Sack the Sock - put a sock in it or pull your socks up - frankly we're a bit sick of it. The Archers is shit, discuss it here.

[PseudoBadger]

I have it on good authority that this is the thread that people enjoy more than the programme it's about

While I'm on a roll - (and because the rest of my New Year Resolutions are already loitering unattended) I have formally resolved to include a BOOP-POINT at least once in each posting day.

(Have done today's so am free to rip the thing to shreds tonight )

I hate carol. But at least she has a distinctive voice.

I'm with OddFodd. After decades I'm now hearing too many scenes where I'm thinking "who are these people and how does their discussion relate to what's been going on for ages?"

Ambridge Extra wasn't a success and in response we seem to be watching an attempt to turn TA into AE.

Hello and thankyou for the new thread!

BOOP-POINT from me: I really like RichJohn - I think the character and actor are both good

Agree Trevor. Richjohn has been the only good addition/change

Rob was a good addition too

The additions I don't like are creepy Charlie, witchy carol, evil stereotype je and boring pc plot

Josh's new actor I haven't warmed to yet, new Tom is fine but preferred old Tom and can't get on with new pip at all. New Kate is doing a good job but a bit too aristocratic for someone who has lived in sa for all those years IMO.

Thanks for the new thread psuedo I'm inclined to agree with you nauticant

ref. Weird Kate, if you think SHE"S weird perhaps you should meet our ex DIL she's prana which means she doesn't eat (or sometimes she eats 'for fun' ). Also she's into all the oddball spiritual stuff you could imagine I tell you even with TA RL is generally stranger than fiction. Also she insists that she's not a 'eepie'. (hippie) Which she is certainly.

To be fair, the first series of Am Ex (which I liked, so shoot me....) was more or less a Matt and Lilian two-hander.

My BOOP-Point: I like Kenton as landlord of the Bull, took a long time to get him there but fits the character perfectly. I wonder if they had it in mind for him all along, and they wrote in him converting Jaxx to a bar so we didn't complain he had no experience?

I also like Jim.

Sorry I meant I agreed with ABitOutOf Practice . Of course nauticant you 're good too.

Oh I LOVE the idea of a BOOP-Point!

Sorry to come on a put a dampener on your collecive misery! It's just that I feel the threads have been getting more and more off-puttingly negative and when I saw the new thread title my heart sank a bit

My BOOP-point for today would be the reappearance of Kate. Putting aside the new actress (and there have always been cast changes - for as long as I can remember) I think that the Kate character reappearing is great. She has such a knack of rubbing people up the wrong way and making things HAPPEN and she says Sipho in a much less irritating way than the old acctress

I too miss Tiger but twas ever thus that characters went off for extended periods

Anyway, thanks for not flaming me

### Review of 2014 ###

Putting my dreadful poetry behind me, I did say I'd be back with some stats.

I got absorbed last year how the rate of posting on these Archer threads rises and falls with the storylines, and for each thread I recorded:

the date the thread started and
the rate measured in "posts per day".

10 Jan... 43
02 Feb... 60
18 Feb... 47
11 Mar... 70
25 Mar... 34
23 Apr...120 (THE wedding - 329 posts in one 24 period!)
01 May... 25
09 Jun... 34
08 Jul... 37
03 Aug... 35
31 Aug... 69 (Jess on the doorstep, Hayley confronts Roy)
14 Sep... 52
03 Oct... 61 (proposal to leave Brookfield)
19 Oct... 62
03 Nov... 98 (massive discussion of our ages)
13 Nov... 75 (Tony's accident)
26 Nov... 58 (return of Tom)
13 Dec... 41 (thread nearly died over Christmas, Kate etc revived it!)

Thanks, Dad3, that's really interesting. (More interesting than the programme.)

I don't think the thread dying over Christmas is necessarily a factor of the programme. I think it's more to do with people not being able to listen / post here because they are out of usual routine (it also went down in the summer!)

That is quite interesting (and a little worryi g)!

I prefer newtom and newpip. I think I missed an omnobus somewhere I December as there's a lot on these threads I can't make out.

Couldn't stand Pusscat, so glad theee is less of all that these days.

BOOP - I agree (that's why I was careful to write "thread nearly died" and not "TA nearly died" - although the previous thread title does refer to the possibility!).

Hooray! One person found my figures interesting. Made all that recording in spreadsheets worth it

I'm OK with the way Kate is being depicted; I first got over-infested in TA at some previous point when she was being totally vile - I think trying to get custody of Feebs - and it seems to me her current conduct is totally consistent with that.

In general I'm reasonably positive about it, and I'm definitely not thinking of stopping listening. But the whole Brookfield saga and the dreadfully inept way it is being handled is really getting on my nerves. I wouldn't mind if they dealt with it in any way realistically - if they spread it over a sensible timescale, for instance, and if they showed the children acting realistically rather than accepting quite happily that they will have to leave their school/college and all their friends and, in the case of Josh, have his education totally disrupted only a few weeks before AS levels. And if it wasn't tied in with the ridiculous Heatherpet scenario, particularly given that it appears that she is coping perfectly well without having Roooth on the doorstep, and their concern didn't extend to bringing her to Brookfield for Christmas.

I second the idea that it would be totally brilliant if Tiger turns out to be the one who exposes Justin and saves Ambridge. However, I fear it isn't going to happen unless they start flagging something soon: surely the SWs wouldn't pass up the chance to fill several episodes with dark hints about what Tiger's up to?

I think Kate's totally in character - she's always been a completely narcissistic PITA. And veganism and yoga and being 'centred' are absolutely the sort of things she'd get into

You are right, Kate was. PITA all through her teens and twenties, and now she has left two more children on another continent whilst being an annoying 'rebel'...can't stand her, I remember all the angst when she left Feebs with Roy and then Roy and Hayley.
My BOOP point would be that I love Jazzer and Alan, both of whom seem to have drunk one of Carol's draughts and mysteriously vanished. Presumably to star in ARSE. I like characters with individuality and not these boring sound a likes who seem rather cardboard ....even HWMNbN, though irritating and implausible, was at leastoriginal. !

I think NewPip sounds like Amy at times. A sort of gentle Northern accent?
Thanks for the New thread Pseudo and the stats Dadx3 . Did you see someone's question on the last thread about how many widows there are in Ambridge?

Thanks for the new thread!

Pip was lapsing into some sort of brummie/west Midlands accent last night, I thought. I don't know how old the actress is but it feels like she's trying to play Pip too young, with a teenagerish infection a lot of the time, and that annoying thing where every sentence almost sounds like a question.

My BOOP point would be uncomfortable Jenny last night, served her right for trying to dig dirt on Carol by stirring up Richard. And generally I am liking Kate and I also like Phoebe helping Brine the other day, that felt very realistic.

Anyone have any ideas for a BOOP-POINT icon? I tried posting suggestions (I'm on my phone) but all except a red heart disappeared in preview.

(Not compulsory obviously - but I'd feel a bit twitchy if 'my' name was being used as a bullet point. )

My BOOP is the happiness of Emma and Ed

Oh yes pseudo , that too.

Re Pip I meant a teenagerish inflection rather than infection - stupid autocorrect!