The Archers #109: Pulp Fiction! Hammer Horror (Tracy), Carry On (Brian & Neil), Call the Midwife (Adam, Ian, Lexi) - but no political thrillers, Ambridge remains Brexit-free. Nitpick here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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 unusual views. grin

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!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to Bucking Frolics and LillianGish for the title ideas, which I had to edit down a bit to get under the character limit.

I wonder if Lily will have gone back to Manchester by the time we've filled this thread.

What's all this talk about a baby needing its mum, all of a sudden?

Gosh, pardon me for suggesting something so radical as a baby needing its mother. Feel free to write off all history of human evolution and biology all you like in a bid to be woke, but you will never convince me that it's not desperately sad for a newborn to be parted from its mother. There are situations where it is necessary - addiction, neglect, prioritising an abuser - but my heart would still break for that baby missing out on what ought to be their most important relationship. Two rich middle-aged people being prepared to pay for a baby from a woman less fortunate than they are turns my stomach and does not sit anywhere within the list above of reasons why a mother and baby should be separated.

Ian's dad came to his wedding. I think he was opposed to the whole thing and didn't accept Ian's sexuality but had a last minute change of heart. He bumped into Brian, also a non attendee, when he arrived in Ambridge and asked him for directions. When Brian realised who he was talking to he decided to go the wedding as well. Both men agreed whatever their personal feelings on the marriage, life's too short to risk making their children think they don't love them.

I think Jennifer’s response to the situation is spot on. She is a very maternal woman and she had probably thought that her chance of a grandchild via Adam was gone. (I am sure that they invented Ian’s infertility as an afterthought to embed the baby unequivocally in the Aldridge/Archer family, I wonder if she would have been quite so delighted had Ian been the biological father?) I think that she is not-very-secretly delighted about the baby not having its Mum around as that gives her carte Blanche to play Mummy (or so she thinks). Two of her grandchildren are thousands of miles away and she barely knows Sipho, and Phoebe’s babyhood was fraught with drama, so she must be looking forward to a relatively straightforward baby arriving into the family to a settled couple just round the

Someone of her generation is very likely to find the idea of surrogacy and two Dads quite a conceptual stretch but I think she is genuinely at peace with their marriage and is putting aside any doubts re parenthood because it’s her grandchild. And we know that she already has a pretty dismissive opinion of Lexi, a mere picker so will probably not give much thought to how all this is affecting her.

I suspect the main drama around the baby will be tension between Ian and Jenny about its care and upbringing, particularly in the early days.

I’m more surprised that we haven’t heard Peggy or Brian have some harsh words about it all being unnatural.

I also suspect that the SWs will skate over how old Adam and Ian are- my sense is that they wanted to do a gay parents storyline and just had to work with the two existing gay characters they had. I’m not sure a casual listener would realise that Adam is in his fifties.

But of course Dads can be any age, and Ian is younger, so their ages aren't a particular issue.

Much more of an issue to me is that Adam doesn't really seem to have his heart in it. He says all the right things, but it does seem he is doing this far more for Ian than for his own desire to be a dad.

What Pip and Josh did was vile, cruel and downright hurtful.

I'm no fan of David, but he's as entitled as everyone else to have a precious memento and its associated memories treated with respect.

I am so angry - truly I am.

Ian and Adam's ages aren't particularly an issue, but Mike and Vicky's were when they had Bethany.

Isn't Pip a delight? Oh dear, I made myself splutter my tea all over my keyboard...

I would not have potatoes with Beef Wellington.

Double carbs.

But of course Dads can be any age, and Ian is younger, so their ages aren't a particular issue.

Ian’s at least 45 if not older. Glance at any thread on here about motherhood over 40 and you will see scores of people say that it is not fair on the child to have parents who are at high risk of dying or needing care when the child is still relatively young. Most older Dads are partnered with a younger woman so it is less remarkable, but when both parents are over 45 that must be cause for some sort of comment (and good point re Mike and Vicky, she was 46 I think).

I would not be surprised if the average age of gay Dad parents is over 40 though, since they’d tend to have been settled for a few years before contemplating parenthood, and then it would take so much longer to make the arrangements to have a child than for a straight couple.

Disclaimer: I was a FTM at 43.

I have a vague memory that Emma commented that she thought a baby would need a mother. It was presented purely as a narrow minded point of view only a yokel would express and someone took her to task for it - maybe Kirsty?

Or I could have imagined it.

I would not have potatoes with Beef Wellington.

Double carbs.

That is exactly why I would have them. Doubly tasty. If it were available I'd have some nice crusty bread and butter with it too.

Ok today i caught up on 2 weeks’ worth of episodes as me n ed losing the house had made me lose the will to live a bit

I hope joy and the cockney meat spiv aren’t long term fixtures

I’m sick of the grundies being the depository for Issues storylines - nic and sepais, now will and suicide, characters are best when they have growth and progress, provided it’s done well - tracey going up in the world careerwise, and suddenly becoming the most emotionally intelligent person in ambridge (admittedly not a high bar to clear tbh) = good; shula and the ordination that keeps on giving = bad

Please please PLEASE
if any SEs read here, pleae stop making people do weird random unfunny things fpr no reason. Jill wittering on about pig fat and david and his hilarious leather jacket, the ghost of ambridge hall, jenny and her agony aunting - all of this needs to get in the bin

Humphrey I think it was Jenny rather than Kirsty. Of course, had it been any men other than Ian and Adam that were being discussed, it would not occur to maternal JD for one moment that two blokes could be just as good as the baby's mother. Any excuse to put down a Grundy for being ignorant though, eh?

WheresThatCatGoneNow
What Pip and Josh did was vile, cruel and downright hurtful.
I'm no fan of David, but he's as entitled as everyone else to have a precious memento and its associated memories treated with respect.
I am so angry - truly I am.

I very much agree with this. Nasty little toads, the pair of them. And how like Pip: the first time in years that she has been civil to her brother, and it's to gang up with him on their dad -- who has been taking her side in her row with her mother. She is a truly unpleasant individual!

TeenPlusTwenties
But of course Dads can be any age, and Ian is younger, so their ages aren't a particular issue.

Ian was born on 4th September 1970, so not all that much younger than Adam (22nd June 1967) and going to be fifty next year.

I am really glad not to have a teenager to deal with when I am between sixty and seventy; I like a little peace in my life now.

I suspect David's jacket is destined to be yet another supposedly "hilarious" storyline that isn't. I wish they'd stop trying.

It's an incredibly distasteful storyline and I wish Adam and Ian had gone down the adoption route rather than exploiting a woman's body. Didn't Ian dismiss adoption because he wanted his "own" baby but was happy to carry on with the surrogacy using Adam's sperm when they found out Ian's was lacking somewhat.

Agree. Why doesn’t one of the script writers just say “Look, we’ve realised there’s no place for humour so we need to stop.Not one of us can write a comedy scene and none of the cast can deliver a funny line. Doesn’t mean we have to do the full Eastenders but we can have varying shades of plot lines.But hilarious japes are out. Hands up if you agree”

The cast can deliver funny lines, they just aren’t given any.

Its probably quite hard to admit you aren't funny.

It seems that the scriptwriters think that humour has to be kept separate from other plot lines. In real life people inject humour into normal life.

how like Pip: the first time in years that she has been civil to her brother, and it's to gang up with him on their dad -- who has been taking her side in her row with her mother. She is a truly unpleasant individual!

Indeed - its not the first time she has used Josh to gang up on someone else to carry/share blame for her on shortcomings.

My reaction wasn't so much "Vile and Cruel" - it was only mocking a parent's fashion sense - it was more "Are they 14?".

I thought Pip was horrible to Phoebe too over the land. Phoebe has no control over the Home Farm agenda or the right to speak at the meetings. Pip The Great Farmer was supposed to bring that expertise to the projec instead of letting the least farm experienced member carry the load and then whinge that Ruth wasn't happy with the outcome.

Phoebe has no control over the Home Farm agenda or the right to speak at the meetings.
Maybe no legal rights but if your DD/DGD/DNiece asked to address a meeting, wouldn't you say 'yes'?
Pip has tried and failed. Ditto Phoebe. Is Rex going to save the day?

I agree that the cast are perfectly capable of delivering funny lines - remember Alice and the "starter marriage"? I don't think the best actor in the world could make destroying someone's valued possession funny.

It was interesting hearing Josh say it was a nice change that Pip wasn't the golden child for once. I don't think the SWs have previously been prepared to acknowledge that so overtly. It would be good if he and Ben start challenging their parents more about the blatantly unequal way they deal with them.

Two rich middle-aged people being prepared to pay for a baby from a woman less fortunate than they are turns my stomach One of those rich, middle-aged people is actually the father. Lexi hasn’t been coerced into doing this, she isn’t someone they randomly found on the internet she is doing it as a friend (the only kind of surrogacy I have ever encountered in RL - though I accept there are others). She hasn’t been richly paid for it. It is not biologically her child and she is someone who has already completed her own family. In fact the only person biologically connected to the child (if we think that is the most important thing) is Adam. Will he any more devoted to his child than his sister Kate is to her children? We shall have to wait and see, but should he be berated more harshly for this than she is because he is not a woman? The idea that the only people who can have children are those who can conceive naturally and with no intervention is in the past. There are heterosexual couples who use donor eggs due to infertility issues and women without partners who use sperm donors (Helen in fact). Who could say that Myson/Gideon/Jack is better off with an identifiable father from a supposedly conventional relationship that than Henwee? I could go on (and indeed I have so I will call a halt there )

Well said, @LillianGish.

I was just thinking that it’s striking how much experience Jennifer has of unconventional family arrangements- son with absent and secret father, then two different step fathers, daughter in a marriage that broke down, older motherhood with Alice, and of course the highly unusual situation with Ruari.

And as for age, Ruari had a youngish mother yet it was his ageing father and his wife in her sixties who ended up raising him (with the help of boarding school). Anyone would think this was a soap opera .