💰 Archers thread #121: Brookfield digs for treasure, Alice & Philip try to bury the truth. Dish the dirt here if you dig The Archers. PS Send nudes.

[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 long to hear Pip again, 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 @LillianGish and @PersephonePromotesEquanimity for the title suggestions.

Current events: as @Bailey0703 has astutely spotted, it's Anti-Slavery Day tomorrow - could this herald the beginning of the end of the horses storyline? I do hope so. Horrible stuff, but what a blow for Kirsty. They're laying on the dramatic irony with trowel at the moment.

What do we think will happen to Alice and Chris? I can't see this pregnancy going to term and ending well. I don't think the marriage will survive either, giving Brian a chance to revisit his classic line about having to treat this as Alice's starter marriage.

Will Elizabeth end up on a date with Vince Casey? That would put the cat among the pigeons at Lower Loxley.

Over to you ...

It was a memory box she mentioned Ask.

To be fair to Brine I think that the prospect of hearing the voice of your mistress from beyond the grave, after you had managed to cajole your wife into raising your love child to adulthood, would be enough to put the wind up anyone!

Remind me, Who Wrote Tonight's Episode?

Just what I came on to ask!! Wonderful writing.

TA has suddenly joined the 21st century, I'm mainly liking it but it's not quite TA as we know and love it, is it?!!!

Interesting writing, I'd say. Maybe.

Bit about what appears to be a particular perception regarding boys' boarding schools. Would slightly have preferred them to avoid that.

But it's good to hear Jenny having a nice time with one of her daughters.

good episode

Didn't think the bit about bisexuality sounded very convincing...

Yes I know what you mean about boarding schools....

It does seem a little odd that the only (known) "gays in the village" should all be Aldridges (ok am not sure of Iain's surname, but hey!)

Didn't think the bit about bisexuality sounded very convincing...

No it was a bit public schoolboy somehow.

He isn't the first bisexual in the village but I can't remember who was the previous local. I have vague memory they were connected with Hannah (or was it Hannah?) but its lost in the mists fo Ambridge farm time.

I think Brian's worried about the CD, because it might be just, "I wish I could have been there to see you grow into a fine young man," but it could also be, "try not to be too like your father, because let's face it, he can be a bit of a cad..."

I think Troy is more recent than Ruairi being at boarding school, isn't he? Munster was in his dorm, but that wasn't said about Troy. So he may be from the local co-ed that Ruairi has been at for the past two years.

About this touching scene when Alice found Jennifer weeping into the sink: when exactly was this? As soon as Alice was told about Ruairi being Brian's and being about to come to live in Ambridge, she threw a complete wobbly, shouted and screamed a bit, and flung out of the house to stay with Adam and Ian and then with Alan at the Vicarage. Before her A-levels she didn't know anything about it all, and after them she wasn't living at Home Farm, and was in any case being vile to Jennifer and not (as she claimed tonight) feeling any respect for her at all.

C8H10N4O2
He isn't the first bisexual in the village but I can't remember who was the previous local. I have vague memory they were connected with Hannah (or was it Hannah?) but its lost in the mists fo Ambridge farm time.

Harry the milkman chased women the whole time he was in Ambridge, but suddenly discovered a retrospective boyfriend on his way to Edinburgh and never came back.

And Charlie claimed to be.

Brian was right to be shocked and annoyed. The cd should either have been sent to him or he should have been warned in advance. He's Ruari's father and wants to protect him, obviously. I don't think he's worried about Siobahn dissing him so much as Ruari being upset and confused.

I can see why she'd have done it but not sure it was a brilliant idea. Tricky.

Poor Jennifer does have to put up with a lot.

Brian has no right to stop Ruairi receiving anything in the post and doing whatever he likes with it though.

Oh crikey, Charlie, there's a blast from the past!

They’ve just totally given up on any pretence at reflecting lockdown haven’t they? Dinner parties with friends, Jenny and Alice in the nail bar, did I even hear Jazzer talking about a house party? (I was only half listening)
It’s such a weird alternate universe.

@CheetasOnFajitas

They’ve just totally given up on any pretence at reflecting lockdown haven’t they? Dinner parties with friends, Jenny and Alice in the nail bar, did I even hear Jazzer talking about a house party? (I was only half listening) It’s such a weird alternate universe.

Before the current lock down you could go to a nail bar and, in Tier 1 have a dinner party of 6. The house party would have been illegal. They did say it was recorded before current restrictions.

To be fair, the lockdown was announced with so little notice they had no chance of keeping up with current restrictions without scrapping all their recently recorded episodes. I'd rather they just kept going.

Will we hear Siobhan tonight?

Tbf I guess it must be peculiarly difficult for them right now.

On the one hand we heard Ben being significantly affected by restrictions as he started university - no Freshers' Week, etc. On the other - I have no idea what the regulations might have been (on any given day in the past 3/4 months) for an archaeological dig on farmland.

And they should absolutely be reflecting the attitudes of anti-lockdowners - so some mention of parties would seem legitimate.

But I'm forcefully aware that most Ambridge residents seem to have had a very different year to mine.

They did say it was recorded before current restrictions

I listen on BBC Sounds so I didn’t hear any introductory statement like that. In any event I was not saying that they should be trying to reflect current restrictions- I know that it is pretty much impossible with the advance recording, give or take the odd topical insert here and there. It was just an observation at how weird some everyday stuff sounds.

Seeing anything on TV where people are mingling seems very odd. Some, more recently made, adverts are showing people wearing masks but the Christmas adverts, in particular, are getting on my wick.

Not sure why the SLs felt they had to clumsily graft a teenage bisexuality twist onto poor Ruari’s 18th. Totally unnecessary and can only have been done to keep quotas up as it’s not a SL that has even been hinted at before. Dealing with his feelings about his dead mother would have been quite sufficient and meaningful enough. We really didn’t need the bisexual distraction with Ben’s crass interpretation of what it will mean for him bolted on.

@Roysnewshirt

Not sure why the SLs felt they had to clumsily graft a teenage bisexuality twist onto poor Ruari’s 18th. Totally unnecessary and can only have been done to keep quotas up as it’s not a SL that has even been hinted at before. Dealing with his feelings about his dead mother would have been quite sufficient and meaningful enough. We really didn’t need the bisexual distraction with Ben’s crass interpretation of what it will mean for him bolted on.

Yes, I’m inclined to agree - when Ben said “Adam’s already done the heavy lifting” I laughed as it was a good line but I thought “yeah, you mean the entire storyline”. Though there is obviously mileage in the prospect of exposing whether Brine only managed to come round to Adam being gay because he wasn’t actually his biological son. And since Jenny now has a 100% record of raising sons who like boys, he might start to blame her...