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

Mink, not sure how recently I've seen JH - willing to accept he looks less youthful than he did.

Now to read rest of this thread. Amazing how sure the Knob is that it's not his sperm wot dunit. Scarily sure of his ground, it would seem. We all know the truth, yes. But it must be ghastly to be a woman in his life. If he were real I mean!

stillearnin your dad is in the doghouse as far as I'm concerned as well!

You'd think Helen would dig her heels in over Emma's children, even if they no longer come to the cottage, they could meet up elsewhere to play. Helen does stand her ground with Knob at times, so why can't she see what her son needs?

stillearnin, I think you have to hear every conversation with Knob to get the EA. If your dad isn't a regular and focused listener then it's unfair to put him in the kennel club (as my dad used to call it!). The EA stuff is very subtle at times.

marking place

In a way, Helen and Rob are quite similar. They just pretend things that they don't like aren't there. I think he knows damn well it's his baby but he doesn't want it to be do much, he's convinced himself it can't be.

I think you have to hear every conversation with Knob to get the EA.

I agree. If you take any single conversation, he almost always sounds reasonable and caring, except for little outbursts of "bitch!" and so on. But most people wouldn't be aware of that - he wouldn't have said it, if anyone other than Helen had been there. But when you add up all the separate bits, that's when you see it.

Gypsy - don't even think it!

SOC has written a blog entry on the BBC website. Now to read it!

Comments are temporarily unavailable due to a technical fault. Please try later

That's from the BBC website. How very convenient. I was about to ask him to sort out the accent problem.

They're unavailable for the whole BBC bloggy thing, not just SOC's bit

Keep trying

"And both the villagers -and the audience- have been at turns horrified and excited by the issues ignited by the possibility of a major road threatening to divide the village in half"

horrified at its crapness and excited that it may finish soon

technical problems my arse

Don't worry, I will!

Blog itself is fine as far as it goes. No mention of all his casting decisions, though.

Thanks Mimsy.

But wassheonabout? I read it with my heart beating. So very portentous - to what purpose?

"Lots of fires" . Still room for one more massive conflagration and PC Plot's elevation to St Harry.

AllMimsy . I'd do it but I'd be afraid that I'd get the Grundy's whiney neighbour as well!

Well I think it's clear how Feedback is going to go He'll reel off that blog post; presenter will say "but many listeners like to be able to tell the characters apart ON THE RADIO", and he'll say "look, we all need to accept change and allow the new actors to bed in". Bleurgh.

Yep and how they've brought lots of new listeners via the podcasts etc etc. Pffft.

BYOS I was about to highlight exactly the same sentence. Horrified because it has been presented in such an unrealistic way - a reasonable enough possibility, but if ever there was slow-burning story this is it. In real life these things rumble on for years without being resolved. Also horrified by the introduction of pantomime villains Justin and Charlie. And Sock seems surprised by how much listeners are enjoying the Helen and Rob storyline - as if the subtlety of some of their exchanges is not really intentional. Slightly nervous about this - it suggests that the BOOP bits are accidental.

I have just listened to tonight's phone conversation between Knob and Jess. He says a lot of things like you have no right to get mum involved, no right to put my name on the certificate, I will not recognise him as my son...He only once says anything close to he is not actually mine (biologically) and even then it is a bit fudged. I will listen again and see if I have that right.

SOC seems quite reasonable in the blog, thank you Mimsy for linking it, but is he only reasonable in the way that Rob is?

still you are right. The pne thing he didn't say was "he CAN'T be mine".

stillearnin, I was listening very carefully and he hasn't once said 'He isn't my son because he couldn't be - the last time we slept together was...' I think it's all bluster. He wants to intimidate her into dropping this, but he won't. Interesting that his mother is on Jess's side (if that's true).

Sigh. She won't.

Why the horrible 'official' BBC page? Even before I started reading I thought someone must have died. Or that he was resigning. And he didn't mull over the future - just told us what we already know.

Regarding Rob, I'm slightly worried that perhaps we're getting more out of the story than they ever intended. He sounded bemused. Hope that's not the case.

Also in the valentine's Jess Hellin show down I am sure Jess said something along lines of well where did you think he was last week? He was in my bed.

Hellin seemed to just gloss over that in her belief that J is deranged and a horrible woman.

I have now finished the rest of the podcast. I used to get involved with the CSA with my work (but over a decade ago - actually when it was in its infancy) The way it used to work was that if you denied it, you had to prove it with a paternity test. I think you had to pay for that too, but there were arguments about that (on the basis that some people would not be able to afford it) so it may well have changed. I think that he could still cover it up as others have said - I think the CMS (if that's what it is now) would not tell Hellin anything even if she asked it as its not her right to know.

Looking forward to Jenny darling asking Hels about it all.