🎄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?

Still puzzled as to how Philip would finance retirement

Renting Kirsty out, I imagine. Though I doubt it would be terribly lucrative, these days.

Asking

Isn't it a bit Mills&Boon? They don't like each other at all, so they are destined for each other?

Absolutely!

Phil finances are a mystery to us though. He could be sitting on a pile of cash. He was doing ok before the explosion and doesn’t really have to pay his workers. He’ll deal in cash a lot and won’t being paying full tax. We don’t know he’s got a massive mortgage and he could have been playing poor to Gav this whole time.

I predict that Susan’s Bert Fry interview will get rave reviews from her listeners and she will get a reprieve. I think listening to Bert’s melodious voice talking about nothing much is just what is needed in these fraught times. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if her slot is given to him.
Good to hear Jim back.

I got a horrible sense of foreshadowing when Helen mentioned how she’d feel safe in a big house on her own as she’d have neighbours nearby. Rob is bound to be back one day isn’t he - though I guess it won’t be for a while (years?)

The radio thing was simply a device to vary the monologues, so it was bound to go.

Surely Helen's business has suffered badly with lockdown and all those restaurants and hotels closing? So how does she qualify for a mortgage?

Phil's finances are a mystery to us though. *
Bridge Farm finances are a mystery.
Brookfield finances are a mystery.
Lower Loxley finances are a mystery.
The Bull's finances are a mystery.
Aldridge finances are a mystery.
FairBrother finances are a mystery.
Et cetera.
Ad nauseam.

• And obviously to Gavin, too. Why on earth did he think that Philip's house would be a company asset? Is he on glue?

@cameocat, that's an interesting idea. I want to believe that Alice's horse was mentioned for a reason other than just shoehorning into the conversation that Chris is in a foul mood with everyone. They're not very emotionally literate in Ambridge, are they? Not consistently, anyway. Neil picked up straight away that something was wrong with Susan but nobody's picked up that things are badly awry with Chris.

I enjoyed last night's episode. Good to hear Jim again.

Apart from repeat episodes, the last time Pat was in the cast was the week starting 22nd December last year She’s obviously been spending a lot of time with her best friend Cathy. It just goes to show how throwing in a few mentions and reported conversations can be enough to keep a character part of the action (well it worked for me - I was genuinely surprised to hear how long she’s been gone). Maybe she’ll just go the full Freda Fry or Mrs P - completely silent, but still at the heart of things. Hope the actress is OK.

I think listening to Bert’s melodious voice talking about nothing much is just what is needed in these fraught times.

The idea of it reminds me of the Tom Forrest intros we used to get before the omnibus in the '80s.

I welled up when Susan said her show was over and then Neil was so lovely. I do think he's a great husband, really supportive.
I may be feeling a bit emotional though.

He's lovely isn't he. Good husband, good father, good friend.

Things not looking good for Chris and Alice's marriage.

Good old Harrison, detection skills to the fore.

Chris needs Al anon
surprised Harrison didn't think of it

The real financial mystery is Grey Gables. We heard how it was really struggling after the fire, surely lockdown must have been the death knell - but it seems to be still staggering on.

Poor Chris. Glad he's told somebody.

Grey Gables - @Cygne, I'm sure you're right, but IRL someone like Oliver would probably hang on and on using every last scrap of capital in the hope that things will eventualy come good. It's his last link to Caroline, it's not just a business. We did hear recently when Freddie was talking to Lynda that they're trying out new ideas - renting rooms by the hour for people to work in, for example. No idea whether that's a good idea or desperation, but having seen posts from people here about the difficulties of wfh in the same house as baby/toddler/other people wfh I can see there might be occasional demand for places like that.

I did think Freddie had a point regarding the 'rooms by the hour/day' idea. Unless all the relevant rooms have glass walls GG could pick up the wrong sort of reputation pdq. (And, unlike an office block, reputation is what they rely on.) Unless they make the charges prohibitively high, maybe.

Keeping the place going during lockdowns / tiering is Kathy's job, no? I don't recall what's been said about what they've done - but I'm aware of hotels offering home delivery of not just restaurant meals but also recipe boxes and 'carefully chosen' wine. So really we needed to hear from Ian's paternity leave replacement. (Has Deliveroo reached Ambridge?)

Won't Kathy have retired by now? She was born in January 1953, so she started to get her state pension on 6th November, 2015.

She might not have done. I've had a couple of colleagues who loathed the thought of retirement and carried on for years past state pension age. Employers can't force anyone to retire nowadays.

That’s crazy @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime! The SW just gloss over inconvenient facts like that don’t they? So at the time when Cathy was being headhunted to run Grey Gables and offered a job by a big hotel chain, she was already knocking on retirement (and had only managed a golf club bar before that). What utopia Ambridge is for the older professional woman .
Of course they had to give Cathy a major local job so she could play a full part in all the upcoming storylines....no, wait....

I thought of Jamie the tree surgeon when Neil was taking the chainsaw round to Chris. In another world he’d have been a mate and confidant, now we have no idea if he even still lives in the village.

Ooh! Potentially interesting Archers titbits on Woman's Hour. Not spoilers - but the suggestion, in jest, of Susan (actual Susan, not the actress) co-presenting one of their seasonal shows.

And there will be a special Women of Ambridge Woman's Hour on New Year's Day.

I wonder if Gavin will report his Dad and Victoria to the www.modernslaveryhelpline.org/ once a handover date for the horses is set. He does sound like he feels really uncomfortable about the whole situation now, albeit that he’s obviously been complicit in the past. Bit of reverse Stockholm syndrome.

I was really pleased that Chris told someone too. Lots for him to deal with on his own, and Harrison actually sounded reasonably helpful.

The NYD Woman’s Hour sounds really exciting @PoulePouletteEternellement - will have to find it on Sounds as no hope of the children being quiet on the actual day

I wonder if Gavin will report his Dad and Victoria to the www.modernslaveryhelpline.org/ once a handover date for the horses is set

Victoria sounds a right horror. The name seems slightly incongruous with her profession, though I’m not sure why I am saying that. I quite like that they have made the dealer a woman- an interesting twist. She must be as hard as nails. Probably smokes heavily and is dripping in gold, with a throaty laugh that in a past life Vince Casey might have found attractive...Now he is reformed of course and good enough for Lower Loxley, so she won’t be his type at all.

Gavin actually sounds quite scared of her. I expect he is a bit worried his Dad might throw him in as part of the deal...