🧚‍♀️ Archers thread #120: Magic time. Dialogue! Good Fairy Lilian made Lynda’s wish come true. Will Phil vanish in a puff of smoke? Join the Magic Circle in Alice’s shed, where time is never called!

[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 hear more about the Naughty Milkman, 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 @Roysnewshirt for the excellent title suggestion, which I tweaked a bit.

I wonder how much dialogue we're going to get in the coming weeks. They're back to normal recording, I believe, albeit socially distanced. Also, when will we get our Friday and Sunday episodes back? I know I'm not the only regular to miss TA a lot more on Friday than on Sunday. The Sunday episode is still an incomer, of course, having only been introduced some 20 years ago, of course.

(My parents retired to a village and some features of Ambridge life are very familiar from their experience, the 'incomer' label being one.)

@CheetasOnFajitas

Maybe he should job share with Ed instead.

Susan would love that. 'My son-in-law, the manager of Home Farm ...'

Regrettably, Brian would never stand for it.

Ed was also really terrible at paperwork when he ran his herd, didn’t he have to get remedial accounts help from someone like Helen?

However job-sharing with someone who has actual farm-management experience would certainly make more sense- I was just chewing over in my mind what the advantage would be if employing Alice vs an “outsider” if it is a true job share? Were they banking in her taking a lower salary than market rate because it’s a family business?

@CheetasOnFajitas

Maybe he should job share with Ed instead.

The idea of Adam's outrage at being told that Ed could be his job share partner has really made me laugh CheetasOnFajitas. He thinks he is irreplaceable

It was Ruth.

I can only assume that Brian thinks Alice can turn her hand to anything because she is so clever. She may have picked up some agricultural knowledge from growing up at Home Farm and from her last job, but it doesn't really compare to decades of hands on farming.

I assume she had a test in hospital, because they would have asked, "is there any chance you could be pregnant?"

Yes, they certainly should have asked her in hospital, but I wonder if she's known or suspected for weeks and this is behind her odd behaviour recently.

Ed was also really terrible at paperwork when he ran his herd, didn’t he have to get remedial accounts help from someone like Helen?

It was Ruth. He had been doing the cows part of the job and completely ignoring the business side. Now he seems to depend on Emma for paperwork.

Scope for Ed to be diagnosed with dyslexia as an adult, possibly. He never did well at school. I suspect he's barely literate and probably struggles with numeracy.

Now he seems to depend on Emma for paperwork

I had forgotten to mention Emma’s sudden interest in turning Ed’s tiny collection of sheep into a fully-blown breeding business that is going to feed them all and give her the life she has always dreamt of. It seemed a bit of a leap. I am sure to become a successful breeder you have to do a bit more than simply keep an inventory online - but I am a city girl and know nothing of these matters...

She may have picked up some agricultural knowledge from growing up at Home Farm and from her last job, but it doesn't really compare to decades of hands on farming.

I assumed that he thought as she is intelligent and educated with experience of the farm she could learn and bring what she learned about other farms in the course of work from him and Adam. That would probably be realistic if the LSWs hadn't rewritten her as a drunken airhead.

Ed's experience as a good farmhand and stockman might make him a valuable member of staff whose opinions they would value but the business running side is a different skill and not one for which Ed has ever shown any aptitude.

Maybe Alice will tell Chris and then decide to have a termination because of the risk of FAS and will have to explain to him the extent of her drinking.

Then they will resolve their issues and try for another baby in a few months or get divorced.

Has anybody else noticed that Emma is being portrayed very positively at the moment? They surely won't be building her up for another "fall".

She found an orchard nobody knew existed, she's been helping with strategies for the Bull, she's been thinking ahead and record keeping for Ed's flock.

Surely surely she won't come to Alice's rescue and help get the estate office running smoothly?

Gavin was so vile to Kirstie (why was that?), so I am struggling with this "new Gavin". Did he stop dating Emma or are they likely to compare notes about Alice next time they meet?

PersephonePromotesEquanimity
The other possibility is that a child with the condition might not actually survive to the point of being born. Although they gave Kirsty a miscarriage there would be much wider family reaction and possibly repercussions if this happened to Alice and Chris after ten years of marriage and all the weight of expectation they're subject to.

I have a feeling that justabout the only "pregnancy" story that they haven't done is late/term stillbirth. We have had accident, abortion, AID, surrogate, miscarriage, Down's, cleft palate, twins... They are running out of options for melodrama round babies.

And if there is one and it is Alice, maybe she might be allowed not to go through the "five stages of grief" under the insistence of all around her that she has to "grieve properly"? Kirsty was doing really rather well at coming to terms with her loss in her own way until she was nagged and bullied into a near-breakdown by Helen and co.

Madcats
Did [Gavin] stop dating Emma or are they likely to compare notes about Alice next time they meet?

Since she went back to living with Ed, Gavin has not been part of Emma's social life as far as we know, unless he props up the bar at The Bull and talks to her there.

Has anybody else noticed that Emma is being portrayed very positively at the moment? They surely won't be building her up for another "fall"

Probably. She's a Grundy now - can't have a Grundy getting above themselves other than temporarily.

If being perpetually vituperative and vindictive is positive, she has been.

It was right at the end.

I presume this is yet another contraception fail in Ambridge.

Did anyone else expect to hear the Eastenders ‘doof doof’ drums after Alice said ‘baby’? I’m intrigued about where this is going. The SWs can call it a success because I’ve never been intrigued by Alice!

Thanks for he thread btw, I’m listening and catching up so sporadically at the moment I never get round to posting.

Ed's experience as a good farmhand and stockman might make him a valuable member of staff whose opinions they would value but the business running side is a different skill and not one for which Ed has ever shown any aptitude.

My suggestion that he job share with Adam was a joke @C8H10N4O2. Based on the fact that he is the only one at Home Farm getting anything done recently.

Right, I will say this only once. (And never again.) Today I miss Pip.

Am listening to Farming Today - and learning that it's Open Farm Sunday this weekend! Without a single word from Brookfield.

It's a national disgrace.

I don't miss Pip at all.

I will never miss Pip.

But ... don't you understand? It will be Open Farm Sunday tomorrow - how will any of us get through the day without the annual Brookfield feud over whose farming interests take priority and who gets the double page spread in the Borchester Echo?

I'm already worrying about Stir Up Sunday ...