The Archers #110: Game(keeping)'s up for Will. Game on for Lillian & Vince, Tracy & Oliver? Game over for Joe? Stay ahead of the game with all things Archers 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.

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 LillianGish for the title idea. Very tempted to go with MrsGrindah's suggestion of It’s all a bit crap and boring at the moment but let's be positive, maybe things will look up in the coming days ... Also very taken with Lexi's Midnight Runners - Burpers, maybe? - from Madcats.

Not at all happy about Lily not going to university. Yet another bright Ambridge woman not fulfilling her potential. Why do they do this?

Do not be cast down, Grasshopper. Prognostication is difficult at times. Even MysticBore™️ and the🔮 got it wrong about Lexi and Babeh Salamander.

We were right about Tracey and Ollie (Trolley?) though

Trolley. Snurk. :o

Was quite pleased with that one myself Echt

Tracey and Oliver is about as likely a friendship as Jazzer and Jim.

Agreed with Lillian re the public info broadcast.

Jenny has been made the voice of surrogacy opposition which doesn't work for me because

Not really - she is being cast as the voice of what might go wrong for Adam and Ian, still no discussion of any of the ethics of commercial surrogacy (which this is however they weasel round it).

I hate the way Jenny is mutated into a mean minded shrew every time teh LSWs need a fall woman. Its no better than when they had bouts of portraying her as a silly "lady who lunches".

Tracey and Oliver is about as likely a friendship as Jazzer and Jim.

And look how brilliant that’s been! These unlikely elements add the fun, don’t they? Would be awfully dour (and dull) if Ambridge folk only ever spoke to their ‘class mates’.

Though I’m not sure about ‘friendship’. When he first noticed her, breaking up the hen party fight in the pub, his voice had a definite bedwards tone ...

‘Trolley’? (Mean, though.)

I don't think Oliver has ever got to know anyone like Tracey in his life before - and he's impressed! She's, in no way, a substitute for Caroline, she's completely different.

Thank you for the new thread Gasp .

I don't dislike the actual storyline of the surrogacy , it's interesting. But the writer isn't very clever (or isn't a woman who's had a baby). Lexi would be lactating and yearning to feed little Xander.

Thank you for the new thread Gasp0de.

Thank you for the new thread Gasp0de.
Have I mentioned recently that I can't stand Pip?

It can't be said often enough, MUM!

I got the impression that Tracey thought it might be more than a 'works' outing.

Jennifer is a very silly woman, to put it mildly, but she is not stupid enough not to have foreseen the potential danger that the hired uterus would change its mind, thus depriving her precious Adam of his rightful baby (which he didn't want half as much as the child-obsessed nitwit imagines he does).

Astonishing that there has still not been any discussion around the ethics of two wealthy men hiring a poor woman to produce a child for them.
And no mention whatsoever of the impact of separation on the poor infant - despite all adoption studies showing that this sudden separation from the birth mother is traumatic and damaging for the child.
But I guess none of that matters if two rich men get what they want.

despite all adoption studies showing that this sudden separation from the birth mother is traumatic and damaging for the child

I'm not aware that "all" adoption studies have shown this.

But the writer isn't very clever (or isn't a woman who's had a baby). Lexi would be lactating and yearning to feed little Xander

You say that, and it was absolutely my experience, but I was actually really surprised to learn from Mumsnet that a huge percentage of mothers in the U.K. choose not to breastfeed at all- often it’s cultural within the family and their own Mums discourage it, and they are all buying Tommee Tippee perfect prep machines to use from birth. One online friend of mine said that she had to really fight to find bf support because no woman in her family and social circle had ever breast fed.

So against that backdrop of loads of women who keep their babies and don’t breast feed, it’s not all that unusual for Lexi and Xander to be expected to be able to cope without breastfeeding. It certainly would not be something that a midwife considered unusual.

If we really have to have a wide boy in Ambridge why can't the SWs bring Tiger back! At least his voice was recognisable and his relationship with Lillian was one of the more interesting. He could come back having made good, pay Auntie Cardboard back and kick boring old Justin into touch. I miss his shenanigans.

Lilian certainly picks them, doesn't she?

Thanks for the new thread. Please not Tiger. Not again. No thank you.

Inky At least Tiger wasn't bland as so many of the new characters are. I have been listening since the 70s and have never been so bored despite all the plot-driven drama.

So Lexi will leave Ambridge never to return? (Apart from a plot twist in 5 years time).
It seems unrealistic. She was surrogate for Ian and Adam mainly because she was such good friends with them and they enjoyed her company, they trusted her etc.

For her to disappear over the horizon and terminate their friendship seems odd.

Won't Lexi have immediately been given pills to stop her lactating after she'd given birth?
I'd love Tiger back, he and Fag-Ash Lil were wonderful together! I completely agree with you, Alleycat1, I've been listening on and off since I was in the womb, in the Fifties, and this is very, very, dull, comparatively.
I thought Caroline and Oliver were perfectly matched, but if Oliver and Tracey get on well together, then why not, I hope it works out! Susan would have a face on her like a slapped kipper, though!

90% of the fun of Trolley would be village reaction - Susan and Shula in particular!

Isn’t it likely that once Lexi leaves Ambridge the Macy-Craigs would maintain their relationship with her via FaceTime and aeroplanes? If they really are friends.

Do non breastfeeding mothers get tablets nowadays? When I gave birth in 1980 the non bfing mums had their breasts bound up with crepe bandage and were told the tablets weren't given any more. I've no idea what happens now.

I saw this and I thought of TA ...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/baby_names/3703779-Leonard

For those using the app, who will only see 'click here' (so annoying, MN!) it's a link to a thread on Baby Names from a woman seriously considering naming her baby Leonard. It's an old man name for me, but clearly not for the younger generation.