The Archers: Discussion #84. New Year and some of us are still listening even if we don't know why.

[DadDadDad]

New posters welcome - with your fresh views and burning questions.

Old posters welcome - with your jaded views and knowledgeable answers.

But new posters feel free to be jaded, and old posters feel free to ask questions!

How is the Pip storyline going to play out and do you care?

As usual, if you want to mention the advertised storylines for future episodes, there's a separate thread for that - no spoilers here, please.

Just imagine we're all sitting round a table at The Bull -->

Goodness - pip with twins may push me over the edge!

I thought you meant Adam and Ian - that would be more interesting!

Regular here with a New Year NC.

Just LA to the film and a remark from Ian struck me - about ‘how crazily hard’ it had been to find a surrogate, or words to that effect.

Really? Maybe we're supposed to assume they’re doing this in their every spare moment, but they haven’t exactly been shown as combing the length and breadth of the land searching tirelessly for a candidate. One person (recommended to them) declined. Helen (related to one of them) offered then retracted. Lexie (works with one of them) is thinking about it. And two of those three people live in their tiny village. If Lexie does go ahead it'll be about the quickest and easiest surrogacy ever, surely!

Sorry I just dip in and out of this thread, but what's happened to Tom?
Is he having another voice transplant?

Poppy's conception was a little controversial. There was a birdwatching camera set up in the woods, and Will and Nic got up to a bit of al fresco baby-making activities.

I did mean Adam and Ian actually, since with IVF they implant more than one egg (hence the number of hollywood stars with twins, apparently)

Hadn't thought of Pip. The 🔮 is not being helpful at the moment.

Freddy & Lily are twins.

Not universal to transfer more than one embryo Bore, quite a lot of UK clinics refuse to do more than one if the embryo quality is good, the rational being that twin pregnancies are higher risk and therefore a bigger burden on the NHS. I had 3 though actually as I was over 40 and our embryos were not great. Ended up with one baby.

Of course! Duh!!! I knew there was another set somewhere

Ah, thanks Jessie. This is The Archers though. Do we think a triplets s/l would be going a little too far?

I have just listened again, and David and Ruth must surely be candidates for worst parents in the world. The emotional energy they expend on Pip is ridiculous. That long chat about what David should do to make peace with Toby "do it for Pip". Have we ever heard them have a conversation about what they should do about Josh or Ben. Does Ben have no issues that need discussion, falling grades, girlfriend problems, bullying, there must be something. But no nothing.

Ben is a happy well-adjusted child who enjoys nothing better than going out on his bike for a few months or hiding in the cereal cupboard. He's only put out now because the Bay-Bee will usurp his place in the cupboard.

I believe the tendency to have non-identical twins is hereditary, so Jill could have passed it to David,
I believe it is only inherited down the female line so couldn't be passed on via David.

Happy to be corrected, glamorousgrandmother, but I think a man could inherit that gene/genes and pass it down to his daughter. I'd forgotten about Lily and Freddie too - so Elizabeth may have inherited that gene from Jill! Please oh please oh please don't let Hugh Canoe be reading this thread ...

Gasp Yes I think you're right about the twin gene; dh's mum had had twins and because I was 'showing' quite early in my first pgnancy I was given a scan for twins which was quite funny because dd1 was a singleton ,as they say, was 14 days late and weighed in at 6lbs 10ozs

Birdsofdestiny if I remember correctly Ben did get bullied on the school bus a few months ago because of the IBR problems and if anyone sorted it out it was Josh, not his parents.

Yes I remember that Ruby, but no agonising from Ruth on that subject. I think he maybe got a ' poor ben' and then they returned to the subject of pip
Debbie gets more attention from her parents than Ben does and she is an adult and lives in another country.

I am waiting for Pip's baby to have foetal alcohol syndrome from Alice spiking her drink.

Mishappening

Agreed. They've also introduced and then mostly forgotten about:

• addiction problems for Ed
• congenital heart issue for Elizabeth - I know it came up when she was pregnant and after Nigel died, but I'd have expected it to be referrred to occasionally
• thyroid problems for Jill (a long time ago, but as they are never ever mentioned I assume they resolved spontaneously - is this plausible?)
• Mike and Pat both had fairly major episodes of depression
• Helen's eating disorder has vanished again - maybe that's realistic now she's free of Rob, but no mention at all?
• Kenton had some sort of thyroid problem in the 80s when he first came back from the Merchant Navy. Apparently they were working up to revealing that he was gay and had contracted AIDS, which would have been very topical at the time, but the BBC hierarchy vetoed that, so they had to find another medical explanation for his symptoms.

Wont Pip have had a scan when she went for an abortion?

I had a thyroid problem 30 years ago which was completely resolved at the time ...

Elizabeth's dicky heart came up recently in a scene when the risotto had been spiked with Magic Mushrooms I think ...

Lizzie's heart problem was mentioned by Freddie quite recently when h Noli 'spiked' her risotto with their 'shrooms'. He made her throw it away.

Elizabeth’s heart problem came up again recently with the illegal mushrooms storyline, didn’t it?

Thanks, I'd forgotten about that. So that one is still mentioned here and there.

lost, yes, she did. Looks like no twins then.