🍾 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]

Well, at least it was a FRIDAY episode!

Until this week, has it ever been mentioned that Kirsty helped Philip with his books? That is quite a change from having a secret laptop at the back of the wardrobe ( and a fairly remarkable step up from being a shop assistant/towel folder/wildlife ambassador).

With an MBE in the village, I find it odd that the village phonebox hasn't been filled with books/defibrillator or had all the panes removed and filled with plants. That "69" joke was laboured.

I know there’s a long history of irregularities surround the flow of the Am @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime but we have a beck running through our village that may be similar (except it definitely only flows in one direction ). At the bottom of our garden it is knee deep in winter but only an inch in summer, quarter of a mile downstream there is the old water mill race that then flattens to a ford (very manageable by a toddler as long as they have a hand to hold in case of slippiness). Then there are four more bridges before it leaves the village, two of which have several small arches where stickleback hide when you’re trying to catch them. All four bridges are well within half a mile of the village green. It’s usually a fairly benign waterway, but at least twice in the last 15 years has caused significant flooding in the centre of the village (not to the extent of ye greate Ambridge floode though).

It isn't actually that difficult to do basic bookkeeping if you have basic numeracy and you're reasonably organised. It's a long time since I did any now, but PAYE/NIC used to involve following the very clear instructions from HMRC (probably all automated now). The rest is just a matter of logging all payments out and all payments in and filing the paperwork or electronic equivalent - again, probably all automated now.

If his turnover was over £85,000 pa he'd have needed to be registered for VAT. VAT returns for a small business weren't that tricky when I last did one a little over 30 years ago - don't know if it's got more complicated since.

Entirely possible Kirsty was doing the donkey work there and believing that Philip was putting through the payments to the lads and HMRC that she told him were due. She probably has to do some ordering for the health club. Isn't she the manager, rather than just the towel folder?

I was a bit embarrassed by Roy racing round the village broadcasting Kirsty’s affairs to people like David and Kenton who are certainly not Kirsty’s intimates. I would have preferred him to mutter quietly about a misunderstanding and say he was going off to find a solicitor but I suppose it was the shock.

I was a bit sad for Jazzer at the phone box. It was obvious to us they were both bluffing but I think he is so used to rejection that he totally believed NYE meant nothing to T and so pretended the same.

Oooh, you are right MollyButton. I hadn't factored in that one side of the box is solid, to hold the gubbins.
What does the Ambridge phone box do these days? Didn't it used to display Visitor/Tourist Information? Most round here are mini-library, maybe with defibrillator.

Wasn't the phone box filled with flowers as far back as Martha Woodford's day? It must be some years since it was actually used as somewhere you can phone from.

The 69 joke also made me snigger quite loudly,

I think Jazzer and Tracey will have a few one night stands before giving in to the inevitable.

Despite thinking the Honours List is bobbins, I found myself delighted for Lynda. It's the sort of thing that means a lot to her, and the older I get the more I like her. A PITA, but with a good heart and true community spirit.

Poor Kirsty, the scripties love to put the boot in, don't they?

Imthink Kirsty will be released with no further action after 7 minutes of intensive questioning. Roy will be waiting for her. Her saviour.
All of Ambridge will be agog, some wondering how she could NOT have known.
Next Christmas we will learn she was the mastermind behind the rampant slave trade in the Midlands.
What a crock of cr*p.
I was really looking forward to the fallout from the human trafficking story, but have been bitterly disappointed😐

If Kirsty can make an excel spreadsheet, she can do bookkeeping. I wonder if getting her to do that was a bit of long term planning/insurance on Philip’s behalf - he has had his business for many years now so the books would either be something he manages adequately by himself or he’d have already got outside help with his admin. Totally fiendish if so.

I love the phone box nerdery on this thread. The first thing I thought when they were counting phone box panes was "they will have researched this to death and made sure it's accurate because otherwise imagine the flood of complaints from indignant phone box nerd R4 listeners" :o

(I also guffawed out loud at the 69 joke - not just the joke, but the way it was acted and you could hear both actors thinking "FFS I can't believe we're doing this joke!" Cue puzzled looks form the kids

I'm surprised that the police took the step of arresting Kirsty. If we assume that Philip has told detectives that she was completely in the dark, then surely a better tactic would have been to invite Kirsty in to answer questions - taking a friendly approach to get as much information as possible from her, and seeing if her story matched. Now she's just going to protest her innocence and be careful how she answers questions.

Presumably, now Gavin is the key: have the police found him? will he betray his father? will he emphasise that Kirsty is innocent at the risk of implicating himself?

Tonight 8pm R4

A Social History of The Archers

A Social History of The Archers

From squirearchy in the 1950s, where caps were doffed to lords of the manor, via teddy boys tearing up the village in the 1960s, to the heretical change of name recently inflicted on the venerable old Bull, Ambridge hasn’t spent the past seventy years frozen in aspic. Far from it. In this programme, featuring extracts from the series and many new interviews, David Kynaston brings a professional historian’s eye to bear on the way the Archers has reflected, over the seven decades of its existence, the immense changes in the way we live our lives, socially, culturally, politically and – not least - agriculturally.

With new contributions by June Spencer (Peggy Archer), Patricia Greene (Jill Archer), Angela Piper (Jennifer Aldridge), Tim Bentinck (David Archer), Louiza Patikas (Helen Titchener), Joanna Toye, Vanessa Whitburn, Tim Stimpson, Sarah Swadling and Jeremy Howe.

Producer: Simon Elmes

If we assume that Philip has told detectives that she was completely in the dark - but can we assume this? I wouldn't be at all surprised if Philip has attempted to throw Kirsty under a bus to save his own skin.

@MadameButterface

If Kirsty can make an excel spreadsheet, she can do bookkeeping. I wonder if getting her to do that was a bit of long term planning/insurance on Philip’s behalf - he has had his business for many years now so the books would either be something he manages adequately by himself or he’d have already got outside help with his admin. Totally fiendish if so.

That's a good thought. If Philip intended to the bookkeeping then let Kirsty take over because she was bothering him to become more involved and "support" him, then he'd have had some cleaning up to do before he let her anywhere near it.

Do you think they've arrested Rhiannon too? Or is she too long ago? Is Philip's story that this is a new business cooked up by Gavin and Kirsty and which he was entirely unaware? He passed over the wages and had No Idea that Gavin wasn't paying them.

Damn. Now the usual long wait before anything else happens.

@LillianGish

If we assume that Philip has told detectives that she was completely in the dark - but can we assume this? I wouldn't be at all surprised if Philip has attempted to throw Kirsty under a bus to save his own skin.

I think it's a plausible assumption. Philip, however misguided, does seem to care about Kirsty and the way he gave himself up to the police felt to me like he was trying to protect her. Surely, he will give the police the same self-justifying line he gave Kirsty and say (truthfully) that she knew nothing.

I don't think Philip will be trying to protect Kirsty frankly.

Or, how about Gavins evidence exonorates not only Kirsty, but also himself.
Gavin and Kirsty marry, locate the horses and invite them to create a wildlife haven/ bee heaven. Which will be self funding. Obs.

Sorry..... feeling a bit jaded and very disappointed with the action in TA at the moment.
Don't want car crash radio (?), just something either a. Believeable or b. Exciting.

Sigh.

*indignant phone box nerd R4 listeners"
I can go back to finding the 69 joke funny again

I freely admit that I had not realised it was meant to be a joke.

December 12th Torygraph colour supplement had Angela Piper in the 'Flashback' bit.

It was December 19th not 12th.