The Archers Fri 12th Nov 2010: The Night of the YFC Ball

The Archers: Will and Ed on a night out together … Eddie’s being sneaky

• Nic and Will are looking dapper
• Eddie wants the coast to be clear
• All because Pip didn’t check the size of TCB
• Didn’t Nic want a nice night out?
• It was Jade, actually
• First rule of pregnancy
• I was wrong about Matthew
• Now Eddie’s cutting toenails!

Nic and Will are looking dapper

According to Eddie and Clarrie.

Nice has the “perfect” dress on, and Will has a new red bow tie.

[Will] “Well, you can’t be too stuffy”

Of course, Eddie can’t help winding up Will

[Eddie] “What about you William? Playing the maracas – are you part of the band?”

Clarrie, as usual, is all too aware of what her boys could get up to, and tries to advise Will:

[Clarrie] “It doesn’t matter who else is there Will, you just relax and enjoy”

“If they keep themselves to themselves, they’ll be alright”

Eddie wants the coast to be clear

Joe’s just mucked out Bartleby, is in the bath, then is off out to The Bull to play cribbage with Bert.

Clarrie’s tackling a mountain of ironing:

[Ed] “Are you doing that whole basket of ironing now?”

[Clarrie] “No, the queen of the fairies is taking over in 5 minutes … what do you think?”

(I can’t do Clarrie any justice on the above quote – it has to be listened to in order to understand it as a proper *snort* moment)

Eddie then tries to persuade Clarrie that she should take a dish back to Kathy, right now, because he “doesn’t want getting a name as bad neighbours”

which, quite unbelievably, seemed to work. Off our Clarrie pops …

… until she pops right back in again, catching Eddie in the act of going through Joe’s pockets.

[Clarrie] “Give me that!”

[Eddie] “It’s nothing”

[Clarrie] “I’ll be the judge”

(when she realises it’s to do with the Race Evening)

[Clarrie] How can you stoop so low … taking advantage of the British Legion”

[Eddie] “It isn’t what you’re thinking at all”

Oh dear. Two minutes into his and Jazzer’s cunning plan to get one up on Nathan Booth, Eddie’s already mucked it up.

What a surprise!


All because Pip didn’t check the size of TCB

TCB is the band playing at the YFC Ball

(TCB seemingly stands for Taking Care of Business (Elvis Presley) and the Tommy Crocker Band – as the saxophone player is the grandson of Tommy Crocker, who used to play at Grey Gables and was one of Jack’s favourite bands … so I’m told).

But Pip didn’t check how many were in the band, so now her table plan is completely defunct.

It sounds like she was able to find a spot for everyone (I bloomin’ well hope so – it would be great value as a dinner dance if you couldn’t actually sit down for dinner).

And Emma reckons:

“It just makes it cosier being bunched up”

But Emma didn’t think that through.

It all depends on who you’re actually having to bunch up with.


Didn’t Nic want a nice night out?

While I applaud Nic’s efforts to try and get Ed and Will back to acting at least half-decent around each other, why do so on one of her very rare nights away from the kids and work?

As her and Will arrive, she decides that the best plan would be to plonk themselves down on the same table as Ed and Emma.

Even stranger still that the other three went along with Nic’s brilliant plan (albeit grudgingly). Surely one of them could have said ‘no’?

[Nic] “Won’t do the boys any harm, trying to be civilised with each other for once”

As the foursome settle down to their evening, Will gets in a round.

And manages not to shout at or punch Ed.

They all take to the dance floor, and still no shouting or punching.

Even Will and Emma have quite a civilised chat:

[Emma] “Will, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you myself (about the baby)”

[Will] “It’s okay … it doesn’t matter … George left his gloves on Tuesday”

Well that’s progress, even if Will had to quickly change the subject.

Things seem to start going downhill as the evening progresses, but there’s still no shouting or punching.

Just a sarcastic quip from Will as Ed retells Pip’s tale about Tommy Crocker.

As Emma and Nic bond over swollen ankles (not literally – Emma has them, Nic has the memory of them), Ed and Will start to argue over who should be buying the next round.

But just when it looks like the bloodshed is about to commence, Nic steps in to say that it’s her and Emma’s round (even though she has to take a sub off of Will to buy it).

So the evening went off without a bang (just like The Bull’s bonfire night – well, there was bangs, but the overall impression of the evening was a bit of a ‘pfffff’).

But does this mean that Ed and Will will start being nice chaps to each other?

Will there be more double dating?

Cripes. It might be the calmest Christmas day in the Grundy for many a year.



It was Jade, actually

Oo-er Pip!

That was a bit snooty.

So Ed doesn’t know the difference between green and jade.

You should take the compliments where you can get them. Especially as it doesn’t like there’s much fruitiness afoot with Lucan.


I was wrong about Matthew

Izzy seemingly didn’t look happy with Matthew from the start.

And Pip later reports that Izzy has:
“Given up on Matthew … he grows an extra pair of hands with every drink”

Oh well. I wonder if Izzy still had “boring” Gary to fall back on.


First rule of pregnancy

Is to find out where the rules are.

Wonder if Helen is aware of that one amongst her lentils, exercise and calorie counting.


Now Eddie’s cutting toenails!

But it wasn’t as gross as Clarrie cutting Joe’s.

Eddie was tending to one of his ferrets (Brooklyn)

[Clarrie] “You spend more time grooming your ferrets than yourself”

As Brooklyn tries to muck about with Clarrie’s washing, I was left wondering is a ferret really does make those sort of noises …