🍾 Archers thread 123: Goodbye & good riddance to 2020 – to Philip too? The Archers is 70 on New Year’s Day – celebrate or vent about it here!

[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 wish we heard more from Shula, 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.)

So! 2021 beckons. Big anniversary next Friday, 1.1.21 (and to mark that we have episodes Tuesday-Friday next week). What would we like to see happen? I may be in a minority of one, but I'd like a nice gentle character-driven episode. I don't think we'll get that, but I really, really hope they don't kill someone else off, just for the headlines.

[Title edited by MNHQ at OP'S request]

Kirsty has just morphed into Deirdre Barlow.

I even poured myself a glass of wine to welcome the deading of Pip, although to be fair I hadn’t really thought it through, so soon after Nic

Free the Ambridge One
Kirsty Miller Moss is Innocent

Did it happen to Deirdre twice?

Serves her right for returning after the jilting. No sympathy from me.

It was always going to be a squid so damp it’s grown moss.

A fully-laden Bull in a sink hole would have been great. How does this change Ambridge ever?

Moss! See what I accidentally did there?!

I'd steeled myself for a bracing episode. I am left wanting.

Me too.

This quiz is pointless ...

Btw I do know it’s squib

It was a nice episode but yes a little of a let down. Little refs here and there to past times etc. It had bits of everything and anything in.

Monday, we'll find out why Chris and Alice cancelled.

Everyone implicated? Brookfield barn? Play ground? Church staircase? Greygables?
I’m trying to pretend I’m infested.....

So here we go ...

From the Crown Prosecution Service (I did ask if there'd been any recent change, as I no longer take notice but,) as of 2018:

Spouses or Civil Partners
Section 80 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) is the statutory provision which governs the competence and compellability of spouses and civil partners in criminal proceedings.

Spouses or civil partners of a person charged in proceedings are generally competent to give evidence for the prosecution. The only exception is if the spouse or civil partner is jointly charged. If they are, neither is competent or compellable to give evidence, on behalf of the prosecution, against the other, unless the spouse or civil partner witness has already pleaded guilty, or the proceedings in respect of the spouse or civil partner witness have been discontinued.

I think that answers my question as to why it was important that Kirsty and Phillip were married. She did the books, she lived with them both and no doubt inveterate liar Phillip has done nothing to put her in the clear.

@PoulePouletteEternellement yes this quiz is weird. Not interesting enough and with so much material to go on. How odd!

But I did like the way the other villagers sounded incredulous - certainly far more so than Kirsty when she discovered the truth.

The 🔮 is DISCUSTED! Unless Krusty is going dahn, there is no way that is life changing!

Cursedy ain't gorra leg to stand on.

GM crops prosecution with Tom.
Jilted by Tom.
Helen prosecuted.
And Now This?

Nah. Too silly. And what on earth do the producers have against her?

She's not an Archer. That's what.

well that was disappointing

31 Dec Peggy has a shocking suggestion and Jazzer finds himself in a compromising position.

She suggests to Chris that Alice is an alcoholic. How shocking.
Jazzer gets kissed; poor innocent, he never has been before.

01 Jan Ambridge faces a life-changing crisis and one resident makes a special announcement.

Baffled about the first bit: what's life-changing about someone who has been there less than a year and did some jobbing building work before that turning out to be a bad lot?
The MBE is a special announcement, but what it was awarded for beats me.

I was shouting at Kenton to shut up so we could just get on with the episode.
Thought Lynda's MBE was daft.
I reserve judgment on the other 2 storylines.

Happy New Year!

I always find myself shouting at Kenton to shut up in such circumstances as today's.