🍾 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]

She merely has appalling taste in men. There are people like that: they get rid of one loser only to take up with another, while their friends groan and know they are just waiting to console the poor woman after yet another disastrous relationship unravels and leaves her weeping on their shoulders yet again.

She merely has appalling taste in men

Whilst I'm no fan of Tom's I'm not sure he could be described as a loser. On the face of it he is partial heir to a business, was running his own business as well and was a hard worker and not a liar, cheat or cruel (until he jilted her). I think he's an annoying twit but that is personal taste.

Philip again - a hard worker, seemed honest enough and if she didn't realise what he was well neither have any other people around her.

I'm struggling to remember any other long term relationships she has had where we knew much about the man involved.

The Tom that Kirsty didn't marry was fine, just a bit boring.

Tom was clearly (and without any warning) a fucked-up head-case; she can't be blamed for not foreseeing the editorial decision that abruptly made him so. However, before that he was also a freeloader on the father he treated like dirt, and monomanic about his (repeatedly failed) business, and too lazy to help with the family business on which he relied to bail him out -- they had to get rid of the cows which were its mainstay because he didn't want to get up and milk tham. And he didn't care about her particularly: he had chucked her over twice, and slept with other woman whilst saying that he loved her. Not fine at all.

I've noticed that some relatively intelligent/comfortably off people go through life making a series of unfortunate decisions and spend half their life lurching from crisis to crisis. Kirsty is firmly in their ranks

I don’t think she fits quite into this category as she cannot rely on cash to cushion her but she is relatively intelligent (though definitely not brilliant).

I have wondered whether such a catalogue of poor choices would ever really happen but you do hear of women who always get the fuzzy end of the lollipop. In fact, very few women in The Archers have a decent and worthy man on their arm - Pat, Lynda and Susan probably do the best out of everyone but no one is ever going to put Tony, Robert and Neil in the pin-up category...

In my head Neil has a very pleasant face. We have been told on a couple of occasions that Chris is good looking. Emma has been complimented on this too. Susan mentioned her svelte figure a few times when she was organising the family photo a year or so back. I think the Carters are all better than average in the looks stakes.

I think they were always gearing up for Kirstie somehow to end up with Roy and at some point once the horror of the Philip storyline has gone away she will end up with Roy

As for the big 70th anniversary plot I'm wondering if there's gonna be some horrible car crash perhaps maybe involving Alice it was just a comment about how the police were so quick coming through the village - surely won't be any more Grundy sorrow.

If I could get rid of anybody it would be CMR , Helen and definitely Ruth

Yes, I suppose Kirsty isn't especially well off, but she always seems to walk into a job and have a reasonable roof over her head (though it is never hers).

Does anybody else think that a side-plot of Kirsty and Philip isn't "important enough" for the 70th anniversary?

Knowing the speed at which property matters are organised in Ambridge, I wonder whether Pip might march off to the council farm with a Fairbrother or two? Or maybe the (absent until lockdown) trustees are going to make Lily a joint beneficiary of Nigel's trust fund?

In an ideal world, Alice and her second litre of potato vodka will escape the cottage to drive around the village at speed, ridding the village of its duller characters!

I think Neil is definitely decent.

Anyone else got caught out by no episode tonight?

When is the next episode?

Next eo us Tuesday evening - tomorrow.

Next episode is...

I am not sure that it is legally possible for the trustees of a fund to add another beneficiary to it unilaterally and without being able to show very good reason indeed. Which they would not be able to do.

@Taswama

I think Neil is definitely decent.

I have always had rather a soft spot for Neil. I don't think he was raised in farming? I remember being embarrassed on his behalf when he had a serious crush on Scula, back when he began working at Brookfield

Yes Asking, the trustees can't easily interfere with Nigel's wishes, but the SWs must have included them in 2020 for some inexplicable reason?

Presumably Freddie is due to inherit LL at 25, not 21?

It feels as if the last episode was an eternity ago; tonight had better be worth the wait.

My friend has suggested the Gills will be back for the 70th! Heralding a new era...

Remind us who your 'friend' is, Roysnewshirt ...

Oh she is my TA mentor - a keen lurker who doesn’t post but rivals the 🔮 for accuracy in her predictions and even @Asking in her encyclopaedic knowledge...

Ah ... (Could have sworn there was a tapping the side of the nose emoji - but can't find it.)

119 hours 47 minutes from the end of Thursday's episode to the start of tonight's, if my arithmetic is correct. Not that I'm obsessed or anything, oh no.

Just catching up in time for tonight, i’m very excited.

Does kirsty have to end up with Roy, could she

not remain single, it would be much better for her going on historical evidence.

I would hate for Kirsty to end up with Roy, it just feels so unsatisfying. I’d like her to end up being promoted at her wildlife job, or for Peggy to appoint her to do the admin/overseeing for her rewilding bollocks, and any subsequent environmental trust fund work, at a very generous salary. The real love of Kirsty’s life is the physical environment of Ambridge and the local area, she’s been moaning about how her life lacks direction and meaning for a while, it would be nice if that manifested for her somehow in a way that doesn’t involve a thrilling future of washing roy’s cricket kit and helping him use his new phone etc

Yes it was really unconvincing that she jacked in her dream job because people were littering or whatever weird reason they came up with.