Thread 99 (yes, 99!): Join us for spirited discussions of The Archers and its Top Blokes, whether you're Team Elizabeth (low spirits), Team Kate (Spiritual Home) or Team Toby (spirits =gin)

[Bittermints]

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. Thanks also to all those who contributed to the thread title.

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!

So, to business. What a fantastic two-hander. Massive BOOP points to Alison Dowling, the scriptwriter and director (and the therapist). I had more than a small tear in my eye listening to that.

I'm another one with a vote of thanks to chemenger for all that information on the last thread about distilling. I should know some of that because I went on a tour of the whisky distillery near where my parents live but I've forgotten most of it except how delicious the end product is.

Hello, Olivia! How lovely to see you. Hope all is well.

Well, I can't ever remember hearing Christopher say a single word all these last few years.

What was his last major storyline?

I don't think Tim is going to make a play for Emmur at all. I think he's after Ed.

Have we ever had a bi-curious husband storyline at all?

He was on recently saying “I’m not being funny mate, but you’re in my house and insulting my wife”, or something equally idiotic, to Adam, she he told Alice he wasn’t growing strawberries any more so she couldn’t trial her robotic picker. He sounded... local.

When he told Alice.

Sticking up for his missus a couple of months back, somethings to do with her work, maybe....
He comes across as fit as fuck but quite dim, loving and loyal, and in awe of Alice.
I can’t see them in a long marriage with children. But I did like their rebellion at actually marrying as young’uns

Chris had a massive storyline when he got kicked by a horse and almost died and Alice was away in Canada having an interview at the time. Also he has been the foil to drunk Alice on many an occasion

I’d forgotten that, he is I think, a nice young man. Like his dad. Honest, straight forward and kind

Well, that being kicked by a horse must have been before I started listening.

But, sounding 'as fit as fuck' would have stuck in my memory, I think! I'm a sucker for a sexy voice.

Maybe I missed that episode....

Susan being wistful about having her kids young and thus narrowing her life choices got me reminiscing to myself. I believe I can remember Neil persuading her to DTD. Shortly afterwards she found herself pregnant, and they "had" to get married, if memory serves me right.

The horse thing was in 2013.

I think he has been presented as attractive, but his voice is not remotely sexy!

He sounded like a country yokel in the bit mentioned above with Adam. "My wife" became "Moi woife". I sometimes follow the Twitter feed, and they were all complaining about his accent.

When Emma had Keira, didn't Christopher say that he was hoping that he and Alice would soon start a family?

Yes. It's been made apparent that it is an ongoing area of ... discussion in their marriage. But quite badly handled by the SWs given that Alice's once highflying career now seems to consist of thinking up schemes to play with on Daddy's farm.

Netball thanks for that link, it sounds interesting.

I’ve just realised I was, ahem, projecting, when I wrote ‘as fit as fuck but quite dim, loving and loyal’ as I dated a farrier when I was a lot younger......... ( although my farrier wasn’t loyal as it turned out)

I liked the conversation between Susan and Alice. Susan and Neil have just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary and Emma will be 35 in August ...

I particularly liked Susan saying that if Alice didn’t want children that was fine too. I would have expected her to be pushing for more grandchildren so it’s nice to be surprised by a character taking an alternative view that doesn’t seem unrealistic.

I thought that showed a softer side to Susan which is very rarely seen.

Good old Susan. Just when you have written her off as a horrible person she does something that makes you realise that she is a complex, 3-D character; part good and part bad.
Like the rest of us!

Quater Just because Alice's Dad owns a farm doesn't make her schemes any better or worse ( she obviously designs technology for other farms).

I don't get why she would only be credible if she was working in Canada or somewhere.

R4 yes, I have that experience recurrently with Susan, and Linda!

That's why I said 'badly handled by the SWs' ppeat. Sure, in the real world Brian's acreage shouldn't play a prominent part in his daughter's engineering career, but that's what the SWs have chosen to emphasise. So Alice's protestations of being too hyper-busy racing night and day across the country doing high-flying deals to have time for procreation just sound a bit empty.

She obviously doesn't need any reason not to want children - so it would have been better if they hadn't invented one that's clearly nonsense.

Is anyone else wondering how Kate is getting on at Lillian and Justin's place? I was looking forward to her and Lillian having some fun, and to finding out how Justin reacted.

So Alice's protestations of being too hyper-busy racing night and day across the country doing high-flying deals to have time for procreation just sound a bit empty.

I think that's a bit harsh. She has career aspirations which, whilst they have been curtailed by the need to work locally, still appear to be important to her. We quite often hear her being worried about her achievements at work. Of course she thought of Home Farm as the first option to trial the picker - frankly, who would want to cold-call farmers with that kind of request if they could avoid it? It sounds as though Adam's refusal has done her good though - she's risen to he challenge and may have an even better trial now.

It seems quite feasible to me that she doesn't want to compromise her time for work with children. It also seems plausible that if she doesn't want children, or isn't sure, then work is the easiest 'excuse' for now whilst she makes up her mind or girds herself to announce there won't be any. You're right, she doesn't need a reason, but I think it's fairly likely that a woman who has just turned 30, with a baby-obsessed husband and mother, surrounded by women her own age and younger with children, might want to be sure of her own decision before opening herself up to the reactions of others.

The problem with how they portray Alice’s job is that they have her sweating over sales pitches, not actual designing. If you listen closely it doesn’t sound like she is actually developing the tech herself. That would actually make sense as tech outfits do often separate development and sales...but Alice is on the wrong side of that divide given her education and experience. There would be no drama in her beavering away in the background.