The Archers - Freddie is getting OUT: will Russ hop it? Helen is falling DOWN: is Lee still in the frame? Tom is heading UP: will Natasha be the boost his sausage needs? (Thread no. 101

[DadDadDad]

We're still here and still discussing TA (The Archers). We welcome newcomers and old hands, so if you have a question or a point of view, please dive in. No spoilers - if you've seen info on future storylines, there's a separate Radio Addicts thread for that.

I loved all the name changes on the last thread. Don't forget to change back! (If you want to).

Who's going to get Russ out of LL? Freddie? Lily? Elizabeth? Or is it Freddie who will head off?

Sorry, this thread moves so fast that the answer I wanted to give is pages ago!

GeorgeTheBleeder
Was it really not Shula who made it clear Usha was unwelcome as a Vicar's wife? (Not forgetting their previous history of course.)

It really wasn't. She had an anxious conversation with her mother about not being sure that Alan was right to marry someone who wasn't a Christian, and Jill told her not to be so bigoted or wtte, and she resolved to accept it all as being fine.

So when she was doorstepped by a reporter from the Echo she was very firm that she saw nothing wrong with the marriage -- but she made the mistake of saying that someone had sent Alan a beastly anonymous letter. Then the reporter talked with Susan, and after she had made sure they couldn't be overheard she said some fairly poisonous things about Usha.

When the article appeared it gave the impression that the parish was divided about it all, who had said what wasn't put in, and Alan and Usha assumed that Shula had said it all because of her having known about the anonymous letter so it must be her. (And I think she went round and had a grovel about it to Alan because she hadn't meant to say anything at all and that had just slipped out, which didn't help.) So Usha went and attacked her at the Stables while a ride was getting ready to go out, and called her a racist, which she really hadn't been.

And then a racist rang her up and congratulated her on taking a stand against This Sort Of Thing and she was mortified and miserable about having been so horribly misunderstood and that anyone could think she would be like that, and gave up being a churchwarden because Alan had said he couldn't trust her.

I felt very sorry for Shula over that lot, at the time.

Shula worked for a land agents firm beginning with R. Was it Roseau's?

RODWELLS. Autocorrect.

Rodways - who seem to be a pseudonym for the regional Hamptons/Savills/Staggs

Rodway & Watson, I think.

They used to sell the Brookfield beef in the shop, but now they are going to sell their own.

But why weren't they already selling the Angus beef, or planning to do so? The idea seemed to come them as a total revelation, which just seems bizarre.

Alastair has to have had to spend a reasonable amount of time on marketing as opposed to pure vet work throughout his career; it's not as if Ambridge is in the middle of nowhere with no alternative vets within miles. Indeed, I vaguely recall anxious conversations with Anisha about recruiting new business to help recover the investment in new equipment. The notion that marketing therefore was some weird new concept that he'd never come across before is therefore simply untenable.

Is it true that farmers of David's vintage resist veterinary insurance policies? I'd have thought that, particularly after their experiences of cattle disease in the past, the Dopeys would have had the sense to ensure that Brookfield was fully covered.

Sorry but Susan worked in a doctor's surgery?? I bet patient confidentiality was interesting.

Perhaps Shula has been watching Fleabag?

AskingQuestion Blimey have you got a photographic memory or access to TA historic scripts?

It really wasn't. She had an anxious conversation with her mother about not being sure that Alan was right to marry someone who wasn't a Christian, and Jill told her not to be so bigoted or wtte, and she resolved to accept it all as being fine.

I remember Jill having that conversation with Shula but for a very long time she went to the Cathedral instead of St Stephens because "her faith" couldn't accept Usha in the vicarage. "her faith" conveniently aligned with her possessiveness over Alan.

I don't think she was racist, just possessive of Alan.

She was pretty horrible to Usha over the whole business so I felt zero sympathy for her.

Interesting ... Thanks, Questions for your impressively detailed recollection! But, like C8H10N4O2, what I remember is the horridness ...

I quite like this apparent ambiguity of interpretation though.

Another one here that remembers Shula's awfulness and possessiveness - I do remember wincing at her line about Alan thinking 'Usha's spirituality was equal to his', and that she simply couldn't agree (this after her spotting the statue in the vicarage). She didn't come out of it well.
The besotted, possessive female parishioner does seem to be a stock type, doesn't it?

And it would be sooooo Shula to 'resolve to accept it all as being fine'. Can you not just hear the self-congratulatory weighing of scruples before determining upon magnanimity? Uggh. I don't know if the scriptwriters over the years have conspired to create the perfect prig, but they have done so very well.

Apologies if someone has already said this, but what's the betting that Leonard can't paint for toffee?

BTW, been looking through the smileys on my phone in search of a badger. Guess what - there's every animal, bird or insect under the sun - even a sodding unicorn🦄 - but no badger!

Oh! Oh! I remember the statue in the vicarage!

what's the betting that Leonard can't paint for toffee?

If I wasn't single-handedly keeping Richard Branson in beard oil and tropical island kitchen fittings I would happily bet every penny I don't have on this absolute certainty.

MysticBore™️ predicts:

VEXIT

As it dawns on Alistair that he does not want to be micro-managed by Lovell James and crashes out with No Deal.

Adam getting all fussy about the spraying etc.; you'd think he might have worked out that if he stopped all that poisoning of the crops, I bet he doesn't spray the herbal lays, he could run HF more sustainably and cheaper. Just use a bit more human labour.

I wish Alistair and Shula would just get back together. I don't see the point in them spoiling two houses. Shula's realising that she's still bored and pissed off with life even after giving him the heave ho. He is apparently unable to function as an adult without her. Neither of them have moved on and they get on really well. Maybe this is building up to that let's sack everything off and go travelling together storyline that was Shula's kind of last ditch idea to save their marriage way back when? I'd actually love that. They could go off and see the world and take ayahuasca and have a beach wedding and get food poisoning and terrible matching tattoos and come back all crusty and loved up.

I didn't get what all Adam's grumping and harrumphing and sighing was about at all @ppeatfruit I thought that something AWFUL was bound to happen what with that and Emma saying 'oh won't it be great when we're finally in our own home' all happy every single scene she's in. if they mess up Ed n Emmur buying this house, I am seriously CANCELLING the Archers. those crazy kids deserve to catch a break for bloody once

Shula was very careful not to be condemnatory in public. So it was a disaster for her when she was misreported in the press, or rather Susan's bile was printed in a way which meant it got attributed to her, and also very unfair.

She stopped being a churchwarden (after asking Phil what she ought to do and taking his advice about owning up that she had spoken to the reporter, which was bad advice as it turned out) when Alan told her he could no longer trust her, in Spring of the year he got married, but went on going to St Stephens. It wasn't until he asked her as a lay preacher, which she and Mrs Antrobus both were, to come and consult with him about Christmas services that she came up against a Hindu statue in the vicarage and she'd had enough and went elsewhere for some years. Daniel was at the Cathedral School so she went there, which was more reasonable than it seemed because he wanted to go to services at the Cathedral.

Things like Usha deciding to take up bell-ringing in order to take that away from her had already happened that summer. Usha was vile to and about her, and also at her. And forgive me, but I don't think that religion is the same thing as race: not liking Usha's religion being part of the vicarage isn't racist, on that basis. She would probably have felt just as unhappy about anyone who wasn't a practising Christian as a vicar's wife, no matter what their ethnic origin.

Actually I think she was absolutely right about Usha's spirituality not being equal to Alan's: Alan is a professional Christian, goes to church every Sunday several times and so on, whereas when is the last time Usha even mentioned her faith at all? When she insisted that they had to get married twice, back in whatever year it was. She's not what I would call particularly observant!

(I remember it so because I felt very sorry for Shula, who was vilified for something that she hadn't done and would never in a million years have done, talk anonymously to the Press. She isn't my favourite person, but I dislike injustice of that sort. And she was miserable about it, and miserable about being unhappy about it and not being better and able to deal with it, which is a horrid way to feel.)

Lol Bore

Also what is the auditory equivalent of a photographic memory? A dictophonic one?

If I wasn't single-handedly keeping Richard Branson in beard oil and tropical island kitchen fittings I would happily bet every penny I don't have on this absolute certainty.

George - I'm trying to work out if this means you are endlessly travelling up and down the country by train or have a very expensive phone contract.

"And she was miserable about it, and miserable about being unhappy about it and not being better and able to deal with it, which is a horrid way to feel"

Shula has always been Shula's own worst enemy. She becomes obsessive about things, she can't ever let herself be happy, and she sabotages relationships and friendships because of it. Dislikable though she is, this is a very relatable character trait they've given her. it's so clever how they've made her and her twin these polar opposites, the feckless happy go lucky cheeky chappie who everyone loves despite his dysfunctional avoidant behaviours, and this sensible, uptight prissy woman who can't stop getting in her own way. Lizzie should see if that therapist does family discounts.

Actually I think she was absolutely right about Usha's spirituality not being equal to Alan's: Alan is a professional Christian,

Oh.

Right then.

I will not engage in fighting on an Archers thread ... I will not engage in fighting ... I will not ...