💥 Archers thread #117: Welcome to the only C19-free area in the world! 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 think Phoebe is a genius, 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/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, 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.)

I put the BOOM! emoticon in the title as I thought it could transition into a vague likeness of a virus if we're still going by early May, when we expect some wild contortions from the production team to get Ambridge back in synch with the rest of the world. I think I would have preferred them to ignore it altogether but I suppose they couldn't.

I don't think there are many things I want more in the world than for a Horrobin to inherit Grey Gables.

Just think of What Susan Would Say ...

Just wanted to interject with a 'real virtual life' question (sorry) but has everyone seen Justine's post, or received her email, about 'MN Premium'? At the moment it's being sold as a sleeker, easier to use version of MN, with the 'bog standard site' trundling alongside as is.

I strongly suspect that, if premium really works and takes off (and that's far from certain), the pleb version will be gradually run down, left behind and become slower and harder to use.

My first thought, following that one, was 'ok then, I can find other places for online chitchat, or just not waste so much time chatting online but, what about The Archers threads? This is something unique, special and valuable that really works, here.

So, does anyone have any thoughts about where this little 'chat community' could relocate to, if needs must? No need for answers now, I just wanted to plant that thought. 🌳 (That's one of Bridge Farm's insta-forgotten pasture trees, planted in a fit of farm-improving innovation by Tom and Tash. Oooh, metaphorical!).

I can't believe in an Oliver and Tracy relationship, they are too different.
For Oliver: going from Caroline to Tracy would be going from the sublime to the ridiculous. For Tracy: she's young and vigorous (euphemism!), why would she want to end up nursing / minding an older man who seems to be losing his marbles?

Harsh, R4.

Interesting idea, lottie. In the past couple of weeks an academic group I'm attached to has taken discussions online. But they've chosen Facebook. I've felt obliged to sign up (again, after leaving) but I'm really, really reluctant to engage there.

I've never belonged to any other online Archers forum. Chatting here seems entirely natural now (to the extent that I find it hard to understand posters who say, elsewhere, that they find this thread intimidating). But I suspect that's because I feel relatively at ease on MN (despite oft discussed reasons not to). I'd love to know exactly how that easy familiarity could be replicated elsewhere.

I have The Mill on The Floss on the radio atm. This point in the the story is just so exactly the Grundys at their lowest point.

if premium really works and takes off (and that's far from certain), the pleb version will be gradually run down, left behind and become slower and harder to use

I don't see why. Lots of online platforms/forums have premium options which only give minor perks (badges, coins etc).

I have other issues about paying and handing over personal data but that isn't one of them.

Yes that's exactly how I feel about Oliver and tracey R4.

I am really uncomfortable about the premium option, I think the timing is quite crass for one thing. The irony is I would have given a donation if they had asked.

Lottie I think the idea is similar to the Guardian model, which still gives everyone the free version, but you just lose some ads. If you are so worried why not go to the special threads on the subject?
Mumsnet has lost ad revenue in this crisis but ad revenue will remain the biggest income, which means you need to maximise the number of "eyeballs".

Well, I don't want to dwell on negatives, or divert disucssion here. That's for Justine's thread or site stuff. 'What would we do' is the pertinent but not urgent question.

But briefly, my reasons for thinking and saying what I did are:

If it works: The tech might not be well enough developed to give people what they want, soon enough for it to work, so it may fail. I've seen that happen with MN before.

If it takes off: MN is asking users for money at a time when many people have less and are less certain about the future.

The pleb version might get left behind: MN has limited staff resource and the point of premium is that they're currently struggling to bring in enough money to pay them. They'll focus staff time on the part of the business that makes money.

Premium isn't about badges and stickers. It's about a faster, sleeker, ad-free, editable, easier to use interface.

This thread is permanently open on my phone and I don’t want any changes just now, thank you. Would have happily made a donation to Mumsnet - the amount of my own choosing- but don’t like the two tier idea at all. Anyway, back to real life Brian, Freddie, Tracey ❤️

JudyCoolibar
"By the time Freddie came out of prison the licence had not been restored.
"I do not think that Freddie had anything whatever to do with that last sentence"

The point was that he came back at the point when Kenton was trying to get the licence back, and was leant on not to go back to LL in case he jeopardised that process.

Kenton assumed something. This does not mean that what Kenton assumed actually had the least bearing on anything whatever, since Kenton had no actual evidence for his assumption. Nor would he have been of the least use in regaining the licence, since (not being Elizabeth, nor employed at Lower Loxley) he could not apply for it.

(It wasn't Kenton who was trying to get the licence back anyway; it was the chap Elizabeth had employed to do the job, Glen, as opposed to a random buttinski relation throwing his weight about.)

When Freddie came out of prison he moved back into and was living in Lower Loxley Hall. Remember the "unseen Lower Loxley" tours he tried to organise? Those were more than a month after he had left prison, and he was living at home. Kenton then told him that he ought to leave -- which had precious little to do with the licence because his living there had actually not been given by the licensing authority at any point as the reason the licence was not being renewed: it had not been applied for, so they'd had no reason to say anything about Freddie at all.

Someone who had served a sentence for a drugs offence living in a hotel is not a reason for that hotel to have its alcohol licence suspended, in the real world. But Kenton told Freddie that it is, and Freddie, instead of checking, took Kenton's extremely unreliable word for it and decided (in a self-sacrificing it's-all-my-fault way) that he ought to go and live with his aunt Camilla.

This does not mean that what Kenton assumed actually had the least bearing on anything whatever, since Kenton had no actual evidence for his assumption.

Kenton has been a licensee on two licensed premises. Its not unreasonable to assume he has some insight around the likely challenges. Since Elizabeth lost her license due to Freddie's activities, houseing a convicted drug dealer isn't likely to help her make a case to regain that license.

Kenton (like Fallon, like Clarrie) holds a personal licence to sell alcohol. This does not mean that he knew what the licensing authority had said about something of which he had no experience at all, regarding a premises at which he does not work -- he had not asked them.

Simple as that.

It is on a par with another little storyline: Shula can ride a horse, but that does not mean that she knows enough not to expose her entire livery stables to a horse with strangles, and make no effort at all to isolate it from all the other horses she is looking after for paying customers.

This does not mean that he knew what the licensing authority had said about something of which he had no experience at all, regarding a premises at which he does not work -- he had not asked them

My point was that having been the licensee for at least two seperate business and been through the application process he would know more than the average joe. Applying for a license generally involves taking professional advice and engaging with the process.

I'm struggling to see how he wouldn't know more than the average joe.

Ooh! I like that new word - disucssion!

Made me think of naughty business and vacuum cleaners

Two of my favourite things in life.... 😉

Wouldn't that be dicsucsion? I do a lot of typos on here but don't think I've managed that one yet!

C8H10N4O2
I'm struggling to see how he wouldn't know more than the average joe.

He's Kenton -- not reliable as a source, especially at second hand. And I doubt him knowing things rather than supposing, assuming, or otherwise having some vague idea about them. If Kenton told me it was raining, I'd check outside before I factored it into my plans for the day.

Kenton is not the licensee at The Bull; he will not even be the designated premises supervisor. He holds a personal licence to sell alcohol on licensed premises, as have Clarrie, Fallon, Rhys, and whoever the barman was who never spoke. Jolene, who owns just under half the business, is certain to have become the designated premises supervisor when Sid had died and Kenton had not yet started to behave as if he owned the place rather than being a barman there.

I am unsure that he was the designated premises supervisor at Jaxx either; he certainly never seemed to have to do anything about it if he was. It might have been Jim Lloyd who applied for the premises licence when they applied for change-of-use, and then delegated to Kenton. (If he had any sense it will have been.) Being able simply to hand over to Fallon as Kenton did suggests that he'd had no greater authority than she then did.

I've relocated my online Archers discussions once already, when the BBC shut down its own messageboard, aka Mustardland or ML. I suppose I could cope with doing it again . I hope it would never be necessary, but best to be prepared.

The obvious place to go to would be the new Mustardland, which is a small private messageboard, but I have no idea (a) how it works, (b) if it's taking new users, (c) if it is, whether they would welcome an influx of a few dozen ex-MNers and (d) what state it's in these days. The man who set it up sadly died some time ago, I understand, and it's now being run by some other ex-MLers. No idea how sustainable that is. I know I'm not the only ex-MLer here but I suspect we're a minority.

Failing that, there's Twitter but there are many issues with that. I don't use Facebook. One issue with both of those is that users are not so anonymous as here.

Yeah ... I abandoned my Twitter account nearly two years ago. Not keen to go there again, either!

How does a 'small private messageboard' work?

He's Kenton -- not reliable as a source, especially at second hand

Oh come on. I disagree with many of Kenton's choices but he is not stupid (the clever one at school remember?) and he successfully ran the bar as a business. You can be lazy without being stupid.

And whilst he may have a personal license the Bull and Jaxx would both have had premises licenses. He would have had to go through an approval process even to get the personal licence.

Kenton was also helping Elizabeth pretty much full time with the business and involved in it day to day, including discussing the legal advice she was getting.

The idea that Kenton would have no clue about licensing makes no sense.

That's really precisely my point, AskingQuestions. Freddie moved out due to concerns about the licence. Whether they were justified or not isn't relevant to his reasons.

Ah. You mean Freddie was silly enough to take Kenton's word for something without checking. Yes, true.

Thank you for the congratulations. I did miss The Archers (tut!) the night baby arrived but I did catch up the next day. While my username is a Brianism, alas the new arrival does not have an Archers name - although Jill would not approve of DC1’s middle name :D

why would she want to end up nursing / minding an older man who seems to be losing his marbles? To paraphrase Mrs Merton, do you mean what might Tracy see in the multi-millionaire Oliver Sterling? I must say the idea seemed absurd to me at first, but as time goes by I can totally see them together. I can even see Oliver bringing Brad and Chelsea into line based on his and Caroline’s foray into fostering difficult teenagers. In a way I think it’s the fact that Tracy is so different from Caroline that makes it more likely - she is not just a pale imitation she is a complete change of direction for a man who is now at an entirely different point in his life. Bring it on!

Trouble with moving the discussion is I'd be wanting you to bring gardening, elderly parents and dementia with you. And AIBU. MN is doing what Zoom is trying to do at the moment - get your life to depend on it, then charge when it's too much hassle to move away.

Oh FFS!

Just ended a phone call "because Archers"!

How long is it going to take to sink in?