❓ 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.

Good point. When the conversation with Soosan began, it seemed like Alice was making up the need to go and get ready to go out as an excuse to curtain her MIL’s questioning about why she’d suddenly stopped breastfeeding. But then S persuaded her to make a whole night of it and Chris never seemed to be consulted. A bit badly written possibly.

I've always quite fancied Harrison

Yes, me too, though that’s a very unpopular view on here...I suppose he and Fallon are not unsuited but she is too like her mother for my liking...

I much prefer Fallon to her mother. That cod sexy voice she puts on. Bleurgh.

I'd hope that Harrison will (a) contact social services and (b) have a serious conversation with both Alice and Chris about how they really have to stop pretending Alice is OK and rope in the family to help properly. Otherwise it's a matter of time before Alice does get arrested and/or Martha goes into care.

@Nith

I'd hope that Harrison will (a) contact social services and (b) have a serious conversation with both Alice and Chris about how they really have to stop pretending Alice is OK and rope in the family to help properly. Otherwise it's a matter of time before Alice does get arrested and/or Martha goes into care.

He really has too- and tell them that he should have arrested Alice and that he can't turn a blind eye if this happens again.

@ScruffGin I agree there’s no way Chris would have left Alice alone that night. I think he’d have been too anxious to check that she’d actually gone to her (?first) AA meeting and to see how she’d got on afterwards. She’s bound to have been nervous, and she wouldn’t be the first alcoholic to get to the door and then turn around and go home.

Agree also that she has a huge mix of superiority and inferiority complexes going on. It was a great example of alcoholic thinking that you would react to fellow-AAers congratulating you for not drinking by... going and buying a bottle and getting disastrously drunk. Incomprehensible to non-alcoholics, I think.

I thought it was very moving, actually, hearing Alice’s mini breakdown about how small her world has become and how she lost the Alice of her youth, along with all that potential. I can’t see how there’s any way back for her and Chris now. Ultimately he’s the reason she is where she is and I think there’ll be too much hurt and resentment on both sides to come out before they can even start to deal with it. I’m not sure either of them (or, more importantly, the SWs) have got the commitment for it.

It’s hard listening at the moment but I’m actually looking forward to seeing how it works out. First time in a while I’ve felt like that with TA. Hope they don’t mess it up. And I hope we don’t get the inevitable terrible humour episode on Monday as predicted upthread (although I fear you’re right).

I thought it was very moving, actually, hearing Alice’s mini breakdown about how small her world has become and how she lost the Alice of her youth, along with all that potential.
I'm not sure that Alice's analysis of Alice's world is totally right. She may not have fulfilled her potential but, realistically, how many of us do? However, she also struggled with stuff that was supposedly below her (Price Bowman, Home Farm) so she can't lay all her disappointments at Chris/marriage's door. Chris, on the other hand, has managed to rise above his beginnings.

Have we ever heard Alice the Engineer tinker or design or do anything vaguely entrepreneurish on her own initiative?

I find it implausible that Alice would have called Harrison, seemed very plot-driven to me. When he got to her she was not repentant, so what made her summon him?

Do we know that Chris did agree to the night alone? All we know is that Susan suggested this, Alice went to her AA meeting and Chris was at Susan’s for dinner. Is it possible that he intended to come home again that evening? I k is that Alice’s downward spiral was all about Susan having taken Martha away from her, but maybe just the possibility of that was enough? (Can’t recall if she actually said to Harrison that Martha would be away all night, I was cooking and not 100% listening).

Otherwise, like others, I can’t see why Chris would ever have agreed. Unless he thought it would be fine because she was going to a meeting that day so would be freshly galvanised?

I always got the sense that Alice was lazy at work and spent every job she had bitching about how she resented her bosses telling her what to do. Classic behaviour of someone who has excelled academically with very little effort and can’t hack working for a living. Never detected an iota of passion for engineering from her.

In fact her inability to work at recovery also illustrates this character trait. If it’s not easy she’s not interested.

She once built a go-cart or some such in her early teens. Apart from that, her interest in engineering came as a complete surprise to me since she had never even wanted to drive a tractor during her entire youth.

Incidentally, why didn't she just walk home once she had stopped her car three or four hundred yards away in a wood which is Home Farm land? Most of us have to walk that far from the nearest bus-stop or tube station to get home of an evening.

Come to think of it, Chris should have taken Susan up on her offer but then used the opportunity for him and Alice to have an evening/night together without the baby.

I find it implausible that Alice would have called Harrison, seemed very plot-driven to me.

It was inevitably plot-driven, but Harrison seems the obvious person for her to turn to. She couldn't possibly call Chris; it would be instant divorce. So Harrison is the only other person who already knows what she's been going through. Even drunk, she's trying to maintain control of the developing narrative. At least until she tried to snog him.

She didn't walk home because she didn't want to go home.

@R4

I thought it was very moving, actually, hearing Alice’s mini breakdown about how small her world has become and how she lost the Alice of her youth, along with all that potential. I'm not sure that Alice's analysis of Alice's world is totally right. She may not have fulfilled her potential but, realistically, how many of us do? However, she also struggled with stuff that was supposedly below her (Price Bowman, Home Farm) so she can't lay all her disappointments at Chris/marriage's door. Chris, on the other hand, has managed to rise above his beginnings.

Have we ever heard Alice the Engineer tinker or design or do anything vaguely entrepreneurish on her own initiative?

I’m an engineer and I’ve never “tinkered” with anything, other than experimental equipment. Or been an entrepreneur, why would I? I designed things when I worked in industry and I design things with students now I’m an academic. Alice was involved in design at work, I think. Engineers (actual professional engineers) don’t generally work with their hands that much. Alice is an aeronautical engineer - there’s not generally a lot of available planes to tinker with (just as there aren’t a lot of chemical plants for me to play with). Please don’t tell me you’re expecting her to want to fiddle about with car engines and fix bikes. She’s not a mechanic.

@MayIDestroyYou

I find it implausible that Alice would have called Harrison, seemed very plot-driven to me.

It was inevitably plot-driven, but Harrison seems the obvious person for her to turn to. She couldn't possibly call Chris; it would be instant divorce. So Harrison is the only other person who already knows what she's been going through. Even drunk, she's trying to maintain control of the developing narrative. At least until she tried to snog him.

I agree that of all the people to call, Harrison was the one. I’m just surprised she called anyone.

Who else could she have called? Only Chris, Harrison, Alan and Peggy know. She couldn't have called Mianed.

Kate or Adam would have been better.

Does Alice know that Alan knows? I forget who has spoken to whom.

She definitely doesn't know that Peggy knows, surely?

Please don’t tell me you’re expecting her to want to fiddle about with car engines and fix bikes. She’s not a mechanic.
All I know is that I have an aeronautical engineer in the family. His day job involves paperwork but his idea of heaven is a visit to Screwfix. He doesn't do mechanical tinkering but he does turn a hand to practical things.
Alice doesn't do anything, apart from drink. She has no curiosity, no hinterland.

Screwfix ... Is that anything like Maplin? I used to know an electronics engineer (MOD) whose idea of a romantic Saturday afternoon was a trip to Maplin. After I let him know that sawing off my own arm would be more entertaining - I was allowed to wait in the car. For about two hours.

She has a horse. Screwfix is like an Argos-style B&Q.

I seem to remember some real enthusiasm for the robotic fruit pickers that she / her colleagues were developing.

Weeeeelllll.... There was some real enthusiasm about selling them, but when it came to a presentation about them she was in a flat panic and messed it up.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Weeeeelllll.... There was some real enthusiasm about selling them, but when it came to a presentation about them she was in a flat panic and messed it up.

With hindsight, she was probably drunk.

With hindsight, she was probably drunk.

At the time I thought she was self conscious because Brian decided to turn up but now, as HaveringWavering says, there's a different explanation.