🍾 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]

Oh and they get paid per episode. Joe Grundy once got paid a whole episode fee for a bought of coughing at the end of an episode or something.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Are we betting that David is not going to conclude that the poison-pen reviewer must be Vince Casey?

Actually my prediction is that Vince gives David sound advice in how to deal with the situation and tris to help (and possibly that David stubbornly ignores him).

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Are we betting that David is not going to conclude that the poison-pen reviewer must be Vince Casey?

Yes! Ooh i’m rubbing my hands with glee.

Charles Collingwood in his book said he was paid an episode fee for moaning in one episode, when Siobhán had caused the car-crash that hospitalised him I think. Or maybe it was when Joe Grundy's cow hospitalised him.

What I'd pay to hear Joe's cough again......

Oh yes re Vince, that hadn't occurred to me, fab-u-lous!!

The Brookfield barn business seems to rather more about throwing a spanner in the works of the Archer/Fairbrethren relationship than anything else.
I thought that it was going to be a test of where Toby's loyalties lie.

Kirsty sounds so ridiculous suggesting that she'll find the workers more quickly than the police will, particularly given that she's not actually looking anywhere that they would logically be. Surely she can work out that they could be anywhere in the entire country, but the last place they re likely to be is a homeless shelter near Ambridge? In a way I can't wait for the cops to turn up to arrest her for trying to suborn the witnesses.

And rather than stammer around and finding excuses for saying she can't help Kirsty, Helen could just say she won't help because it's a bloody stupid idea and she wouldn't be doing K any favours by helping her to incriminate herself.

I suspect Deeavid and Roooth will be advised to bung a load of money to the homeless charity and then put out an announcement that they can't undo what's happened in the past and this is the best they can do to make up for it. And then hope that everyone will have one of those Ambridge amnesia doses.

I hope no one's going to suggest testing the playground apart.

Or the Hunt kennels, of course....

"And rather than stammer around and finding excuses for saying she can't help Kirsty, Helen could just say she won't help because it's a bloody stupid idea and she wouldn't be doing K any favours by helping her to incriminate herself."

yes quite. Helen should have said 'well Kirsty when you're banged up for witness tampering I'll be sure to put in a good word with Vinegar Tits to get you a job in the laundry'

I realised that many conditions are called the same in Latin as in English, and just there to make drs sound knowledgeable. Latin was the lingua franca of science (and knowledge in general) wasn't it? - the language that everyone could speak and therefore allowed communication between people of different countries. So now you have all sorts of lovely links like whooping cough = pertussis from the latin for cough - tussis - and coltsfoot, which was commonly used in cough mixtures, has the scientific name Tussilago farfara.

My father, who has less botanical knowledge than almost anyone I know, can translate into common names a good number of scientific names of plants because he's familiar with them from helping his pharmacist father nearly 100 years ago, when plant-based medicines were still widely used.

Are we betting that David is not going to conclude that the poison-pen reviewer must be Vince Casey? Oh, let's hope so. What Rex did was odious and stupid, but I don't want him to fuck up his chances. Unless the SWs are playing with us, and he didn't actually hit "send".

Hearing Helen sound like a paragon of good sense She's failed to point out to Kirsty that she's in danger of being done for trying to intimidate witnesses. Helen should be very aware of these issues since her own mother couldn't visit, as she was a witness for the prosecution.

Pip really is an insufferable little toad.

I really hate that they have dropped the Alice storyline like a stone.

I don't suppose it's been dropped, cameocat - it's just simmering. If they'd had Helen in the cast this week some other story might have had to be neglected.

But I was curious about the significance of her horse not having had kissing spines after all. Was that a deliberate pre-Christmas red herring to frighten us about her safety. Or will the ulcer revisit and cause disaster?

It hasn't been dropped. It's been flagged that Alice will go out on Banjo, and something will happen.

Have I mentioned recently that I can't stand Pip?

She's so whiney. David for once sounded like a reasonable grown up.

Consider the difference between Pip and her refusal to admit to anything she's ever done wrong ( including costing the farm a fortune) and Rex who admitted immediately it was his online review.

Yes @ILoveShula, same

I was very wrong about Vince Casey, wasn't I. David didn't credit for a moment that it was him. Oh well: one day I'll make a correct prophecy.

I wonder how soon it will be that Kirsty finds out Gavin has given himself up, and stops being such an idiot about looking for the Lads in a place where there is not the slightest chance they are.

They can't let Alice have the baby can they. There will be mileage in the Chrysalis being dedded before birth and the aftermath.

Kirsty IMO would be behaving irrationally because she has had her world turned upside down.

Shula wouldn't make a good prison Chaplin, she'd look ridiculous in the outfit.

They can't let Alice have the baby can they
Given the programme's fairly relentless pronatalist slant, they certainly can. In which case I hope she lobs the thing with great force at Chris, "you wanted it so much, you look after it", and naffs off into the wide blue yonder for a large drink. JD's head would explode.

Anyone else reckon Moss will top himself in custody (felon de se?) and the focus will shift to Shula wailing and rending her garments and having more Doubts than Mr Pendergast, having failed to extend a Christian and charitable ear at the crucial moment?

But mainly, I'm worried about the unhappy alpaca.

And they're off! Is Rex hitting his stride? Will Alice come a cropper? Who will rein Kirsty in? All we can be sure of is tough going for the lost horses ...

Needs work.

Much as I dislike Pip, the whiney one here was Rex. Massive deliberate fuck-up. I was all, like, angry and emotional. 'm sorry. That's all right then.

Rex deserves booting from arsehole to Christmas.

Rex was stupid to post but he didn't mess about or grovel. Made fair points about Josh and being evicted. Gone up in my estimation.

@TheSilveryPussycat
My whole set failed our Latin mock 'O' Level because our teacher missed a short section out of the translation from Caesar's Gallic Wars Book 8 and we all 'translated' the bit that wasn't there.

If you started me off, I probably could still rattle off large chunks òf the text in translation, so successful was our learning by heart.

Such boring stuff. They were always throwing moles into harbours, which I never understood. I much preferred Ovid's Metamorphoses.

She's failed to point out to Kirsty that she's in danger of being done for trying to intimidate witnesses.

That's true MereDintOfPandiculation I vaguely remember (probably unreliably) that Helen couldn't see Kirsty either until after the trial. The comment about Helen talking sense was made from the very low base that 99% of Helen's conversations are about her.

My first thought when I heard tonight's episode was, 'I wonder if ILoveShula will be posting about this.' I was not disappointed!

Good point BlueCowWonders that Pip cost Brookfield a lot more when she let the cows get out. The loss of business argument is very weak when they haven't been able to hold events there anyway.

Pip’s new intonation is very grating. Her speech was very jerky and clipped as she tried to convince us she was angry.

Quite interesting that Philip has been charged now. Shula doesn’t seem like a very good Christian - trying to palm him onto the chaplain so she didn’t have to deal with him. I agree I wouldn’t be racing to support Philip but then I don’t want to become a vicar. She’s not a nice person and is only sufficiently pious to be on the flower arranging rota at St Stephen’s - that should be the limit of her spiritual ambition!

I was surprised and pleased to see they seemed to have got the procedural side of things right (re Mags and Crown Court)...I expect it’s only a matter of time before that is bungled...