Archers thread #114: Bull banished, Bali beaches beckon, bickering bullshitters burgeon

[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 Gavin 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 for all thread title suggestions! I've gone with a B theme which with a bit of luck will seem odd and irrelevant by the end of this thread. Here's hoping, anyway.

Haven't caught up with tonight's episode yet, so off to do that shortly.

Thanks for the offer Alisa, but I'm not interested and I doubt anyone else on this thread is. I'll report your post if you don't mind.

Looks like someone already has reported it (for the curious, it was obvious spam with a dodgy link).

Pip and Josh’s attitude to Rex is another example of the live-at-home safely cushioned by the family business out-of-touch with the real world attitude of the land-owning characters of Ambridge. It serves to remind us how much more precarious life is for those with no family funds and network to fall back on however hard you work to try to integrate.

I take the point about transport issues but I bet there's a cheaper chain gym in Borchester, and almost certainly some sort of local authority sports centre with a gym.

However, when it comes to activities for younger people living in the country doing heavy physical work all day long and working unsocial hours - I wouldn't see sport/fitness as a top priority for them, unlike people doing sedentary jobs. Young Farmers, video games, Netflix etc (with or without chill), drinking, takeaways, occasional outings to clubs/cinema/restaurants further afield. Occasional walks/hikes. 5 a side football or a proper football or rugby team, maybe, in the winter. Cricket in season as mentioned above. Some of them would be into golf.

We've had occasional running storylines. As a parkrun devotee, I'd like to see a parkrun started in the Country Park. Of course, given the strange silence from Ambridge on Sundays, maybe there's one there already and it just happens not to have been mentioned.

Good point surprisesparday

I think it's Jonny that's had the personality transplant, either that or he's lived with Hannah too long. Freddie was particularly awful but he's usually awful. Old Jonny wouldn't just ditch his prat mate, or try not to be seen with him. He was rude to Lee, "in good shape for an old guy", twice! I think he's shaping up for a steroid storyline or similar. How he even had the energy for the gym at the end of the day, never mind every day, makes no sense to me.

I’m less interested in the gym story - Lee’s there because moneybags Helen paid for him, I can just about see why Freddie might go there because it’s at his workplace, I’m struggling to see why Johnny would need to go there at all, but if he must go then we can follow his progress there rather than at a gym in Borchester. It all feels slightly contrived - it’s the Casualty-style signalling - ooh, they’re in a gym, something is going to happen to one of them. I’m much more interested in the fact that Jill Archer now has a grandson who went to prison for drug dealing and one who is being prosecuted for dealing in stolen goods. Such events would have brought the Grundies to their knees, but compare and contrast Ed losing his home and his wife after a bit of dodgy dealing with Timotei while Josh (and Freddie to a certain extent) is safely cushioned by his family’s wealth. Jill was casually brushing his misdemeanours aside - while single-handedly trying to prop up her son’s pub with a flash of the credit card - but I wonder how she would have felt if it was Brookfield machinery that was being stolen and sold off by some less well-connected oik?

Such events would have brought the Grundies to their knees

Everyday story of English folk ...

The Archers as a clan have indeed done Many Bad Things - but they’ll continue to swan around the village being patronising and judgemental, forcing advice on the less fortunate, looking down their noses at everyone else’s troubles ...

Hello. Popping in to say that our hardworking herdsman, who is here at 4.30am most mornings, and would prefer to straw a shed down by hand rather than with a mechanised straw chopper, is an avid runner/gym goer/footballer and lately boxer too. It's nothing for him to run to and from work, which is a couple of miles, and he often detours to make it further. The other night he went off with his head torch the long way home at 6pm for a run. He's a young lad, I think they have more energy than I could possibly imagine! He also manages to fit in a girlfriend!

Is Jill's change of tone to do with Patricia Greene losing her hearing?

C8H10N4O2
What she said was "everyone does it."
Yes exactly, she had no idea just how serious it was and was thinking in terms of a bit of dodgy VAT avoidance or poaching.

Indeed. She just told him to break the law, without knowing which laws he would be breaking. Only fraud and theft, nothing to worry about.

Go Rex! "I'm my own man ... My finances have nothing to do with you!" I thought he was a wet lettuce until last night.

And Pip described him as being "brutal" no, Pip, you twit, that's someone showing some integrity - not a common trait amongst the Archers clan so not surprised you didn't recognise it.

Yes exactly, she had no idea just how serious it was
You could hear in his voice (good acting by Barry Farrimond) just how scared Ed was. Emma turned a deaf ear.

Ed told Emma that he didn't want to do it and thought it was a bad idea, right at the beginning, and she got angry and told him they needed the money and so what if it was breaking the law, everyone did that.

At a later point, when things had become nasty and Ed was very audibly afraid, she didn't (want to) listen to him about it.

Where Is This Going???

I don't think Jakob is going to be delighted, Kate...

I don't think Jakob is going to be delighted, Kate

I want to be there when she tells him....

Who guessed? Was it BoreofWhabylon?

The Ambridge 40+ fertility fairy strikes again.

Have any of the women in The Archers had pregnancies with the full cooperation, knowledge and support of their partner, which ended happily?

(recently)

Kiera and Poppy were both very much wanted.

Nic

Emma

Pip ...

I want to be there when she tells him.

See, this is the annoying thing. So often they set up a storyline, and we look forward to hearing the denouement. Then it happens out of our hearing

@Travelledtheworld

The 🔮 did indeed predict this happy event some time ago.

It's now muttering about twins.

Ed's a grown man. No one forced him to break the law but the woman always gets the blame for the actions of a weak willed man.

Ed is a man-child and always has been, emphasis on the "child". And I blame her because she encouraged him and then made his life intolerable when the action she had encouraged got him into trouble. The way she talked to him after her appalling advice had its inevitable effect was intolerable, and he didn't tolerate it. I haven't liked the wet so much for ages as when he told her that she clearly did not care for him and they were finished (and broke his own heart doing it, because he has always cared more for her than she did for him).