🎄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?

Oooh! Looking forward to the Ambridge/WH mash-ups!

Soosan will no doubt discuss the finer points of feminist theory as well as sharing her Chilli Con Carnal recipe

I think Victoria lives in a nice house, wears upmarket clothes, and looks for all the world like she is just some woman with a profession.

Wouldn't it have been a superb twist fir us all to discover that "Victoria" turns out to be a pseudonym for Rochelle!

Joy has to be in Ambridge for a reason (but I can't fathom it).

A woman in my area was convicted of modern slavery last year. It's not restricted to men although possibly the victims weren't builders. I don't think it was specified in the local press.

It quite often seems to be unpaid live-in "servants" (nannies and such) who never get any time off and whose passports are being "kept safe for them".

And then there are the forced prostitutes, of course. And the various agricultural labourers.

Not many people with servants round here I should think but lots of car washes. Nail bars in Sheffield, maybe, the the places in my town seem to be staffed by locals. There's a big Thai restaurant with loads of staff but I never see them off duty walking round the town - that's not necessarily dodgy though.

There are lots of nail bars where I live, Staff all look south-east asian, youngish and male.

@MikeUniformMike

There are lots of nail bars where I live, Staff all look south-east asian, youngish and male.

None of those in my town but possibly in Sheffield or Nottingham.

BOOP for Harrison being a good mate to Chris.

Bit of an aside, but thank you for the heads up on the Delia flaky pastry recipe - sausage rolls duly made and consumed this afternoon

Hmm .. Ed and David - David was going to call the police. Is metal detectorists in your field a police matter? Surely it's no more than trespass, which at the moment is still a civil matter. David can sue them for the damage, but the police won't be interested.

Yes... farmers confirm it's a civil matter

but the police won't be interested*

The police aren’t the only ones with a lack of interest in David’s bloody field...

So really we needed to hear from Ian's paternity leave replacement. (Has Deliveroo reached Ambridge?)

Surely Ian's paternity leave has come to an end by now? The baby must be around 14 months old.

I thought you were going to link to a forum where farmers discussed the archers there Dint !

I think Victoria lives in a nice house, wears upmarket clothes, and looks for all the world like she is just some woman with a profession

Yes, the female equivalent of Philip. Outwardly professional business operator with a smattering of "good works".

I think Victoria is like that woman in Peaky Blinders.

(Disclaimer: I haven't watched it much, too violent for my taste)

Ooh... Philip said ‘might as well go out with a bang’ to Joy. Do you think Philip is setting up an insurance job?

Listening to omnibus ... There is no way that Susan hadn't even started her Christmas shopping at the beginning of December! Just think how many people she must be buying for. And, given she's both well organised and thrifty, she would absolutely have taken advantage of the 2020 January sales. (And then normally have topped up her gift cupboard on holiday or trips during the year.) Everything's already beautifully wrapped and beribboned in the Ambridge View Guest Room Walk in Wardrobe.

Pah!

Glad you liked it @SabrinaThwaite 😋

I thought you were going to link to a forum where farmers discussed the archers there I was

Quite nice that metal detectorists are a real problem for farmers - nice in the sense that TA has got that bit right, not nice for the farmers.

They even have a thread "For all you archers fans" In same ways it's very similar to MN - same bewilderment about finances, deliberate mispellings of names "Roary", in other ways not so much "batting for the other team".

Really fascinating to read another Archers thread! Thanks for the link.

Are or have any of you ever been on the BBC TA Fb forum? I used to post on there quite a bit at one point. It's similar, but of course easier to follow different trains of thought within the overall theme as it's on Fb.

Wasn't Ian's paternity leave replacement the chef from the LL Orangery? Hugh?

Ian hated him (I think he might have been rude about some of Ian's cooking in the Flower & Produce show one year) and spent several weeks getting Freddy to report back. I imagine he lost his job when Blake blew up the kitchen (do they have a new kitchen yet?) just in time for Ian to return.

Hugh made a better soufflé than Ian did, or something of the sort. Then Ian's unpleasant comments were caught on an open mic. As is so often the case, the person Ian has harmed is the one he finds unforgivable. (Ian is a nasty bit of work.)