❓ Archers thread #126: It’s a mystery why we’re all still listening.

[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’d love to be on the Parish Council, 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/4197199--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-6-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.)

Thanks to @LillianGish and @Taswama for thread title ideas, but I felt most in sympathy with @R4's suggestion. Is it me, or is the programme in the doldrums at the moment?

Haven't heard the 31/3 episode yet. Perhaps it's a gem.

He forced her home early though. Talked over her with the doctor in a way that was really uncomfortable and insensitive.

Oh, I agree - Chris wasn't meaning to be melodramatic, he just sounded so suddenly villainous.

I’m hoping that Chris’s feelings and reaction s are based on research done with fathers in similar situations.

@TheThermalStair

Haven’t listened yet but either way she’s doubtless hidden the empty bottle for Chris to find for Drama.

Ahem.

I have to say I was completely on Chris’s side. He’s come home with a tiny 4 week old baby who is getting hungry, and finds that the person who has sole responsibility for feeding it has essentially poisoned the food. Regardless of the wider situation (ie Alice is a human being with a massive problem), in that moment I think he was understandably furious and was just totally focused on getting the baby and getting to the shop (it was evening, who knows how far away the nearest one is?)

I liked the Will and Emma parenting bit too, especially the way they went from smug “oh how little we knew” to realising that they’d been outplayed by their teenager

Less overjoyed about the idea of George being a replacement for Joe though, another feckless borderline criminal at times male Grundy? Is that what we need? And poor Mia and thingy to be the “sensible” ones. It’d be more true to life if he rejected their whole way of living and ran off to become a stockbroker or something.

Re rural living and families, definitely true that farmers think carefully about who to marry, if it’s a family farm you’re basically marrying a new job depending who goes to live with whom. In a wider sense, small towns and villages do mean families are widely known. Every time I got close to a boy from school my family knew that his dad was a doctor, his dad was a local criminal etc ~probably why I dated more once I’d left home~ And vice versa, often had people at school and work who knew my family or at least knew who they were. Not sure it would encourage/stop you from dating someone with an annoying family necessarily, at least you’d know what you were getting into!! And the Aldridges are hardly without their tedious qualities...

Enjoyed hearing Will and Emma reminiscing about George as a newborn. Although him being 16 made me feel old, I remember his birth and was young and carefree at the time.

It think Chris's reaction was very believable. His priority is now Martha not Alice. She may have tipped the wine down the sink but that wouldn't be my first assumption either.

Chris may be a pita in many ways, and I agree that he was stupid to have no doubts about Martha going home when the doctors had decided it was safe for her to do so -- though I am not at all sure, having lived through that scenerio, what exactly he could have done to prevent it: we certainly had no choice in the matter about our SCBU baby! They wanted the cot, they wanted him gone, we took him home.

Other than that I do feel that his anxiety is reasonable rather than "paranoia"; because he has been given absolutely no reason to trust Alice at this stage, or to be sure she wouldn't drink. She has been utterly irresponsible, and has lied to him repeatedly, over many months and possibly years; he knows that alcoholism is not something that is easily cured, because she has recently told him that she wants a drink "every day"; she was passed out with a wine-bottle close by, when he has been careful to make sure there is no alcohol in their house; what is he supposed to think? That Kate threw it in through the window to try to get her attention?

The idea of his stopping Martha from having a feed when she wanted one was a bit disturbing, but what’s the current guidance on how harmful it might be to feed after imbibing a reasonable amount of alcohol?

It was a bit strange that Alice didn’t seem to give any sign of remembering what she’d done, even when he mentioned the wine bottle. But maybe still drunk/ half asleep.

According to this site it's potentially harmful to the baby to feed it milk after you've been drinking - and it's not as if Alice has necessarily limited herself to a "reasonable amount". Given the distinct possibility that Martha has already been harmed before birth, I think Chris's fears are definitely understandable,

I've just realised: Jazzer and Tracey are Nessa and Smithy.

A bottle of rioja would be about 10 units, equivalent to about 3 or 4 pints of beer. Maybe she didn't drink all of it

Never mind, we'll probably find out next week

I miss the Friday cliffhangers.

Is it not on tonight?

No, it's definitely on tonight, I remember the continuity announcer said Alice has to face the truth, or something.

So she did drink it...

Mmm - what do you get at Christenings - receptions with lots of booze

So it looks like she’s survived this episode, wonder how long until the next? When maybe she will drink when in charge of Martha. Where will it all end, will she get the help she needs in time to stop Chris leaving for good with Martha.

I really felt for Alice with her engorged boobs, and also for the baby crying for Mummy all night....

Lee and Helen were the contrasting couple, obvs!

It's no good. I am still annoyed at the colossal idiocy of a person, in possession of a relatively large amount of land, selling a portion of it, and then proposing to rent or buy a property built by other people on the portion she previously owned.

On what planet does this make sense?

@Umbivalent, yes it was on today, but we don't seem to get the cliffhangers that we used to get on Fridays.

I liked the Lee and Helen bit. Hope he's a good 'un.

Christenings - hide the communion wine Alan.
it's probably not alcoholic, anyway

Oh of course lee’s a good man, they’ll be all set up in the new house and everything going swimmingly, then
Duh duh duuuuh! Here comes Rob.......

Urgh!

I liked the Lee and Helen bit. Hope he's a good 'un

I don't. I hope he has sought out a single mother with a tenous grasp on reality and young sons for a reason.
Helen doesn't deserve to be happy at all, ever; and I also want some wecompense for the years of Henwy's wobotic ickle voice.

I can spell 'tenuous', I just can't always be arsed

I’d rather have the big country house built to my own spec without neighbours, but it’s a faff and a long-term goal - if you want to move in today and play happy families, renting on the estate makes sense. I’d rent while building instead of renting then buying, but I’m not about to start crediting Helen with any common sense.

I never got used to living on an estate, but they were mainly buy-to-lets and I seemed to have new neighbours every 6 months.

@theThreeofWeevils

I liked the Lee and Helen bit. Hope he's a good 'un

I don't. I hope he has sought out a single mother with a tenous grasp on reality and young sons for a reason.
Helen doesn't deserve to be happy at all, ever; and I also want some wecompense for the years of Henwy's wobotic ickle voice.

Yet again I find myself in complete agreement with you, Weevils