Archers thread #116: Pandemic fears, markets crash but it's BOOM 💥 time for Ambridge. 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 to employ Philip Moss & Son to fix your soil pipe, 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! (New thread likely to be replacing that one very soon, in the current circumstances.)

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 @SurpriseSparDay for the thread title idea, which I tweaked, and @springydaff for the 💥 emoticon, which I hope is in the title! (Can't preview the title). Welcome, lurkers and lapsed listeners, drawn out of the shadows by the current crisis in Ambridge. In the OP of the last thread I said I didn't think we'd get to Easter on that thread. We certainly didn't!

I am very worried indeed about Lynda and concerned about Oliver too. Don't care about Gavin unless it means Kirsty is cheated out of yet another wedding. Freddie's redemption is now assured, though, surely? Roll on the return of the Lower Loxley crew.

Just announced that they are ceasing production. They have enough episodes for a few weeks then will review it.

EBearhug
don't forget he was part of the racist attack on Usha back in 1995.

Not quite fair; he went along with what was said by a couple of racist thugs at college (one called Spanner, can't remember the other) and stupidly told them of Usha's existence; when they decided to have a go at her he was horrified, refused to have anything to do with it, and shopped them to the police after they threw ammonia in her face.

When he first refused to help them attack her, they beat him up and trashed Mike's market garden.

Does anyone else think Lynda might have had something to do with either the grill or petrol usage?

Are you able to scroll back through the past few days’ posts Paris? Several people seem to agree with you!

Can't see Lynda being that stupid.

Just announced that they are ceasing production. They have enough episodes for a few weeks then will review it.

Oh dear. Well, let's see how things pan out over the next few weeks.

(Although I didn’t mean culpably involved, just involved.)

Thanks @SurpriseSpaDay new to the thread

Bienvenue, Paris! What a lovely image your username brings to mind.

And very welcome, Paris!

Btw you’ve given me an excuse to highlight the astounding wit of my username. It’s actually ‘Surprise Spar Day’ - after a fortuitously hilarious misspelling on a (random) thread some months ago. I really relish the idea of this gift voucher lovingly offered by husband to wife ...

Ha ha, my apologies for misreading your name!

When Oliver took the Investigation Report and talked to Philip about it on 14th, he said, "It seems that the cause of the explosion lies with your workers. From what they've written, it looks like Blake was using petrol to get the adhesive off the flooring. That was the fuel. The ignition seems to have been the grill must have been on, I don't understand why and when Lynda opened the door to the kitchen it created a draft which brought the petrol fumes into contact with the flame from the grill."

So yes; Lynda's culpability lies only in her going into a part of the hotel which was not where she was supposed to be or ever is supposed to be, when she was on duty at reception, in order to interrupt someone doing a job of work there and tell him to be quiet.

.... there is a moral there somewhere....

Yes I heard that. There is still the question of the grill. Maybe I am looking for things as I can’t stand Lynda.

Langsdestiny Thu 19-Mar-20 17:05:06
Just announced that they are ceasing production. They have enough episodes for a few weeks then will review it.

Now it really feels like the end of life as we know it.

I don't think Lynda had time to turn on the grill! That will have been Tracy going to make herself a bacon sandwich and then getting distracted, maybe.

in order to interrupt someone doing a job of work there and tell him to be quiet.
As Lynda pointed out, he was making a lot of (weird, something's-wrong) noise for someone who was supposedly just taking up floor tiles. And she was right. It was Blake's unorthodox work practices that caused the explosion.

And what a contractor working in an area nothing to do with her job was doing was her business why, exactly? She was meant to be working at reception, not batting about the hotel talking at a junior member of staff from a different department and then interfering with a someone else's job.

She was injured because of her own high-handed actions -- and Blake and Freddie were also injured, which neither of them necessarily would have been if she had not interfered. Freddie certainly would not have been; he would not have been on the premises if she had not demanded that he stay there and listen to her going rabbit rabbit rabbit.

Incidentally, I will think better of her if the reason she wants to see Oliver is to tell him that she was high-handed and mistaken about Freddie.

You could equally argue that it would have been an even bigger explosion if it wasn't for Lynda's timely interference vigilance.

I realise that I am painting myself into a difficult corner.
Waiting for Lynda to confess to Oliver that she suggested the petrol and had forgotten that she had left the grill on for Tracy's bacon butty ...

Someone would have opened the door, it wasnt out of bounds. She could have been going in to offer him a coffee, and the effect would have been the same.

AskingQuestions, she was injured because there was an explosion! Life-changing injuries are not a proportionate or expected consequence of her going to the wrong part of the building and trying to apologise to Freddie! I think even he was out of line with the way he was speaking to her, and she wasn’t awake when he was being heroic and accepting her apology, so she probably still thinks he hates her.

I am not really interested in hypothetical excuses: the fact is that what we heard was Lynda repeatedly barging in where she had no business to be, and causing an explosion by doing so.

It was not caused by someone else opening the door, and Lynda was not offering him coffee: her stated intention was to browbeat him for (as far as she knew) doing his job.

And if she is unaware that Freddie forgave her, that frankly serves her right, because her behaviour towards him was despicable (as well as being yet another example of sticking her nose in).

If she had not been where she was not supposed to be, she would not have required him to work in silence to suit her high-and-mighty convenience. And Freddie would not have been injured and traumatised, and she would not now be in hospital with full-thickness burns and a broken pelvis.

I suspect that she wishes she had learned how to neb out before this happened, instead of having to regret her nosy-parkering afterwards.

I have always been prepared to defend Lynda in the past, but on this occasion her behaviour was indefensible, whether or not she was the main sufferer by it.

“On balance ...”

Just listened to yesterday’s. Did Philip really say of Blake “he’s always been a sparky lad?!” This is Blake who blew himself up by setting fire to petrol? Sheesh. Also bollocks that doc would talk to Blake’s employer like that- family only for confidential medical info.

Its like saying people deserve to be run over if they happen to cross the road to have a row with their beighbour and are mown down by a drunk driver.