💥 Archers thread #119: Has the Bull reopened? Will Ambridge pull through? We’ve all dozed off and haven't a clue. Moan about the monologues 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 we should have monologues all the time from now on, 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.)

Thanks to PPE on the last thread for the title suggestion, which I tweaked a bit.

As for the current state of affairs: here's how it could have been done. www.youtube.com/channel/UCvRSVdfQWAjNhNu1AtABYjw Nigel Pargetter returns, albeit in spectral form. I loved these.

I don't love the current set up. Very, very hit and miss for me - but I am too much of an addict to give it up. Looking for a silver lining, maybe the rather clunky trot through the Aldridge family tree last night was helpful to newer listeners. It is rather convoluted. In 12.5 minutes they managed to explain that Adam and Debbie are Jennifer's children by different fathers, that Debbie's father Roger Travers-Macy adopted Adam, that after he and Jenny divorced she married Brian and that he (secretly) loves Adam and not nearly so secretly adores Debbie. I don't think they explicitly stated that Kate and Alice are Brian's children with Jenny, but they did manage to squeeze in a mention of Siobhan and Ruairi, and explain that Xander is Adam's son by a surrogate and has no genetic connection to either Brian or Xander's other father Ian. Phew!

Many older people are incintinent or suffer from constipation, but that is not something I want to be given details about, any more than indigestion or swollen ankles enthral me.

I am so bored with this idea that only sex is of importance...

Lynda has a broken pelvis, Lynda gets hay fever. The combination of a broken pelvis and uncontrollable sneezing would be more of interest (how does that get dealt with? It must be agonising) than this "Robert may not want to fuck her/Robert may not be able to fuck her" sequence.

PerditaProvokesEnmity
So often people over 60 are portrayed (outside TA) as one amorphous block of emotionally dead, white-haired cruise takers.

Yeah, Boomers get bad press. So do Generation X and Millennials. It seems to be the nature of the media to indulge in generalisation by age-group.

Remember "teenagers"? They were all Mods and Rockers and such, back in the fifties and sixties, even if the vast majority of them were nothing of the kind. Then they "all" became hippies, and then I think you'd have been forgiven for thinking they were "all" drug-takers, and then "all" binge-drinkers, and so on and on.

In TA, all Archers children go off the rails at some point between starting to talk and the age of about twenty-one....

" Many older people are incintinent or suffer from constipation, but that is not something I want to be given details about, any more than indigestion or swollen ankles enthral me."
Hear, hear.

I think the point of the viagra debacle was that a stonking great erection is not a substitute for loving intimacy.

Or that unless he is going to cuddle her treat her like herself not as Lilian would want he is wasting Lilian's money.

I thought the Lilian / Robert conversation was ok until he indicated he was worried about being able to do the deed. That didn't feel believable to me.

Lynda has a broken pelvis, Lynda gets hay fever. The combination of a broken pelvis and uncontrollable sneezing would be more of interest (how does that get dealt with? It must be agonising) than this "Robert may not want to fuck her/Robert may not be able to fuck her" sequence. If Lynda's pelvis is still broken I'm surprised she'd want anyone to fuck her.

Lynda was in such pain a week or so ago that it took her a long time to manage to get in from the garden and she had to lock herself away in the loo to hide her pain from Robert.

She is in her seventies; a broken pelvis will take longer to knit properly at her age than it would if she were forty or fifty. That she is wanting to be fucked at all, considering how much it hurt her when she moved injudiciously that recently, is rather surprising.

I haven't been on for ages but this made me think of whoever had the Texel young ram Peppa Pig;:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/28/worlds-most-expensive-sheep-sold-in-scotland-for-367k-double-diamond

Surely this has to be worked into the storyline?

@PerditaProvokesEnmity

Look, Ed!

Texel news.

🐏

I thought the same, echt. (Re-posting for ram ...) It would be an utter disgrace if they don't have Ed comment on this.

I can't remember what Peppa Pig's sale price was but I bet it wan't quite near Double Diamond's value.

Thinking about the name, being an older-type person, surely it referred to this:

I wonder if the Robert actor has had any input to the storyline, given he's a GP in his other life.

Happily I've never had a broken pelvis, but I can imagine that the sort of pain you get on getting up from an awkward position is unique to that situation. It doesn't necessarily inevitably mean that you will suffer pain from sex if you're careful about it. Plus, of course, sex doesn't necessarily have to include penetration if it does turn out to be too painful.

I would think that the prospect of possible very unpleasant pain might put a bit of a damper on real enjoyment of sex.

Presumably Lynda has a fair idea of what sort of positions and movements she finds painful and can therefore make a reasonable assessment as to whether sex is doable for her.

Far too much sex for me.

What happened to the rewilding?

No sex happening at all is too much sex for you, Prufrock?

Each to their own ...

Blimey - haven't listened properly since I discovered Times Radio, but at least I have been spared swilling my ears out with bleach

Presumably she didn't think that standing up after a bit of gentle weeding would be agonisingly painful either, though, Pobblebonk.

She knows that she is still fragile, and I am sure Robert is aware of it too, and not saying because he knows that if he did she would savage him for it. When someone is in pain it shows, no matter how much they think they are putting a brave face on it -- especially someone you have known very well for over forty years.

I want to know about the rewilding too.

"Robert may not want to fuck her/Robert may not be able to fuck her" sequence

I'm shuddering at this language being used (by several posters) on the Archers thread and especially in relation to Robert and his Lindy!

Pass the smelling salts, Petunia!

Y'know, Ed is starting to sound like his dad!

It's certainly not the language expected of TA listeners.

I think we’ll all breathe a huge sigh of relief when the spotlight moves away from Robert and Lyndy’s bedroom and back onto more familiar/less prurient topics. After the viagra subplot, I’d even welcome a week back at Bridge Farm, delving into Helen’s anxieties about cheese and Lee again...

Overly late at replying (by a long margin), but thank you to Pauline, Sparkly, Asking and Ebear for catch up info. It's taken me a while but now all caught up and raring to go