🎄Archers thread #122: Deck the Hall with Eddie, Freddie 🎵 'Tis the Season to be jolly (but orange juice for you, Alice)

[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 love Bert Fry’s poetry (as I do), 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 @C8H10N4O2 for requesting an annoyingly cheerful thread title which might take us up to Christmas and to @Prestissimo for the title suggestion. I was strongly tempted by @LillianGish’s suggestion: Eddie’s turkeys, Freddie’s show, village green with lights aglow, Stir Up Sunday, Deck the Hall, Merry Christmas one and all - with apologies to Bert Fry and @R4’s suggestion Wassail to the Ambridge Not-A-Panto where Freddie gets nine LESSONS in directing from CAROLe Lynda. Top work, all!

Three days to go until we can return to Ambridge.

My list for Father Christmas

In the next few weeks I’d like:

• Freddie’s show to be a huge success

• Philip and Gavin to be driven out of the village with pitchforks into the waiting arms of the police, and the three ‘horses’ rescued and taken in by kind people who will help them turn their lives around

• Pip to take a perpetual vow of silence and leave for a nunnery

• a terrific Grundy Christmas (although the travails of Alice and Chris will overshadow things)

• Alice to lose the baby, as this seems the least grim option for us listeners; she leaves Chris and makes a fresh start of some kind

What do you all want for Christmas from The Archers?

Well, William isn’t the most dynamic person and Nic’s death massively affected him. It’s weird how people manage to survive on odd jobs/barely -turning-a-profit enterprises in Ambridge!

Well he ought to know that Brian would give him a good reference as they've been down that road before. (Assuming his mental health has stabilised?) I guess the main thing that might hold him back from moving is that he doesn't have much confidence in his solo parenting skills - so sticks around for the familial support. It would mean finding Poppy a new school, too.

But eventually the SWs will have to invent a viable future for him ...

Ooh! I lurk and very occasionally post under other names but I am just plopping onto the thread to say David Archer has popped up as a company director in my audit training video! We are supposed to watch and make comments afterwards but I fear I already have him written off as a buffoon

The actor, or someone called David Archer? Tim Bentinck isn't a buffoon; he's quite a sensible and intelligent person who has done a fair bit apart from acting a buffoon.

No actually Tim Bentinck.. I know he’s a proper actor I just didn’t expect him to be in my corporate training video!

Ah, okay, I get you. (I think.)

Do you mean you can't take Tim Bentinck seriously as a company director because you know him as The Buffoon David Archer?

(Or is TB acting in your video - but still tainted, in your eyes, with his Ambridge persona?)

I can sympathise ultragroupie . I think recognising the actor would put me off a lot.
Please stay.

The SWs don't like country pursuits. So the shoot hasn't been mentioned for two years and goodness knows what has happened to the hunt - Shula and Oliver (Huntmasters) appear to have forgotten that it seemed to keep them busy all winter.

ulltragroupie I bet Tim was a miserable director (in my day the corporate vids often had John Cleese - it's probably an easy gig).

William gave up being a gamekeeper because he needed to give up his shotgun, didn't he? Not long after Ed and Eddie found him on the brink?

@PoulePouletteEternellement

Ah, okay, I get you. (I think.)

Do you mean you can't take Tim Bentinck seriously as a company director because you know him as The Buffoon David Archer?

(Or is TB acting in your video - but still tainted, in your eyes, with his Ambridge persona?)

Yes :) acting in the video but tainted by his David-Archer-ness!

Last detail.. Kirsty (Annabelle Dowler) was in it too! I
Thought she would look like Yvette Fielding so my mental image has been shattered - her voice was unmistakable

*derail

Good spot, @ultragroupie! I kept thinking the Northern voice on Plusnet adverts was Harrison, but it isn't (I looked the actor up, nerdily).

I've never got over my surprise the first time I saw Tamsin Grieg. She sounded like Debbie but looked nothing like her.

William gave up his profession because his father told him he had to.

Why do people in TA jump ahead so quickly? Helen's only just mentioned the idea - suddenly it's a firm plan and everyone has to know.

And what the everlasting f is it to do with David who his fifty-three-year-old sister chooses to shag with? He needs to learn to mind his own bloody business.

oh I yelled at David just now when he said it reminded him of Pip and Jude - Elizabeth isn't your child FFS!!!!!!

And what the everlasting f is it to do with David who his fifty-three-year-old sister chooses to shag

Running the risk of being contrary, I quite enjoyed David seeking out another sibling to moan about Elizabeth’s new squeeze. It was the kind of off-the-record moaning that takes place between siblings and isn’t expected to go anywhere or mean anything. Shula and David are generally on my list of least favourite characters (it’s quite a long list) but if my sister started dating VC, my brother and I would sound pretty similar to Shula and David!

Don’t worry at all about derailing @ultragroupie - we’re all guilty of it at different times...

I fear it might be "Saint Shula to the Rescue". I neither know or care about livery, but her clients' horses never seem to be in good shape.

I think I need to be getting into the cheese business. I can't excuse the (lack of) continuity failing to remember how bitchy Helen and Kirsty were about the new estate, and especially Joy.

I will feel robbed if Philip falls off that ladder whilst trying to hang those decorations.

Ok my two are only tiny so what do I know but come on - Tony crying over his 30-something-year-old daughter moving a couple of hundred metres away is the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. Get a bloody grip. Not that it will happen, of course, “fiercely independent” Helen can’t cope for a minute without Pat and Tony wiping her arse, paying for her, and bringing up her children.

Will has no rent to pay, and hasn't paid rent in the past. He has a house that he lets out.

I get the impression that Auntie isn't entirely unbiased.

I have nothing against hunting. It affects me not one jot and it keeps people in rural areas employed. Same goes for shooting. Funny how people aren't as vocal about fishing.

Badgers and foxes have no natural predators.

Fish are not generally viewed as cute, MUM. They lack the fur or featehrs for it.

@MikeUniformMike

Will has no rent to pay, and hasn't paid rent in the past. He has a house that he lets out.

Yes, but ...

I don't dispute that he can probably muddle along, financially, with low outgoings and a rental income - but eventually (when he's back on his feet emotionally) he'll want to return to doing something that's recognised in the world.

I'd assumed that the livery incident was more about broadcasting the news that Alice was AWOL and Christopher unusually truculent. But I daresay if Alice returns to find her horse deceased that would be a very short route to an alcohol relapse.

I doubt any shagging has taken place. This is TA after all. Vince will be being 'gentleman-ly'. Elizabeth will be cogitating. And will need a conversation with either her mother or sister (or maybe even her daughter!) before she Takes The Next Step ...