The dog days of summer are approaching Ambridge. Freddy’s being hounded and Brian is in the dog house - can Jenny take the ruff with the smooth?

[PseudoBadger]

Thanks to all for the dog ideas, and special mention to Ppeatfruit.

Discuss the Archers here!

Will saying that Andrew is guilty and compensating

And, indeed, Will banging on about how only he is able to offer a normal family life when he buggers off for the evening relying on his brother and sister-in-law giving up their anniversary celebration to put his children to bed.

'sticking to contactless'

good for Alistair.

I luffs Susan.
When Charlotte Martin came to the Academic Archers conference, she was apprehensive as to what sort of reception she would get. I think she expected to get boo'ed off stage but instead she was welcomed with several minutes of rousing applause. She was gobsmacked by how much we loved Susan despite/because of her awfulness.

Really? I loathe Susan. I just cannot get past the awfulness. I would probably applaud the actress because she is well played, but the character is absolutely ghastly.

Susan's not absolutely ghastly, she has her moments. Who organised the rota for Clarrie Will, eh?

I like Susan as a character, she says what other people are thinking, and has her family front and central despite her gossipy ways. I think she would be irritating as a person in real life though. I'm sure the actress is lovely.

I wish I liked Lily as a character as I think this could be an interesting storyline. Someone I went to school with had a relationship with a teacher, she was like Lily, very sensible and holding things together following her parents divorce. People used to talk about how grown up she was. Looking back she was very vulnerable.

You think her organising the rota was nice?! To me it came across as just another example of her failing to consult on what people would actually want and instead deciding for them what would be best and going ahead with it. Then acting the martyr when she didn't get the gratitude she thought she deserved.

And she only has her family front and central when it comes to Neil and her kids. She doesn't get on with Alice or Ed much and I don't remember her doing much with Keira.

I've always thought she was supposed to be the kind of Anti-Clarrie: similar class, job, family but Clarrie is lovely and Susan is vile.

Perhaps we'll like Lily better now we can see her more vulnerable side?

I agree that Susan is a great character, and Charlotte Martin was wonderful at the conference, very good-humoured but determined to explain every side of Susan. We hear a very amusing and generally quite nasty gossip, but Charlotte thought that she actually finds it hard to fit in and uses gossip as a vehicle to keep herself going socially, if that makes sense. I sympathise with that a lot myself, and you can imagine the reaction anyone would get if they asked Will what they could do to help, so to me it came across as sweet, if misguided. I have a lot of form for misreading people myself, though, so feel free to correct me :)

Lily, on the other hand, I have very little time for - she is self-satisfied, arrogant, manipulative and played by an actress who is far too old for the part. She seems like a massive suck-up to her mother, Pip and now Russ and keen to put Freddie down and patronise him whenever she gets the chance. I don't think that vulnerability per se makes people more likeable - only when it illuminates a softer side to their character or a good quality - but again, I'm happy to be corrected on that...

FINK I'd say organising the rota was nice as it started from her not wanting to tell Will Mia was doing the shopping without enough money - it was a gesture for Clarrie so she'd know she didn't have to be there 24/7 or else they'd be abandoned albeit temporarily.

Pip, ugh.

I love Susan as a character - she feels real. Agree that she uses gossip to make herself feel important and in the loop - she finds it impossible to keep anything to herself for fear of being thought of as the last to know. Then of course she’s horrified as being described as a gossip because in her mind she’s only revealing what she knows to a select few on a need to know basis. She’s very socially insecure and likes to think of herself as a cut above Clarrie - especially now she has family links with the Aldridges (almost completely forgetting she has a similar family connection with the Grundies). She’s owns her own home, has a husband in a managerial job who is in the process of selling his business, she runs the post office - these are important matters of pride for Susan. Still not sure about Lily - I don’t feel as though I truly know her because she was silent for so long. I agree that she feels far too old for someone about to take her A levels so she never feels entirely convincing. She there to be chalk to her brother’s cheese. It feels a bit too neat to be believable.

Perhaps Susan's insensitive interfering in Al's life will be the straw that sends him OUT of Amb. Though as we never hear from Anisha now ( I know Rex mentioned he was going to see the unvoiced character yesterday).there won't any vets in Amb. soon!

Susan is great, she's well written and acted.

BOOP for the posh twins' reunion. I like them both.

I second the Pip, ugh. Also did anyone else think it odd that Ruth and David thought that whatever Josh was doing that wasn't OFS was OK because he wasn't going to be earning money? I can't remember what the exact activity was but it does seem odd that there isn't enough work for him on the farm normally, but it's only fine for him to work when he isn't supporting himself, an attitude Ruth and David did not display towards Pip.

I think that was a sign that Alistair is on the way out.

I'm afraid I knew three sixth formers, contemporaries of mine, who had affairs with teachers, one of which was married. Grim. Lily's situation and her vulnerability as the 'coper' in the family seems quite realistic. Russ is dreadful, obviously.

Lily's situation does rather show up Lizzie, she needs to be more approachable and less judgemental . I reckon that it's her pushiness that's caused Freddie to resort to the 'smart' drugs . I know that a lot of teenagers don't tell their parents anything but she is the only parent the twins have got.

Russ is comedy dreadful, is it panto season already? Think we all would have managed to dislike him well enough without his vileness being laid on with a trowel.

I don't think Lizzie is unapproachable. I wasn't a listener during Nigel's days but I think seeing a parent devastated often does turn a child into a 'coper' perhaps as a coping mechanism in itself. If Russ wasn't so unbelievably foul I'd say this was a very believable storyline.

Agree Russ is too much of an arse for it to be believable that Lily might have fallen for him. He needs a more sympathetic portrayal for us to understand how it might have happened. I can well believe Lily, looking for a father figure, might have fallen for an older man, but he'd need to be more of a charmer than Russ. I'm also wondering again about Freddie's A levels (I'm still not entirely clear what subjects he is doing). I hope his last minute revision with smart drugs isn't going to reap miraculous results.

Russ's sliminess is for the plot though. The twins are getting away with their naughtiness at the moment. When it all comes out that's when the shxx will hit the fan big time.

Y' see it's Drama with a capital D. Also does Lily know that he's blackmailing Freddie?

I agree his sliminess is for the plot, but it still needs to be more subtle. A teacher hitting on a pupil is slimy full stop - I need to believe that Lily would have fallen for him in the first place though.

I suspect it's not coincidental that Russ's passion for Lily arose when he realised she owned a valuable painting. Not so much because of the painting itself as what he thought it revealed about her background.

One of my 5th/6th form class mates married our teacher. As far as I know they are still together 30 plus years later. A head I know married her 6th form music teacher when she was 19.

But haven't we had the older man scenario before with Pip?- seems repetitive.

In fact there was another as well,

There was the girl who lived with Helen and had a relationship with her boyfriend.