Archers thread #112: Quelle beau de lollox! And yet we stick with it. Discuss The 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 Alf to stay around, 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 @DoctorTwo for the thread title! I was strongly tempted by R4's suggestion of Wildlife on Four: Jonneh is wild at Lily, Phoebe rewilds by Occam, Joy is in the wilderness and David is bewildered by a marriage proposal.

So we did make it past Joe's funeral at last. Are we heading for a Christmas octogenarian wedding now?

Oh fgs BL is going to roll over and give them the land.

And yes , what exactly is Phoebe living on?

Venison sausages with cranberries and lentils- yuk.
Exactly. LTB territory, in fact.

I like the way Justin's asking Phoebe to treat him like an idiot then allowed her to waffle on with no detailed research about the land use, rather in the way her group was successful in winning the money in the first place. "It's the vibe" sums it up.

Never was a thread title more appropriate.

I listened live for the first time in yonks today - do the continuity announcers always drop massive spoilers?!

I would assume that Justin sees some advantage to BL or himself in letting Phoebe rent the land - probably because it'll help their planning bid.

Justin wants to greenwash his business.

ppeatfruit unfortunately I think you are right.

How disappointing that Phoebe's potential has been so comprehensively trashed. I really don't understand what they have done with her character.

Her 3 years at Oxford have changed her from a bright, hard working, likeable young woman to , apparently, some sort of idler lounging around Ambridge with no plans, no job, no income and happy to rely on nepotism. She's far worse than Pip who for all her faults does work hard on the farm and even Princess Lily has got a job.

More and more I’m wishing there was a SW with sufficient knowledge and skill to render Phoebe more ... accurately. She’s becoming a rather unattractive character purely because they don’t seem to know what to do with her. Filling in the blanks leaves her looking lazy and grasping - whereas I would have thought they’d want us to see her as totally lovely, particularly in comparison to her mother.

Oh!

Crossed!

E P I C ...

Elizabeth telling David that she might love again, was indicative perhaps, of the feelings unconsciously aroused in her by CMR?

would assume that Justin sees some advantage to BL or himself in letting Phoebe rent the land - probably because it'll help their planning bid

I've assumed they were positioning BL to be teh saviour of rewilding since the unsubtle banging on about planning permission being blocked and ecological surveys.

BL will use it for greenwashing and get what they want.
The rewilding will happen in some form and further down the road discover the problems of being green armour for big businesses.
Phoebe will be locked into Ambridge as another monument to womens missed potential in Borsetshire.

Freddie was the one who went out and got a menial job fruit-picking during the summer two years running while Lily lived happily on the allowance that her mother gave her

But then, you could turn that round. Freddie was the one who ignored his studies to earn money while Lily got her head down and worked for decent GCSE and A level qualifications

Lily spent her school holidays helping the business pretty much as early as she could. Its precisely because she had put so much time into working with Elizabeth that she was in a position to help run the business when Elizabeth was too ill and Lily had bailed Manchester.

Fruitpicking - another example of Freddie using family to get a job. Phoebe did also but predictably worked hard whilst Freddie was pulled up more than once for slacking. What I can't recall was whether Freddie was also dealing to the pickers. I know Adam was concerned that he might have done but I don't remember that actually happened.

Yes, Freddie was drug dealing to the fruit pickers.

Freddie for a job-extremely reluctantly- because he wanted to “go travelling”. Didn’t he steal some money from Lizzie to go to a festival, or am I making that up? He was selling drugs to the pickers among other people. Lily helped her mum at Lower Loxley, got on with her work and was groomed by a teacher. Ahe then had her first year at University ruined by said teacher, came home, supported her mother and got a job to support herself. Freddie wanders round telling everyone how hard done by he is, completely betrayed the trust of an aunt who had been very kind and generous to him- and Lily’s the bad guy?

I'm sure Lily also did Fruit picking one year?

Also it was Phoebe not Lily who lied about the Pregnancy test as far as I remember.

Rewilding - the most stupid thing was the way they started with the idea - just trying to get random packets of land from friends and relatives. Surely if you are going to "rewild" you need joined up areas of land, with at least "wildlife corridors" between and separated packets of land.

Comments on rewilding from Twitter.

You do wonder where rewilding will end up. Will it be quietly dropped after a while like the Millennium Wood, Green Burial Ground, the Ambridge TEA, etc.
It's difficult to get excited about it when you know it's a passing fad of the editor.

Also it was Phoebe not Lily who lied about the Pregnancy test as far as I remember

Yes it was Pheobe who lied about the pregnancy test-Lily lied about being a lesbian.

Re re-wilding, as that Twitter post points out the SW haven't remotely thought this through.

Surely if you are going to "rewild" you need joined up areas of land, with at least "wildlife corridors" between and separated packets of land.

This ^

This is how re-wilding actually works.

I am know a bit about a couple of the estates mentioned in the Scottish section of this site - huge areas of land which was non- productive as farm land. These projects need long term commitment and the involvement of usually established organisations like NTS to make them work.

www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/rewilding/rewilding-projects/projects-location/scotland/#results

The big re-wilding experiment in Sussex that's been in the news recently wouldn't have been possible without large heritage grants, and that's when the guy already owned the land.

Until SATTC I can’t say I was really aware of ‘the Editor’ or the whole story-making machine. Now I’m coming to the realisation that The Archers is a bit like a stint as an MP - just a stepping stone to the big bucks. So rather than laying down fine storylines to mature for decades the creators are throwing as much dazzle at the thing as possible - semaphoring ‘Rescue Me!’ to the nearest screen mogul.

I don’t think a single listener could be convinced by this ill-thought out stab at re-wilding - but the perpetrators will be long gone before it’s all bundled into a cupboard and forgotten about.