🎄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?

I thought she was worried because she couldn't contribute as much as him and he said it didn't matter. I may have imagined this.

@CaptainMyCaptain

I thought she was worried because she couldn't contribute as much as him and he said it didn't matter. I may have imagined this.

You didn't imagine it, I remember that conversation between Phillip and Kirsty.

. . .

The parallels are interesting... Helen and Rob had a register office wedding. Now Phillip and Kirsty... I just hope Gavin comes to his senses and spills the beans. Soon!

MrsGrindah
Can’t listen now.. what’s occurring?!

For future reference, Lowfield is no longer being done but synopses of the episodes get put up here not too long after most being broadcast, usually before 9:30 and sometimes sooner.

ambridgereporter.org.uk/synopses/2020.html

You have to scroll or jump to the bottom for the most recent.

Did anyone on here do the @rchesrs @narchists (first) lockdown quizzes? I wish they still happened, they were fab!

Incidentally, "Layla the registrar" comes from a folk-song somewhere, or ought to.

Managed to avoid this thread when I saw you lot getting excited! But have now listened. I was wondering if Gavin was going to try and stop the wedding, but no-one would have listened to him.

I’m with @EarringsandLipstick, Cursedy doesn’t deserve yet another disaster- I so wanted Gavin to speak up! Now she’s officially tied to scum bag Philip.🥲

We can only hope that there’s some legal advantage that will show up when he’s finally revealed as a villain. Oh no, wait, it’s Cursedy, there won’t be an silver linings for her!

My recollection is that Philip was buying the house which (he mentioned to Gavin recently) is mostly mortgage. He bought the house, was planning to move in, then asked Kirsty if she cared to join him.

@Taswama

Managed to avoid this thread when I saw you lot getting excited! But have now listened. I was wondering if Gavin was going to try and stop the wedding, but no-one would have listened to him.

There was a thread on MN a while ago about how often people stand up and stop a wedding. Apparently it rarely happens and usually only applies if the marriage itself would be illegal. I'm not sure that accusing the groom of a crime would come into that category. It would be unproven and Gavin would be accused of causing trouble.

When he said 'I'm sorry' to Kirsty, I thought he was apologising for letting her go through with it even though he knows what sort of man Philip is (and will presumably turn into with Kirsty once he no longer has his son and the horses to bully and she's nice and isolated in Wales).

I thought he was saying sorry because he knows that he's going to report Phillip to the police and knows this won't be her happily ever after.

I think the 'sorry' was more of a general apology for the whole shit show she had got herself involved in although I did wonder for a minute if he was going to tell her all there and then.

I really wanted Gavin to confide in Kirsty and stop the wedding. In fact, I can’t wait for Phillip to get what he deserves.

Cursedy doesn’t deserve yet another disaster

Me three. However I can't see a way around it now.

At best there could be a "making it go away" fudge story of the type used before on TA - Philip could drop dead of a heart attack, Gavin start a new business without slaves, slaves mysteriously forgotten, Kirsty as tragic widow never knowing the truth.

I doubt they will completely fudge this one though so she faces investigations, prosecutions, years of legal stuff and prison visiting as well as the shock of discovering her husband was someone completely different from the man she thought she married.

Helen and Rob had a register office wedding and more to the point a ‘secret’ wedding. I wanted to congratulate the poster who some threads back drew an analogy between Knob’s treatment of Helen and Philip’s of Gavin - excellent spot and we were certainly left in no doubt about it last night. Gav’s ‘I’m Sorry’ was just brilliant - I’m sorry I’m letting you do this, I’m sorry for what we’ve done, I’m sorry for what I’m about to do. A brilliant episode - I was on tenterhooks from start to finish - brilliantly written and brilliantly acted. My worry is that now Kirsty and Philip are married might she be in some way implicated in his crime - living in the house bought with the proceeds, how could she not have known etc etc I don’t see this as Oh great, now she has some security more like Oh no now she might inadvertently bear some responsibility.

I could be wrong about this as IANAL, but I believe one of the grounds for getting a marriage annulled is that one spouse kept some major secret from the other one. Annulment as I understand it is quicker and easier than divorce, albeit rare nowadays. I don't know if hiding that you are a modern slaver would be adequate grounds for annulment. Obviously Kirsty would never have married Philip if she'd known this, though.

Surely Kirsty would fairly easily be able to prove that she knew nothing about the slavery? Gavin would confirm that, even if Philip didn't.

All that stuff in Philip’s vows about being a good person was interesting.

I think once Kirsty has found out about him being a slave master, she will encourage him to turn himself in to the police, citing the vows and his promise to her to be a good person as a reason to do it. Then, may be he will conveniently die in prison or even when being questioned so we won’t have to go through the agony of watching Kirsty stand by her man. I think she is going to refuse to believe he is all bad, but will inevitably spend some time in purgatory worrying about how she could have been so blind and got things so wrong.

Also, I think she would have quite liked Gavin to have kissed her when he wiped away her smudged mascara. She sounded a bit breathless to me...

I would imagine that annulment on those grounds would require the secret to be about something directly related to the partner's ability to marry.

MysticBore™️ predicts

Kirsty will end up sharing the house with Hellinantheboyz.

The 🔮 is not clear at this stage which of them will actually own it.

(With Lee and Gavin moving in???)

@Augustbreeze, you're right, I think. I may have been remembering Victorian novels. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/688091/d8n-notes-eng.pdf

^if you were only mistaken about your spouse/civil partner’s personality or finances this is unlikely to be a sufficient reason
for an annulment.^

Fair enough. They'd be besieged with annulment applications otherwise, I expect.

Cyril and June?

I had no idea!

I don't know man of the middle names.

Kate is Katharine Victoria
Alice is Alice Margaret
Pip is vile
Rosie is Rosie Ruth Grace
Ben is Benjamin David
Joshua Matthew
Daniel Mark
Cursedy June
Philip Cyril
Jamie Benjamin
Lily Rosalind
Frederick Hugo
Keira Susan
George?

I think Jerlene has one - Doreen something

Jerlene's real name was Doreen Rogers.

I’m thinking on same lines as mystic Bore