. There are many implausible things about the arches but the main one this week is that people are vying to be on the parish council. Every local newsletter I've ever seen wherever I've lived has always desperately been asking people to get involved and volunteer so the idea that there's a rivalry in amberge is entertaining. Mick is an interesting character isn't he? He's actually full of anger that joy is not on it but is this really masking his true feelings? I'm not sure. Their relationship is unresolved. How is it unresolved? Relationship unresolved. The whole mystery about joy's life. I just don't think he's got a leg to stand on despite saying he can still have an opinion. I'm not sure he can. I don't see that Emma being a member is a problem. She's not paid. There's no obligation as a work place kind of job. It's totally voluntary. Emma, you crack on. Have a great week everyone. Thank you for that call, Katherine. Mick, he is in an interesting position I think. He is lacking anything that's really holding him down to the ground. He's got no home. He's in a relationship which is unfair in terms of exactly what its status is. I think at one point he was quite keen to get closer to joy. Now joy is keen to get close to him and he's pushing back about that. He's got a job that he enjoys but he's not really fitting in with the way that Oliver sees Grey Gables. So he's a bit of a fish out of water in all aspects including just living in Ambridge. He's not a traditional Ambridge character and I think that it's interesting just watching him feeling ruthless, feeling lost and trying to come to terms with that and I think that it's a very good thing that he is in a relationship with joy because as we saw this week and as Claire pointed out in her call, joy is a sort of person that can ground him and help him and in a way it's a bit sad that he's pushing back at that to some extent and not wanting to move in with her and we don't know why. So both of them I think may have issues in their past that are preventing them from being everything they can be. Yeah he did say because she offered and asked him if he'd move in with her because his van was a problem and he didn't want it to be forced upon her that he moved in but it might be a commitment issue. It might be something in his past. I'm afraid I don't find him an attractive character. I've enjoyed his character development a bit more this week with his Bonhomie with Silly Kenton and getting on with Linda. But I always think if it was being a bit goppy around the edges and then living in a camper you have to be meticulous in cleaning process and keeping things tidy and we had the scenes a few months ago when joy went to the camper and it was kind of a mess. I felt sorry for joy then and the thought of living with somebody you could live in that kind of mess. It's just you have to be meticulous in a small space and yeah I don't know why I just think of him as a bit of a grubby person not quite not quite got to grips with where he is in his life and what he is and I just say a bit of drift everywhere. I'm probably agreeing with you but I don't find him an attractive character but I do think he's suffering from PTSD after the accident as Joy said she just remembers she was unconscious. He is reliving that panic and I loved that conversation between him and Fallon and her suggesting that he needed to talk to somebody starting with Joy but I hope we're going to develop. We had a few storylines about men's mental health that a year or so ago or maybe a bit longer and I really feel that this is a continuation of that that Mick is struggling with the aftermath of the accident and this is just how he managed to get back at Emma because of that. Yes I think the reason you think that he's a bit of a grubby person is because Oliver berated him for his appearance when he had started at Grey Gables so I think we can be pretty clear that yes he doesn't live surrounded by neatness and tidiness in his home or in his own approach to what he wears. Not impeccable not impeccably turned out enough for Oliver so we've got one more corner thing who is it the last one? Our last call is from Globe Trotting Richard. Hi it's Richard Kooligan from Madeira and I want to reflect on a couple of topics. One is the extraordinary anti-scam week that's now passed. I have been a catch surfer hosting people from all parts of the world. Tof course strangers via the catch surfing dot org platform and sometimes stayed with total strangers using catch surfing and I rather like the way that the anti-scam propaganda we portrayed it so favorably despite the fact that you really shouldn't do it the way that it is an ambrage, an ambrage in the sense that if someone comes to stay with you on catch surfing you have a chance to review their profile even if you aren't hosting them and their friends for free in your place or staying with total strangers free you do have the ability to verify people in advance. The fact that it works in particular an ambrage was extremely unrealistic plus of course the fact that it gives impression there's nothing wrong with people scamming each other because it has a happy ending which clearly isn't the case. Beyond that I've been struck by Ho sensitively the George criminality has been handled with Brian and Emma to joy and make all elaborating and follow up to a point elaborating questions for both of you and it's rare for me to think people in ambrage being sensible. So be it. Bye bye. Thanks for that Richard. I want Madeira how lovely at this time of year couch surfing. I've never heard of it at all. I've never heard of it at all but once I looked up what it was I realized there's a French popular travel type of program where this guy he goes somewhere in the world. He carries a camera just by himself he's him and his camera and he goes and he asks people if he can stay so there's no control over who it is. I'm always imagining that they've done lots of controls beforehand. It's very interesting you get to see the insides of houses and how people live it from all over the world from Nepal to Nigeria to Nicaragua. It's very interesting so then I realized that was probably the same kind of thing but it's all done on apps nowadays. Sounds very interesting and so you had a different perspective Richard on the people in ambrage last week. As you say it all ended with a happy ending which was pleasant but we still had that speculation last week as to if any of those characters will ever come back and yeah that's a good speculation that we had and it would be good to think about who we'd like back or although there's that many silent characters it'd be good to have some of them back wouldn't it. I think Richard is being a little unfair on the program by saying it was unrealistic that the posts wouldn't have a chance to review the profiles of the guests because of course these were scams and the guests' profiles would have been available whatever they were via the Borsticha Breaks website to the scammer who was the only person who's been in contact with them. Oh yeah probably but everybody's attached to their own point of view which also thought that the repercussions for George and the whole role on effect from what George did on that fateful night in May have both been sensitively handled and I think they have too. I think so I said when the whole storyline happened that I thought it had the potential to be a much bigger better storyline than shaking ambush to the core back in 2011 or indeed any of these other big storylines even more so than the Robin Helen line because those were all concentrated within a single family a small part of the village whereas this one the whole village is involved yeah and so the question of Emma as a counselor and the complaints and so forth that's another angle to the same thing it's such a multi-layered problem and I really do think it's a bit like an Icelandic saga where you have a load of genealogy in the background saw the characters going back generations you then have an inciting incident where something happens that sets the tragedy in motion and then the tragedy spirals out possibly down several more generations. Yeah absolutely you said that at the time and I completely agree with you now that I can see it rolling out I'm rolling out for many many years to come hopefully we'll still be here to follow it so those are all the calls for this week thank you so much for calling in we do love hearing your views on the week in amber so don't hesitate to call in at the end of this week now what about those emails the first one is from christian indiana with a subject line clowning and it goes like this greetings Steven Jacqueline and all dumpy dummies first thing first regarding a recent americanism I have introduced to you there's an alternate one which will make steven feel much better quit clowning whenever someone is just being foolish tell them to quit clowning in fact i've actually heard this used in the uk and it requires no american accent speaking of people who need to quit clowning let's talk about kenten he really needs to watch more lucy wursley specials doesn't he know the separation we make between halloween and christmas is fairly recent and that many of the traditions of one holiday started in the other kenten you've got to be a little more continental linda was absolutely right hasn't he ever heard of singing and carrying lanterns on st martin's night and doesn't he know about the close connection between that and christmas caroling and tricking treating doesn't he know about emma james what about dickens really kenten quit clowning also zaynab and mik i find zaynab disagreeably agreeable and unlikably likable she's not exactly a nice character but she is exasperated and irritated in a way that frankly i feel i would be if i had to live in ambridge she's just what ambridge deserves on the other hand there's mik who reported our own emma and is just all over the place as a character i feel like i would dislike him if i could be bothered to care and lastly exactly what is emma's position i'm not sure if it's because i'm in the states or because i'm in a larger city but we have city council members who are elected and paid and it takes more than one complaint to get rid of them emma's position seems to be a lot more like being in the church vestry standing in a foot of snow longing for clarification christin indiana gracious a foot of snowing indiana blimey i hope it doesn't spread to maryland by this time uh next week yeah very different to the states city council members yet as you say i elected and paid but in a british village a parish council the position is voluntary as we said earlier on there is no when with numeration and it's very clear about what you can gain as a person from being in there now seanab seanab yeah is an interesting character i agree with you disagreeably agreeable and unlikely likeably likable i don't like the way she talks to a mum she's supposed to be late teens i think that kind of slightly insolent way of talking to your mum you might have grown out of but maybe she's been portrayed as a young person i loved her with Ben and i loved the fact that she went and confronted a man dangerously following her david was so typically david why talk about a car chase ridiculous well the ridiculous thing to a david you've done but very typical of him i wanted to pick up on christian's point about the relationship between halloween and christmas traditions just to say this is because it's winter and traditionally in the agricultural year winter begins on all hallows first of november and ends officially on candle mass eve which is the first of febri candle masses the second of febri in practice it's actually the monday after epiphany which is when the agricultural year starts off because during that period from all hallows through to plow monday as it's called there isn't really much work to be done the harvest is all in plowing doesn't start until the new year so you've got this period where it's cold and there's no work to be had so you're poor and if you're a poor person within an agricultural environment the way that you keep body and soul together is effectively by going round and begging except begging is shameful you do various things to perform for your money and that could be the guising that became trick or treating it could be the was sailing now there are two different types of was sailing there's the apple was sailing where you put toast and cider onto the apple trees to hope for a good harvest next year but there's also the here we come a wassling type stuff and there are lots of different wassail carols around out there and that's about going from door to door singing songs it's much like the america that we talked about earlier and that's a winter tradition and in ireland and to some extent in this country the other one is on boxing day there's a ren ceremony where you catch a ren and kill it and you dress it up all in finery and you take it round the village and you ask people to give you money in order to see the king because the ren is traditionally the king of the birds and so there's a whole load of traditions which are now christmas associated for boxing day to be precise about hunting ren's and taking them around the village and then finally plow monday is the last chance to do that where the plow boys all go around the village with their plow and they ask for money and they will threaten to plow up your lawn if you don't give them money wow what a fantastic story steven exactly what we need to find out all those backgrounds yeah christie bit has been a very thought provoking and very well written as always email but we have another one and our second email is from gillian the subject line pensioners and it goes like this hello jacklin steven and all dumb tiddamas i've been really annoyed by david's attitude towards lennard cycling and only marginal less annoyed by the attitudes of linda broose and zainab who is david to be calling lennard a pensioner david is less than a year away from being eligible for the state pension so he's hardly spring chicken himself leonard is enjoying himself and getting out and about and he was not speeding a speed limit do not apply to bicycles i'm pleased that ben stood up for leonard and that leonard ignored david i'm a regular cyclist and i never wear a helmet you don't have to in the uk and the evidence for wearing a helmet when cycling but not when walking or driving seems inconclusive at best i'm getting really annoyed with this ill-informed focus on road safety make hasn't changed good side this week and his decision to complain about emma to the parish council he said that he made the complaint because he thought the joy should be on the council not emma if joy hadn't expressed an interest in the council would he even have bothered it feels underhanded and self-interested to me anyway enough of my irritation with this week looking forward to hearing the podcast gillian thank you for that email gillian i agree with you that the attitude of various people towards leonard cycling has been a bit annoying but i do think it is really only those few people that have been moaning and they are with exceptions of zenar perhaps the sort of people that you'd expect to be a bit sensorious linda certainly so she was complaining that leonard had overtaken a few cars but she hadn't caught him speeding she had just observed him cycling fast david and ruth are just unnecessarily worried about leonard but i don't think they've actually seen him cycling the only person that they saw that made them think that leonard cycling too fast turned out to be zenab and zenab wasn't complaining about leonard cycling too fast she was complaining about him filtering through cars waiting if the temporary traffic right which is something that cyclists do and it is sensible for cyclists to get in front because the last thing you want is to be caught in the middle of a load of traffic and indeed at a lot of road junctions these days you get these advanced cycle boxes so cyclists are encouraged to sit in front of the cars where they are maximally visible rather than being squashed to the side and treated as second-class road users by drivers so i entirely support leonard's approach to that and i think actually the storyline is quite pro cycling i certainly see leonard as the person in the right in all of this and the others are being unnecessarily negative about it and leonard is absolutely right that he isn't so old that he should be wrapped up in coven will he ought to be out there and other people ought to accept that it's entirely reasonable for him to be out there as long as his eyesight is still up to it and he's got the electric bike to help him with the hills and if it's a lightweight electric bike he can cycle as fast as he likes the pedal assist cuts out when you get above 25 kilometers an hour and after that any speed you get is either from gravity or your own effort but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that and as gillian says the speed limits don't apply to cyclists and that's reasonable because cyclists aren't going to cause as much damage to other people as cars are if they speed if a cyclist gets involved in the collision of the car it's a cyclist who comes off worst absolutely i think i said last week as a proponent and a regular user of a an electric assisted bike i think it's better that we have the electrical assistance and i thought that Leonard i was very pleased that he'd done a turnaround because last week he rotated me completely by saying well that's cheating but it's cheating using it finally he's seen the light and it's better that he can get out on his bike but i have to say wearing a helmet is essential in my view so i'm sorry that gillian you and i are going to disagree on that because catastrophic head injuries caused by hitting a curb stone it's well documented and i think we shouldn't be as Ruth shouldn't be going out without helmets using a quad without a protective roll bar and a helmet is just even on your own land whereas that famous case was it rick male male rick male yeah who had a catastrophic accident on his own land using a quad without a roll bar no helmet there we go i think on quad bikes and on mountain bikes when you're off-roading it's absolutely essential i tend to agree with gillian i'm afraid i think that if you're cycling in the roads you shouldn't need to wear a helmet and if that's a problem it's because the roads are not safe and the roads should be made safe rather than trying to effectively put all the blame on the cyclists for their accidents so we'll disagree about that but thank you very much for your message i gained another brilliant thought-provoking email thank you as we've mentioned a few times patreon backers have dumped it on now get an ad-free early release version of the podcast around 6 p.m. on saturday if steven's time allows it patrons also get a weekly email about dumped it on and the archers which this week included a feature on amber gin 1957 the year when faith and eddie would have been married very interesting it was to we were in the process of updating our patreon arrangements this is going to involve patreon backers being asked to move to a new patreon feed which will come with a lower subscription rate and we're aiming to launch this new one early in the new year let's move on to facebook and give a warm dumped it and welcome to the following people who have joined our facebook group in the past week shinan murphy and mike bean welcome to both of you don't be shy about joining in never hesitate to start a new conversation but even better than posting in the facebook group why not call in with your thoughts or your plot predictions and now let's hear what's been going on and the dumpty dum facebook group this week from michelle now have you dumpty dumas michelle here with this week's roundup of all the goings on in the facebook page with gamma awareness week over dumpty dumas were excited to get their teeth into a new storyline with more familiar characters although underlandridge wonders if the archers has turned into a public service broadcasting outlet scams last week e-bikes this week what's next john kee decided that this week has two campaigns going on e-bikes and the danger of scaring little children with creepy father christmases on e-bikes in particular rich it opened sure has found this week more annoying than last electric bikes are pedal assisted and as far as i understand it limited to 15.6 miles per hour only when going down a steep hill will learn how to pick up the sort of speed that people are apparently up in arms about that would be powered by gravity although he could of course slow himself down the idea that people keep seeing him fly past in a blur of lycra is ridiculous he finds it entirely credible that linda would exaggerate but doesn't think everyone would libby rapety feels it's just outlining a couple of things prevalent in society ageism and totally distorted views of risks associated with different activities don't many of them drive and ride horses ruse on a quad bike farm machinery in general oh no it's o_a_p_ cycling that's a problem while carot walk up wonders if the lennard concern is a red herring and it will be roose it gets injured speaking of roose amanda kitely wonders why roose and david are even involved or it's being implied that lennard's speeding is their problem she suggests if someone has an issue they should speak to lend himself that's if they can catch up with him i suppose that's scary Santa Michelle Lancaster is very happy with a new plot development when sniffing linda suggested a creepy christmas i was really pleased in past years i've enjoyed listening to the extra program devoted to the various festive shows but then kenton poopooed the idea i do hope we're going to be spooked by stories of the crampus the yule cat jack frost and more i think it will make for good listening in the absence of the traditional and bridge christmas show it reminded barber william of jim reading ghost stories at low eloxley so perhaps we will be exploring the darker elements of yule type this year i think it's fair to say that a lot of people are preferring this week to last and in particular there's no criticism of the language used there's been some fine penmanship with t-brand art of this praising the script writer with the use of phrases like sprightly and coffin dodger interestingly our very own steven pointed out that it's the same writer as the previous week perhaps all these forgiven that's it from me keep warm and well to rr a bit thank you michael and thank you so much to everyone on the dump to dump facebook group if you'd like to join them please do and don't forget to answer all the membership questions so that we know that you're a real person and if anybody out there would like to write us a review please do there's a link to the instructions on how to do this in the show notes if you can't leave a review or if you already have taught your friends and family about us and about the archers don't be shy the love of all things ambrage is not something to hide from those around you now moving on to blue sky where you'll find us at dump to dump dot be sky dot social make sure you include the archers hashtag using a capital t and a so the visually impaired who's screen readers can enjoy any archers based skis as well as at dump to dump i can be found at jberto dot be sky dot social and i'm at wedlock dot be sky dot social we're also on twitter at dump to dump and i can occasionally be found there at wedlock house but not for much longer so let's find out who's won the skitty and tweeting medals are sweet with ceo tweet tweet tagger hello shacklin steven and dump to dump us everywhere it's purple pumpkin here with treat to the week this week the archers take over of the world continues a pace as amen o t n e at eo t n e reported on friday morning on radio for the continuity announcer was trailing the food and farming awards and referenced kenton archers apple and cheese pie which he thought should win and on twitter blue sky and even threads this week the passive house trust announced that they've curated some rural agricultural passive house projects on Pinterest to help tony archer find inspiration for his dream eco house meanwhile in true nick picking expert form dave blake at sx wildlife pointed out to linda that a garden cannot be rewilded it would cease to be a garden because a garden is defined by the hand of man whereas wilding has the withdrawal of man as it's inherent characteristic carol may not at carol may not agreed that instead linda could build a very posh bug hotel bugging and palace if you will and make sure that she grows plenty of lavender and doesn't put weed killer on the lawn or her patio and still have a tidy but nature-friendly garden meanwhile matt h at nim brawl dot b sky dot social started a thread about your favorite silent characters on the archers matt is partial to sibrina thwaite as our several others we had votes for terry two phones the gills of course and kiki pratchett but i'm with ollman at ambridge ollman who said definitely lavinia schnauzer and on both twitter and blue sky i hope everyone is like me enjoying the daily advent calendar being posted by the archers in emojis at archers emojis they post a riddle in emoji form and if you identify what event it describes you can be awarded a virtual cup but now over to this week's medals for blue sky skates threads and x posts all of which we continue to consider as tweets of the week in bronze position it's john reed at john reed dot b sky dot social next week is grief awareness week to get into the spirit of things and to cheer us all up a bit the entire cast of the archers will be falling down a disused mine shaft the silver medalist is my favorite charlie knotton at charlie knotton dot b sky dot social well joy if you like your representatives to be imperfect you couldn't do much better than emma and the gold medal goes to joe at joe bow and arrow dot b sky dot social who has emma saying there are over four thousand people in the parish council area and only one middle-class man of a certain age has complained about me but on that highly topical note that's it for this week i hope to see you all on hashtag the archers on twitter threads or blue sky next week thank you for that theo and congratulations to all who were mentioned in this week's roundup and don't forget we're on instagram at dumttydam please send any the archers or podcast relevant photos to the dumttydam email and we'll publish some of the credits to you that's dumttydam@mail.com we'll be recording next week at the normal time but not in my case in the normal place because i will be visiting Jacqueline in sanguine but we will still be recording it before dawn on saturday morning so please get your calls in by midnight on friday uk time as usual and as we come to the end of this episode we need to say thanks to all our wonderful contributors and to the team of dumttydamas behind the scenes and we need to say a great big thank you to all of you who are listening to us too we love making this podcast and sharing our love of the archers around the world and we must say thank you to kim duram and sanny almond for their voices and to pay our respects to the creators of this podcast thank you so much for listening and joining us today we're now off to have an actual conversation just the two of us even if it is about lasagna and scammers so it's goodbye from me and it's all of work from me hey this is page from giggly squad and this episode is brought to you by norstrom it's a season of wonder all the way at norstrom you'll find the best gifts for everyone you love including tons of ideas under a hundred dollars and gift experts to help wondering what to wear they have everything from cozy styles to party perfect looks along with freestyle help from their stylist plus they'll make 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