Out, damned SOC! Out I say! When will Ambridge be free? Discuss The Archers here

[PseudoBadger]

A once-great soap is going down the Beverley drain.

Yay Ian!

Phew!

Not that the current producers could inflict a tragedy without 6 weeks of doom laden-trailers first, anyway.

Lynda is going to have a major face on when Fallon makes a roaring success. Although, chances are, hiccups will threaten at the last minute and Lynda will swoop in and save the day and they'll kiss and make up.

Anyone else wondering whether Lynda's hidden the Whack-A-Mole game?

SealSong Scruff just turned up one day, whimpering at the back door. It was a Christmas Miracle I believe.

God I hate Shula. She's dull, self-righteous, and has questionable morality. Nothing to like about her at all. I think she's Jill's least favourite too.

I listened to the film today. Jill's 'ohh!'s are sounding increasingly querulous. Jenny worrying about Mum being too tired to go and visit Helen when she was quite happy to have her shuffling around getting the bastard yurts really for KatetheNarc really got on my tits

Lynda has totally kidnapped whack a mole and the pin for dunk the vicar

Thanks, er, Lynda . I must have missed that.

I spent this afternoon in a furious temper mowing the grass thinking about those smug women on top of their horses while the Grundys fear for their futures. Where are ordinary people supposed to live when houses keep getting turned into holiday flats? And young families? What the hell are they supposed to do? Gah! this story may have hit a nerve

When will Helen's case be heard? What will happen to Rob if she gets off? Does Henry get to choose which parent to live with if the PR stands?

I thought for a moment Fallon was talking about guacomole and was mispronouncing it!

So glad Ian will be there for Helen. What with the Adam/Charlie reveal and the endless skirting board painting, no one would blame him for not wanting to get dragged back in.

Re whack-a-mole...

I first encountered it on the pier in San Francisco, in 1983 (& got embarrassingly enthusiastic in my whacking, but it was drizzling & I was pissed off). I think it really is supposed to rhyme with guacamole

(If we all knew that all the time I will blush & retreat)

hmm. poor henry. he is being taught cricket. (sounds good) but david thinks he is not having any fun... serious

typical of rob.. but how can one complain? he was teaching henry to play proper cricket.

Ian doesn't really know what he knows yet. He hasn't thought about Rob's past behaviour or how that impacts on what Helen did.
Another example of disjointed Ambridge. Tom can give his Gran a good picture of coercive control and spend lots of time with Adam but no-one is joining the dots. Is this what really happens in RL?

Isn't Robert lovely? - the absolute opposite of Rob.

Hurrah for Ian development. About time too.

Now - where is Jess…..?

Didn't whack-a-mole used to be called bash-the-rat at proper village fetes, or is that just a regional variation?

You can do wack-a-banker at Southwold Pier. Well worth it.

I know it as Splat the Rat.
Now, if she'd said that instead of guacamole.......

Isn't Splat the Rat where it shoots down a drainpipe? And isn't Whack-a-Mole where it pops up through holes? Our village fetes always had the former and I only ever saw the latter on American fillums.

Yep - the rat is a sock full of heavy things that you shoot down a drain pipe.

The Wack a thing is usually fairground/amusements type things. The first one I came across was a cake with maggots in. If you got them all, it said 'You are the icing on the cake'

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36905761

William Smethurst dies

Mary Cutler writes:

"William Smethurst is the reason I'm still writing The Archers thirty-seven years later. He took a chance on a young English teacher who had never had anything on radio before on the strength of one unsolicited script where the first good line - he kindly told me - did not appear until two thirds down the first page. It is a cliche but in this case completely true - William taught me everything I know. He told me the Archers was essentially a social comedy - like Jane Austen - a group of interesting characters in an English village. This meant that though terrible things could, and do, happen to our characters - the good would end happily and the bad unhappily. He told me I could write anything I liked at all - shock the audience to the core in one scene as long as the next scene was Tom Forrest listening to birdsong on Lakey Hill. William knew that audience and it would not be an exaggeration to say he saved The Archers for them."

Too right

RIP William Smethurst.

That mix of light and dark was why I loved the Archers. Latterly, I think the elves in the Millenium Wood was meant to counterbalance Helen/Rob but it missed the mark by a mile.

I wonder if Mary Cutler is making a point.

I stand corrected and now can't visualise Whack A Mole!

Question for legal-people....... Is it possible for Helen to bring a charge of coercive control on Rob, while she is in custody.

Whack-a-mole generally looks something like this - I thought the one I did had more holes, but maybe not. They pop up for a very short time & it's really frustrating! The rim gets bashed much more than the moles do