We never thought we’d feel sorry for Will. Although of course it should have been Pip! Discuss The Archers here (Titled edited by MNHQ)

[PseudoBadger]

Welcome all! I was really touched by the potential for Ed and Will to reconcile. But wonder if Will can accept Ed’s support.

As ever, no spoilers here (there’s a thread for that) - discussion permitted as soon as the pm episode is broadcast.

Shula was extremely angry with Matt the night of the Hunt Ball, and she has form for Not Doing Anything (Knob and the hunt sab), so I think it's plausible that she at least failed to help him.

Bystander apathy - Not Helping - is a pretty common behaviour in humans, much as we'd like to think anyone passing would at least call us an ambulance.

Could it have been Brian who did the H&R seen by Nic who didn't want to grass up Will's boss?

He has form; running over a cat , also he put his car into the garage for repair straight after the accident.

Whichever way you dice it, woe is being visited upon the House of Archer

Aldridge?

I did a long post and lost it in the ether. Abridged version:
Do we remember what time Matt was hit?
Counting syllables as Nic said very little to Joe - all these are short, Brine hit Matt, or Brian hit Matt, or Will hit Matt. Maybe Will came to pick up Nic from the Bull, plausible if the older children were in the cottage or co- idge.

Why would Brine have been out alone? Or is this another thing Jenny knows about, and the almost last straw? I don’t really think so. Also Brine wouldn’t take his landrover to the ball. He‘ll have a swanky saloon for such occasions.

P.S. I‘m with others who don’t much cre. Just in case there were any doubts. Right, off to cook dinner before my personal energy supply expires.

oops!

House of Aldridge

True, but IME the 4x4s of people like Will would not show a dent, being probably dented and muddy already.
Justin et al will have shiny new ones

Justin's would but Alice and Brine's likely to be dirty and dented. I don't get the impression they are careful drivers.

Nic left the Bull early because Mia wasn't happy at her friends' house and needed to be collected. Maybe she walked if it was local.

Fair bit of sniping between between Harrison and Fallon over the last two nights. All about to go tits up there?

Surely no man - who’s not a psychopath - would ever press his wife so relentlessly to drink when she didn’t want to drink? Seems weird.

THats what I thought, too. I keep thinking they’re teetering on the brink....

What the fuck is Chris playing at??

Chris has realised that sober Alice is a miserable old cow and prefers drunk Alice?

Either it's not Alice that has the drink problem but Chris, and she is just keeping up. Or Chris is so used to her drinking that he can't think to offer any other 'coping' mechanism.

Why are F&H taking up Alan's challenge halfway through Lent?

I hope Chris and Alice stay together. It’s one in the eye for JD and her snide ‘starter marriage’ comments.

Plus it means we get some comedy snobs vs social climbers between the Aldridges and Susan - “as we’re fam-erly Jennifer”

Alice keeps sounding as though the scales are falling from her eyes though. I think she might be experimenting with no alcohol to see if she can tolerate him when she’s sober.
Unless she actually is pregnant and is trying to kid herself that she isn’t.

No I think it’s as boring as she tried to give it up but Chris has unwittingly encouraged her and now she’s got the green light we’ll hear her getting steadily worse.

I cannot bear Fallon and Harrison’s accents. A pair of garbling Wurzels.

I wonder if Alice suspects she has a drink problem and is seeing if she can manage without it. Maybe she's even been to an AA meeting on the sly. Can't believe Chris practically pinning her down and pouring it down her neck.

On the subject of the Fallon/Harrison bickering - I v. much enjoyed her pointed comments about the merits of 'reading the instructions' when putting flat pack furniture together) I suspect many female listeners will have nodded knowingly at that point....Maps/getting lost etc. Apologies for the gender stereotyping, but painfully true IME.

We (men) don't all fall into that stereotype. I'm a logical, systematic kind of person (no shit, Mr I-do-spreadsheets-in-my-spare-time Actuary), and I will lay out all the parts as listed in the instructions before starting, and painstakingly check and recheck each step to make sure I'm using the right bolt etc in the right place.

I accept not all men are like that, but it is a bit of a lazy stereotype to suggest that even a man confident in what he is doing would not occasionally check the instructions, especially if he ran into problems. I'll stop before this becomes a rant.

Dad**3 - welcome to the world of women! (from a woman who can read a map better than most men) We are the daily targets of stereotypical thinking from "women can't read maps: to "Mere, what is the woman's point of view"

To be fair to notdeadyetBOING, D3, she did say this was in her own experience.

Jessie - I did notice that. My rant was more at lazy scriptwriters who portray men in this way without nuance. How about having a man who says "I don't need instructions" then gets bit a stuck, but doesn't necessarily see it as massive blow to his pride or masculinity to then say "I think I probably need the instructions for this bit... ah, yes I see now, I think I can do it from here...". Surely many normal men behave like that?

And yes, I totally get Mere's point that women suffer from stereotypes in the same way and because of inequality that can be even more harmful than it is for men.

I cannot bear Fallon and Harrison’s accents. A pair of garbling Wurzels.

What a frightful snob. Harrison has a completely different accent anyway, cloth ears.

I thought Alice was doing a big formal dinner for someone at work with all the trouble she was going to - to produce ping pong lamb mince. It does seem to be pointing to her re Matt.