🎄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?

That was because Helen decided not to charge him.

Not how it works in the UK. In the IS pressing charges is a thing. In the UK charges can go ahead with the victims actively resisting!

But they would generally not bother if the only witness to a rather difficult-to-prove crime stated she would not give evidence. Which is what Helen did.

Do we think the horses wouldn't testify against Philip? Or Gavin?

The 🔮 thinks Gavin will

I hope Gavin takes the initiative before he’s implicated even further.

I think Gavin absolutely deserves to be prosecuted along with his father.

Yes he does. But he has potential to be rehabilitated. I hope that he serves his time and rebuilds his life.

MysticBore™️ predicts

And so it came to pass that Gavin, consumed by guilt over the fate of the horses, confesses all to Cursedy
Cursedy confronts Philip, tells him she's leaving him
Gav, at Cursedy's urging, calls the National Hotline and confesses all. This, in the fullness of time, results in a reduced sentence
Philip, unable to face the loss of Cursedy and being banged up for a long time, tops himself. Cursedy inherits the house
The horses find a forever home with the Blessed St Smugula of Ambridge, patron saint of horses
Hellinantheboyz move in with Cursedy

Aaaaaaaand... I'm back in the room!

You could get Roman to narrate that, Mystic

Oh God, I wrote IS not US. Sorry all. It remains though that the decision rests with the CPS in the UK! Sorry

BTW admission of guilt reduces your sentence by 1/3. Reformed character after crime but before trial unfortunately does not...

Oh sorry, another one - often cases like DV or rape are prosecuted without the victim’s consent or cooperation. Prosecutors gather evidence which may or may not involve the victim’s testimony. Sorry to be a pedantic lawyer which I am! But it will be for the police to get evidence then the CPS to decide. Also in the case of Helen they introduced a storyline directly lifted from series 2 of Criminal Justice (I think) on the BBC, it involved Maxine Peake and is well worth a watch, so Helen was the defendant rather than Rob. If they had charged coercive control it would have played out differently. Sorry but absolutely f*ck SOC for making that decision. That’s why Helen didn’t need to give evidence. As defendant! If you’re subpoenaed you don’t have a choice. Apologies.

Sorry if that came across as aggressive. Because of the DV I’ve suffered and the work I’ve done, “press charges” makes me angry. I have been raped before, physically assaulted and abused and just said nothing because I don’t want to be forced to relive it in excruciating detail, have my phone confiscated, any of it. That’s what happens here because you don’t need to press charges, it isn’t a concept here. They just go along whether you want it or not. Sorry all for hijacking the thread, I didn’t mean to, just got really upset.

So sorry, @CeciledeVolanges. I hope things are better now.

Forgive me if this has already been linked but I think it's a fairly new BBC Archers article on modern slavery and the means used to keep the horses scared and subservient. Refers to the episode last week where Blake, Kenzie and Jordan talked about their pasts.

Helen said in October 2016 that she had decided not to file a complaint against Rob. I am fairly sure this was reported on air by someone else (Pat? to Tony?) using the form "press charges". I'm really sorry it pressed horrible buttons for you that I used the phrase as well!

Ha! Tracy has just given Oliver a checklist of what she needs in a man!

😍

Tracey and Oliver are soooo going to be an item.

Aww I loved Oliver and Tracy.

The 🔮 is quietly pleased.

It called this months ago.

Oliver is well smitten, but he doesn't realise it yet

Ahem!

🎩👒🎩👒🎩👒 for everyone!

@TheSilveryPussycat

Oliver is well smitten, but he doesn't realise it yet

Yes he is!