Thread 98 - Discuss The Archers here! If you don’t give a ha’porthfor Pip come and add your two penn’orth - we do enjoy a bit of change counting (especially if it’s in old money)

[Bittermints]

Many thanks to @LilianGish for the title (again - she has real gift for this!). Further thanks due to @PseudoBadger for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads and to @DadDadDad for being our resident statistician and keeping the ball rolling when Pseudo stepped back a bit.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to be Susan's best friend or other odd unusual views.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

(Change counting references arose specifically out of a nostalgic discussion on the previous thread, if anyone is intrigued.)

SATTC was really from the BBC's "what we are doing next year" for 2010-11

www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/05_may/27/sopps.shtml

"On Radio 4, next January will see the The Archers turn 60, with a thrilling storyline under close wraps that will shake Ambridge to the core."

It was amazing how unthrilled I was by either the death or the birth, whichever storyline it was that they meant.

But I love that Telegraph article! I didn't see it at the time.

My finest moment to this day is suggesting 'soaking Ambridge to the core' for a thread title at the time of the Great Flood.

That is indeed a fine moment
As an Ambridge incomer I always love the snippets of the yesteryear

Here we go - anyone who objects to two wealthy men renting the womb of a migrant chicken plucker is a homophobe.

Kirsty and Ian were insufferable.

Here we go - anyone who objects to two wealthy men renting the womb of a migrant chicken plucker is a homophobe I didn't hear that being said or implied at all.

Disagree about Kirsty and Ian, they were spot on. It's rare to see gossip put in their place. A bit unrealistic as most people say these things after the gossip has left, but its drama.

Emmurr was horrible to JD, not just as a purveyor of gossip in the part of doing her a favour, but her unpleasant and personal comments about the newsletter. It didn't ring quite true for her, either.

Her resentful attitude to Jenny's ga,e pie did though. What are she and Ed having for tea? Fish to go with that massive chip on her shoulder I'll be bound.

Maybe she'll drop the chip when she and Ed get a plaice of their own?

Unless a bad move by Ed with Timote causes the chips to be down, but simultaneously up at head and shoulders height

Agree the Emma’s bit didn’t ring true. Felt plot driven to find someone to have good reason to doorstep Jennifer.

Turning to Kirsty, she can’t be so far off lexi’s age. Maybe she’ll think about trying for another baby herself.

Echt I was referring to Iain’s conversation with Brian where Iain described people being opposed to gay men having a surrogate baby as "some neanderthals".

This is exactly the reason why I didnt want them to do the surrogacy storylines. (I am aware the scriptwriters don't organise TA for my benefit )They are just not up to it. It would be good if the concerns about surrogacy could be expressed by a character who isn't portrayed as an arse. I don't think I can listen while they do this SL.

Emma did mention that it was problematic for a rich couple to be renting the room of a poor migrant chicken factory worker. Lexi has said both that she wants them to have a baby but that she is doing this to be able to spend time with her girls. Ian mentioned the future of homophobic bullying the child will likely suffer. I think they hastily tried to shine horn too much agg and gossip into one episode via two mouthpieces and it didn't entirely work.

I took the Emma,Jenny and Kirsty scene about a small moment of bonding for J & K whilst J is at odds with B. If I was Emma and juggling two or three jobs, general Grundy scivvy duties, houseful of kids + will's + karate + the council. I'd be unimpressed if someone with responsibilities that I shared didn't tell me their internet was down. No wonder she's a grump though, I'm exhausted just thinking about Emma's life.

Iain described people being opposed to gay men having a surrogate baby as "some neanderthals".

I'm opposed to all surrogacy regardless of the genital configuration and sexual orientation of the parties involved.

It depends how we were supposed to interpret Ian's comment. Are we supposed to think that this is true and that all those who object to surrogacy are homophobic and the SW can pat themselves on the back for sending out that morality message. Or are we supposed to think that Ian represents some men who haven't the slightest idea about the ongoing conversations women have about surrogacy. Ian is not that unusual in his perspective, there was a man on tv this morning asking the programme makers where they found 'this nutcase' - he was referring to a woman who opposed surrogacy. He did not have the slightest idea that there are many people opposed to surrogacy and that it was nothing to do with homphobia, his ignorance of the fact that women might have a view on the hiring out of women's bodies was astonishing to watch.
Where is that overinvested icon when you need it?

not sure if it will show up but here you go - overinfested.

🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜

Isn't the point of the surrogacy storyline to explore the variety of different viewpoints on it without taking one particular angle?

It's not something I've had any experience of and have ever given much thought to (although I know a lot of gay couples), I'm not sure where I stand on the issue and am interested in hearing the different views aired.

Albeit possibly not in a radio soap opera.

Obviously surrogacy not limited to gay men.

Echt I was referring to Iain’s conversation with Brian where Iain described people being opposed to gay men having a surrogate baby as "some neanderthals

Yes, I heard that, but didn't take as saying they were homophobic (hateful word).

Echt I was referring to Iain’s conversation with Brian where Iain described people being opposed to gay men having a surrogate baby as "some neanderthals

Yes, I heard that, but didn't take as saying they were homophobic (hateful word)

What other interpretation is possible?

I heard it as being people who didn’t want gay men to be fathers were Neanderthals. I think there is a big difference between adoption and surrogacy. You can be fine with one but not the other.
Do we know if Ian is Catholic or Protestant by the way?

I'm beginning to regret the bugs ...

My screen is alternating between a parade of cute ants - which are rather charming, and a phalanx of perfectly horrid beetles which give me the creeps ...

It didn't feel very realistic for Emma to confront Jenny - gossips usually witter on behind people's backs, don't they? And if Emma wanted to confront the 'perpetrators' (Jenny is, after all, just a bystander) she'd have squared up to Adam or Ian, surely? Which she wouldn't do, because of losing goodwill of possible employers and connected people.

Jenny is massively naive thinking that the baby is an unalloyed joy and will be greeted so by everyone. And actually, for such a maternally-driven woman, her blithe dismissal of any possibility that there could be horrible emotional complications for Lexi is extremely unrealistic, even given Jenny's self-centredness and frank stupidity about her children. After all, she has taken on Ruairi as her own, and loves him, and she didn't even give birth to him. So how she can maintain that because Lexi hasn't provided an egg, there won't be a maternal bond, is beyond belief really.

I am glad that Kirsty told Emma where to get off though.

Well I guess they're writing Emma into her mother's shoes.

I did like the deft repositioning of Kirsty as Jenny-Protector.

Are we not curious about what Philip has suggested to Kirsty? Where does he live? I imagine he's asked her to move in with him - situating her closer to Borchester Uni, presumably.

(Though I'd love it if he's proposed a round the world trip preparatory to her new career move.)

IIRC Ian didn't say "gay men" having a baby, he said "two men". This seems to me to make it less homophobic.

A bit of an aside but...

...does anyone know who Pat Fletcher described by Kirsty to Philip in Jan 29 episode as "the queen of garden gnomes" or similar, is please? She apparently described the Lexi/Ian/Adam situation as "all very odd".