🍾 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]

I think I might be turning DH into a regular listener (though that might have more to do with the fact that food seems to miraculously finish cooking at about 7:20 each night).

theThree the Post Office is now buried in the village shop. Susan (Radio Carter) is the Postmistress.

nettie, I thought Mince bought the slaughterhouse, much to David's horror?

It was lovely to hear Alan again. Maybe he'll remember he has a midwife daughter, who used to be really good friends with Alice (and possibly Chris).

It's all gone suspiciously quiet at their little cottage.

I must have dozed off half way through yesterday’s episode. One of the benefits of these threads is finding out what I missed.

I must say, I like a "dull" episode. If it were all high drama every episode it would simply be ridiculous.

I agree the film is sometimes better for an overall picture of life in Ambridge.

Well remembered on the horses' names IloveShula.

madcats I think (and am now consumed by doubt), that the problem for David (and other farmers) was that Vince planned to keep the slaughterhouse going but Justin sneaked in and bought it for offices. That was the twist. Justin also very unethically tried to persuade Phoebe that the rewilding project needed an office. Luckily, Pip and Rex disagreed.

Mind you, I often miss a few days and just plough on rather than listen on catch up so this could all be completely wrong!

I do find your posts amusing @theThreeofWeevils but I wonder why you bother listening so much (and so carefully) when you hate it and everyone in it. Don't give up posting though.

PoulePouletteEternellement
Really enjoying the current atmosphere; too often (particularly with Brookfield) all the separate houses seem isolated in their own concerns, whereas right now everyone's realising how interconnected they are, for good or ill.

What, because a few of them have employed the same builder?

There must be several hundred people within three miles of my house who have employed the same builder as me, and I don't feel even slightly interconnected with a single one of them. Ones who go to the same pub, now, that's different: I actually know them, and when the landlady died we were all bereaved. But a bloke who reconstructed our front steps so they stopped being a death-trap? No idea who else he has worked for, and honestly don't give a stuff. (No slave labour there: he is a one-man band, and his favourite biscuits are rich tea rather than hob-nobs.)

nettie, Justin did not buy the slaughterhouse. He wanted to, and David was all in favour of him buying it rather than Vince; the twist was that if he had succeeded he would have turned it into a housing development and David would have been very unhappy indeed about that. Vince now owns it and is taking his own sweet time (well over a year now) about re-opening it, the way men of business always do when something that could be making them money needs repairs and is then going to start making them money again.

@MaryLeeOnHigh

I must say, I like a "dull" episode. If it were all high drama every episode it would simply be ridiculous.

Agreed. I like the occasional episode that just makes me smile. No shocks/ ridiculous plot lines/ weird denouements/ new one-episode characters. Just village life trundling along. A happy place

Helen and Shula both doing top 'making it all about me' work there.

Alan's sermon reminded me of the 'one pound t shirt' rant from Years and Years although that was better.
www.facebook.com/BBCOne/videos/2384424591829472/

Alan, Smugula and others very quick to rush to judgement.

Although we (and Kirsty) know The Truth, he hasn't been tried or convicted of anything yet.

Alan is a saint for not taking shula’s phone and ramming it up her arse when she was angsting over whether to answer it or not

Doesn't it have a Silence button.

I loved the relationship between Kirsty and Linda I loved the way that Lynda, who we'd heard getting ready to take the dog for a walk, slipped seamlessly into "Robert was just about to take the dog for a walk and I was putting on a kettle for tea". And Robert was quick on the uptake and didn't exhibit the slightest sign of surprise.

when I thought back through work I've had done, I have turned down quotes which were too cheap to be true But why have you done that? I've done the same, because I've assumed that they're cutting corners and will do a rubbish job, or will turn up all sorts of "unforeseeable problems" requiring extra payment. It's never occurred to me that they're running on modern slavery.

Alan's sermon was a a bit full-on public information, wasn't it? I think I preferred it when the Archers was the public information arm of the Min of Ag.

Though I suppose that comment was a bit curmudgeonly. I have learned something from this whole storyline.

Justin did not buy the slaughterhouse.

Thanks Asking and madcats. That's what happens with my slapdash listening . I would like Justin to be caught out on something. Martin was awful to Kathy but I am less bothered when he picks on someone his own size, like Brian or Justin.

I thought Lynda was lovely to Kirsty too. I've not heard tonight's episode yet so look forward to hearing Alan and Helen .....

Lynda quite often has unexpected outbreaks of good sense and kindness.

Alan on the other hand showed a most unChristian spirit tonight, condemning someone unheard. Has he talked to Philip? No, he has not. Does he have any actual knowledge of Philip's crimes? No, he has not. Definitely not his place to accuse him in such a public way, and almost certainly to a lot of people who know nothing about it either -- many people wouldn't even know what it is asserted has happened, if they don't gossip as Alan all too clearly does.

ps I don't think much of the bishop for not having reined him in and remindeded him about the difference between fact and supposition, either.

@KirstenBlest

Doesn't it have a Silence button.

The phone, or Shula's arse?

Either would be good.

She does talk out of her arse, doesn't she?

Oi you.

Do you think Shula has enough self-awareness to realise she is completely unsuited to the ministry?

Having difficult conversations with people you don't really want to speak must be quite high on the job spec.

Shula has zero self awareness. She was a total weirdo when usha and alan got together, she was a bellend to alastair when they split up, and, hello, it’s really not reasonable behaviour to have a random person of the opposite sex that you’ve known for a hot second ‘help you through your divorce’

She was a good auntie to freddie though when he was up before the beak (i feel like i had to say summat nice about her because @ILoveShula’s here )

Why would Philip be ringing Shula, I wonder?