Alas poor Nic! I sacked her, Kenton. Death comes to Ambridge. Discuss the remaining Archers here. (Title Edited by MNHQ)

[PseudoBadger]

So it’s taken a sad, untimely death to bring me out of retirement. How I have missed you all
Welcome to thread 86!

MNHQ get a grip

D3 - are you suppose to refuse to serve alcohol if a person is really pissed?

Although I can see it would be problematic to define that

Yes you are. Staff and the licence holder should and do refuse. Licence holders , whether of premises or personal licence holders, can lose their licences for serving drunks.

Serving anyone anywhere with anything is a matter of choice for the retailer (unless you are refusing soley because of a protected characteristic) It is a matter of common sense to decide if a customer has had too much.

I too feel upset at how distressed Nic was when she was dying and that Joe was seemingly unable to give her any reassurance about whatever it was she felt so guilty about. He just sounded horrified and said that the medication must have muddled her.

I expect it will turn out to be about Matt's crash alternative although Nic's anxiety over it seems misplaced. Matt had hurt a lot of people in his brief return to Ambridge, seems to have completely recovered from the accident and is missed by no one. If Nic had run him over I would expect her to have been obviously worried and burdened with guilt afterwards.

It makes more sense that she witnessed Alice do it am has been trying to prevent Alice doing anything similar again. But then why wasn't Alice more troubled after Matt's accident. Didn't she admit it straight away when she accidentally damaged a combine(?) messing about after a party? Why hasn't the shock of being a drink driver caused her to re-examine her behaviour and cut down on her drinking?

I’m annoyed at myself that I’m contributing to the titles discussion but I have to point out that the replacement’s no better! What about the poor souls who’ve listened to Thursday’s episode but not Friday’s? You’ve ruined it for them now. Ruined it, I tell you.

I'm really cross about the thread title change - it's crap. It's one thing to complain on a thread you never actually post one, quite another to moan to MNHQ

"Untimely death" are Pseudo's words in the OP.

Didn't she admit it straight away when she accidentally damaged a combine(?) messing about after a party? Why hasn't the shock of being a drink driver caused her to re-examine her behaviour and cut down on her drinking?

Alice might not know that she hit him. Didn’t we think that there were 2 separate people involved - the one that hit him and the one that later stopped, looked at him, then drove away (who I thought may have been Justin, but was it Nic?).

Nik had a reason for dealing with Alice quietly rather than getting Kenton to refuse to serve her - as I remember, a journalist investigating Brian was in the bar and Nik was worried that Alice was going to be either written about as a drunk or interviewed to get some hidden info. The more Nik tried to persuade Alice to be quiet, the more Alice was drawing attention to herself and making it likely the journo would come over. I actually thought Nik was in a very difficult position - it was her being more alert to the potential family implications of the situation than Kenton or Alice that was causing her problems.

People wittering about spoilers really need to get a grip.

In general terms, I disagree. I would like to repeat my previously-expressed gratitude to the spoiler-thread-people that they don't ruin things on the main thread even if I can see at certain times that the spoiler thread gets suspiciously busy.
Anyways, moving on ...

Ridiculous to change the thread title now - the ship has sailed.

And shurely its Shula who hit Matt - hence her even worse than usual moaning and moping. I hope the Easter Donkey runs amok and tramples her. (Do they have an Easter Donkey as well as a Christmas Donkey?)

There is some irony in this thread imploding after a sudden death in the "TA family". I am sure there are lots of families that suffer a death and the aftermath is marred by people falling out, stirring up long-held grudges and general bickering.
It's not what Nic would have wanted. Will nobody think of her poor young children?

Also it’s the mention of death that was the spoiler, you numpties! The cliffhanger was “will Nic live?”.

Nobody was going to hear Thursday’s with Nic being rushed to hospital, see the new thread title and think “ooh, I wonder who died?”

‘Untimely’ meaning ‘premature’ in the context of death Francis. Joe’s, whilst sad, won’t be untimely (apologies actors Joe, Jill if you’re reading ).

Who are you calling a numpty, Jessie?

I listened to the episode with a tear in my eye knowing that Nic would be deaded

Me too. I almost always listen on catch- up. It was a clever thread and no need to change it.

What’s really disappointing was the lack of the “Archers doom” music at the end of the episode. Come on BBC Archers production staff, this was surely a time to use it!

Or just slience as with John's death.

MNHQ Ruby.

people falling out, stirring up long-held grudges and general bickering

Well my conscience is clear thank you very much.

@MNHQ What on earth was the point of editing the title of this thread?

The episode aired at 7pm yesterday. The thread was started more than two and a half hours later at 21:49 pm. It was therefore not a spoiler by then. It was even less of a spoiler when the title was edited this afternoon.

How long must elapse after a programme has been broadcast before a thread title can be considered not to be a spoiler?

I do think even PresidentOliviaMumsnet, who has always been a stickler for such things, would agree that this thread falls into the not-a-spoiler category.

To quote an Archers character: Badly done, MNHQ, badly done

Anyway - at least everyone's pissed off now: those who were spoiled by the original thread title, those who are annoyed at the edit. So that's fair!

lol 3D

Er. Wtf?!