💥 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!

I am using crude language to point up the crude stupidity of the storyline. It is deliberate, and intended to be shocking.

(I don't know about anyone else, but that is why I am doing it.)

I am tempted to complain to the beeb about the SL. I suppose I could switch off.

I have switched off!
As an addict I'm lurking on here trying to come off in stages, the thought of Robert's viagra usage is helping.

That was a dreadful storyline. Not only the explicitness, but the incredibly unlikely proposition that Robert the Reserved would have any such conversation with Cackler in Chief.

I agree imposter . I thought Lilluan giving Robert a gentle nudge to notice and complement Lynda on her new wig was fine, but it went too far after that.

SW1 - Hello young person, long time no see.
Intern number 3 - Hello. Actually we’ve never met, I’m the replacement for your intern who finished last week to go back to uni.
SW1 - Are you sure?
IN3 - yes, I think so, I know I started yesterday.
SW1- well if you say so. So first on our agenda - as you know we’re keen to attract new younger listeners and we’re introducing what can only be described as “racy” storylines to do so. So, young person, what do you think of the new sexy Ambridge?
IN3 - I have a name, by the way...
SW1- oh we don’t bother with that sort of formality here.
IN3 - I’m not sure septuagenarian lust is really what young people are interested in and sexy talk on the radio when you’re listening with your mum, like I tend to, is cringe.
SW1 - I think we expect more positivity around here, to be honest, our last young person was able to smile and nod very effectively.
IN3 - (on mute) or as they described it to me lost the will to argue.

Hurrah! A new Young Person!!

The 🔮 predicts that, in an effort to capture a new audience, the SWs will go for Woke Ambridge next, with Roy sporting a neck beard, Leonard cross-dressing and lots of interesting new gender identities and pronouns.

They only have about eighty speaking characters to represent the 112+ different genders, though. (And some say there are 317+, or indeed "Gender is a spectrum, and there are as many gender definitions as there needs to for every person to have a label that feels true to themselves.") The cast is going to have to increase a lot, or even contain every member of the human species -- and the rest, not to be speciesist.

Talking of speciesist...

Has there ever been a rabid animal rights type on TA?

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse - back from two weeks away and caught up with growing horror.

Yes, Lucy Perks. I think.

Thanks Gasp0de. I missed the Lucy Perks era, it must have been during my wilderness years, when I was too busy having fun in far-off places to follow happenings in Ambridge

I enjoyed tonight's episode. Poor Ed.

Oh thank goodness things are back on track again. Everything restored to its natural order! Susan and Tracey squabbling and Alice lining up her next big drinking session!

It’s as if last week was just a dreadful dream.

A return to form, I think. Susan’s squeaky voice “troll”, excellent Tracey wind up, an actually almost believable misunderstanding between Alice the ego and Ed the well meaning and a surprise party that is obviously going to be a car crash. I’m actually looking forward to how this pans out.

Hopefully in a couple of weeks Lynda and Robert will be spied walking hand in hand across the village green by Lillian and that will be the end of that sorry tale. Too much to hope for Shula to fall under a tractor driven by a drunk Alice, I suppose. I have a horrible feeling we will soon hear how lockdown gave the saintly one the opportunity to “really think about what she wants from life”.

Too much to hope for Shula to fall under a tractor driven by a drunk Alice, I suppose

If only...

All I can remember about Lucy Perks without resorting to my Archers books is that she was a militant vegetarian given to lecturing people about how awful it was to eat meat. She went off to Nottingham to study environmental science, or something on those lines, and inexplicably failed her degree. The SWs seemed to think she couldn't marry her boyfriend and emigrate to NZ with him (I think he may have been from NZ) unless she'd failed academically. It's annoyed me intensely for years.

What I would like to hear as we finally get back to some sort of normality is that Phoebe has woken up from her torpor during lockdown and realised that she doesn't want to live in Ambridge and potter about on the fringes of things. I hope to learn that she's moved to London and got a job more in keeping with being an Oxford PPE graduate. Research assistant to the local MP would do it, or some kind of researcher job at a think tank.

I enjoyed the Susan/Tracy bits last night. Could do without Alice, though. I thought the Ed monologue was good - finally, something said inside a character's head that we would definitely never have heard otherwise (the bit about just for a second wishing Will dead).

I like Shula and am disgusted at you wishing her dead.

I'm a bit sad that the intern has gone but am glad they got a new one.Thanks chem.

They have quite a high turnover of interns, don't they! I'm glad they have a channel of communication to the outside world through @Chemenger, though.

Falling under a tractor and dead are not necessarily the same thing, MUM: she might be left paraplegic, and Ambridge have its long-awaited wheelchair user.

Pinch, punch ...

Yes, more Ed revelations would be good.

I missed Lynda last night ...

You can’t intern for more than a year, even at the BBC. That was established on WA1 when it turned out that Will the intern didn’t actually work there. It is a year since the last intern started, I think. Honestly you’d think I was just making it up as I went along or something.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Falling under a tractor and dead are not necessarily the same thing, MUM: she might be left paraplegic, and Ambridge have its long-awaited wheelchair user.

No, I meant dead.

''Honestly you’d think I was just making it up as I went along or something.''

There's got to be an opening for an extra SW of your calibre surely @Chemenger?