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.

I think the writers have forgotten who George's father is

To be fair, Emma was a bit hazy about that too.

How Pip doesn't find herself punched in the face on a daily basis is a source of wonder to me.

I think the writers have forgotten who George's father is

I don't think so, because earlier in the same episode, when Ed was reminding Eddie that the kids were coming over that evening, Eddie remarked that it would be nice for William to see George and that George was thawing towards him.

I think it's more a case of Ed has been the partner of the resident parent since George was a toddler (and was living with them on and off before that) so he has always raised him as his own.

I'm considering having hypnotherapy to help me cope with Pip's voice and her inTOEnaySHUN.

Re Joy not being a suitable carer - isn’t the point more that Peggy doesn’t actually need a carer

No, because Jakob thinks she does. Which makes it utterly insane that he just inflicts some random on her.

Freddie really is fatally drawn to the underhand, isn’t he? An inexplicable attraction to ducking and diving even when there is absolutely no need for it seems to be a major character flaw in him. Hope this latest instance doesn’t end in tears.

Why can’t he see that he’s best on the straight and narrow path?

Because it's dull? To be fair, his father didn't take the straight and obvious path through life either, although he never did anything devious as I recall. Criminal, yes, probably, but not involving drugs or violence, more being drunk and disorderly following an evening at Nelson's Winebar of blessed memory.

I'd have been happier if the SWs had recycled Nigel's old storylines for Freddie (I could see him driving an ice cream van or trying to sell swimming pools) but I suppose they feel the William Smethurst approach in the 80s was of its time. As soon as he left to take over Crossroads ( what a great career move that was) they started putting the dark back in alongside the light, with varying amounts of success.

Woulnt Freddie have been travelling the world if he had gone for the dull option though. Slightly more exciting than washing dishes.
Freddies character doesn't work for me, I am not remotely worried if he gets a job or not. I cant quite work out why.

I feel sorry for Freddie. He’s aware that he’s in a position where he ought to command a degree of respect and admiration - but has found he can’t bend the world to his will through intellect. So he looks for other ways to attract friends and shape his social environment. First the drug dealing (clearly never about money) and blackmailing his sister in order to maintain that occupation, now volunteering to be a kitchen snitch - which gives him a secret status way above that of kitchen porter.

Stupid boy ...

I reckon Kate organised Joy without a word to Jakob except to say she's got it sorted. It was quite deliberate to choose someone who would annoy Peggy.

Campion

Since Emma receives maintenance for George from Will I also fail to understand why Ed feels he has to provide for his kids but he has always been weirdly possessive about George. £1000 for back to school kit is ridiculous. I'm sure Emma was able to source Kiera's uniform and PE kit for under £100. She works so why would she also need money from him 'for herself' and she is also eligible for benefits although this is never mentioned (even when she was reduced to going to a food bank a few years ago). I'm also wondering what has happened to all the money they actually managed to raise for Beechwood.

Eastie I agree - surely they can't have just lost the money they had been saving like crazy, for years.

Don't you lose the deposit if you pull out of a house purchase after a certain stage in the proceedings?

Unless the law has suddenly changed you only lose your deposit if you were to exchange contracts and then decide not to complete.

I seem to remember knowledge of house-buying wasn't the SW's strong point.

I've long thought that the Archers team would benefit from having a welfare benefits advisor pop along to some of their planning meetings. I would like one of the elderly residents to apply for pension credit, for example, after getting worried about how they'll be able to afford their TV licence.

Yes, if you've exchanged contracts. On the thread we had some confusion about whether they'd got to that stage and pulled out on the day of completion, or whether Ed's unilateral decision was on the day they'd have exchanged contracts.

The latter is a lot more plausible and would mean they still had the deposit. Some of it would have gone to pay legal fees, but they should still have most of it.

Not sure if the confusion was down to faulty listening or shoddy scriptwriting. Sadly, the latter can't be ruled out. The SWs are shockingly bad at getting details like this right consistently.

They do go out and seek advice, or they used to. The trouble is that they don't always understand it. I think they say to a professional person something like this.

SW: We're thinking of doing a story about widgetmaking.
Widgetmaker: OK, who would be getting into this wonderful field?
SW: One of the longstanding actors has a son getting a start in the acting business so we thought we'd bring him in. We love new characters, completely blank sheet, none of that tiresome continuity! And he can do an accent we don't currently have on the show, so that's a plus.
W: Okaaay. What age is he? Most widgetmakers in the UK are over 60, it's a real problem getting people to go into the business, hardly anyone under 40 has gone through an apprenticeship ...
SW: He's 21, but playing age is anything up to 35, so that's fine.
W: Hmmm. 35 might be plausible, but he would really need to be a Cumbrian, or to have spent a lot of time up there ...
SW: Sorry, no, he's got to be Cornish and he's never left Cornwall before, that's to tie in with something else.
W: Oh. There's never been a widgetmaker in Cornwall. They've always imported their widgets from Bristol. You'd have to invent a whole tradition of widgetmaking in Cornwall.
SW: Awesome! Also, he's got to be dyspraxic. That's to tie in with yet another thing.
W: I'm really sorry, I know this sounds disabilist, but it's just not possible to get through an apprenticeship in widgetmaking without having really good fine motor skills.
SW: Bummer. Wait, though, couldn't he just watch a few tutorials on YouTube? You can find anything on there. We don't want to get too caught up in the detail ...

I can’t imagine running a country house hotel where the food is such a focus and not including the chef in the interview panel for the temp replacement.

Hello everyone I'm back and only hanging on to TA by my fingernails, it's all so BITTY why fgs?
Some, almost good, more traditional scenes with characters like Lynda for example. Other ridiculous 'humorous' scenes with newcomers, if there are old characters in them they sound so embarrassed .

I will also add that I find the SW's assumptions that all the FUN characters (Tracey and Lilian for example) drink like fish and 'enjoy' a smoke. Not a point of view that I agree with.

It is odd, that Ian wasn't part of the decision making process of deciding who was going to cover for him.

@Motoko it is not only odd it is ridiculous and implausible and a blatant plot device. cf Ambridge Conservation Trust, Brian selling Home Farm, Tracey At GG etc

True AA.

Here we go ...

It's bitty because they are using lots of scriptwriters.

Ooh, David's not going to be happy when he hears why Justin's interested in buying Crowther's. That's really underhand.

And why is Lil, so interested in Vince's lovelife? Is she going to have an affair with him?

We were right about Lily not going to uni. I reckon she's going to end up with a high flying job working in the kitchen company, something like regional manager, complete with swish company car, plus bonuses.

Something I just read reminded me of Tom and Gnasher's proposed post-nuptial agreement. Did it ever get done? I remember Gnasher saying she was OK with it, I can't remember anyone saying it had actually be drawn up and signed.