❓ 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.

Kirsty could have done any of the tasks that we have so far witnessed with regards to rewilding. I am not sure any of the activities we have heard require any kind of qualification whatsoever.
Also I am not sure that thinking critically is an inevitable outcome of a university education, we would all be in a much better situation in all sorts of ways if it was.

Just catching up with the thread (missed a lot of episodes last week).

Re the Guardian: I succumbed to the pressure & now pay them £7 a month, and still get irritating reminders about what I'm reading and how they need money ... so I'm no better than before.

I missed Thursday's episode as I was out enjoying my new-found freedom have drinks in the freezing cold in someone's garden. Is it worth listening to? Anything about the missing slaves?

Has anyone told the scriptwriter the Mystery Plays plot is beyond dire?

Agree the whole thing is a crock of shit at the moment.

Slaves still 'missing', UW. The idiot Burns assured the idiot Miller Moss that plod continues to search for them.

@Langsdestiny

Kirsty could have done any of the tasks that we have so far witnessed with regards to rewilding. I am not sure any of the activities we have heard require any kind of qualification whatsoever. Also I am not sure that thinking critically is an inevitable outcome of a university education, we would all be in a much better situation in all sorts of ways if it was.

So if no particular skills are needed for the job why is she better qualified to do them than the people who had the get up and go to put in a proposal? Or should they be seeing her as some sort of charity case? (I know that having “get up and go” in a statement about Phoebe weakens my argument). If Kirsty is such an expert why didn’t she put together a proposal herself? What exactly is her skill set? Folding towels, litter picking, pulling up GM crops and bird watching?

I’m pretty sure that critical thinking will be a stated or implied learning outcome of every university degree.

Pre Philip Kirsty used to know all the wild flowers native to the area, and what should and shouldn’t be done to encourage them, as well as the bird life and the Am of course. Not saying they should give her a job, what a weird thing to infer when no one seems to really have a job from it. More asking her advice, consultation? I have a similar degree to Phoebe and the first thing I would have done would be research from actual humans who know their stuff as well as online and field(!) research.

I dont think kirsty should be Gove a job either but I certainly dont think a university education has been in any way helpful in any if the activities we have seen so far. The initial proposal possibly, but the rest not really. I dont believe that everyone or even the majority of people coming out of university are capable of critical thinking, those making policy currently are evidence of that.

Gove is a very obvious freudian slip

The most obvious reason, now, that Kirsty will never be involved with the rewilding project is that it would have to be over Brian’s dead body.

Kirsty was 'volunteer co-ordinator' at the Wildlife Trust, I think, so organising people to do practical stuff. She's a good amateur naturalist; birdwatcher, botanist (was knowledgeable and concerned about the Grundys' SSSI meadow at one point) but that's not the same has having a strategic vision of what might be possible, or how to achieve it. Which is what re-wilding is supposed to be about. (Not that I find the re-wilding crew very convincing either).

Kirsty's a practical, respond to what's in front of your face (even if you can't recognise it for what it is), person. Not a strategist, visionary or policy person.

They might contract her to carry out field surveys, piece rate. (Though in reality she wouldn't be practised enough, or competent at writing reports). She could lead tours well, when they get some tourists in, or organise volunteers or corporate team-building days from time to time.

Or to put it more bluntly, Kirsty is an interventionist, which is the opposite of a re-wilding 'let nature find its own way, even if it doesn't do what you expected' approach. (Not that that's necessarily what they're doing, on tiny scraps of land around Ambridge).

And yes, of course RW is really a way of Peggy passing on money and power to a GC and GGC, plus a 'way to justify staying in Ambridge' ticket to Phoebe.

Did we ever find out why Kirsty fell out of love with her Wildlife Trust job? Or was it just that there wasn't funding for it to continue, so didn't work out, in that way?

Oh hang on, Pip isn't Peggy's GC at all. But pp's point about 'royalty', the great houses of Ambridge and their hangers on, stands.

@Chemenger

The most obvious reason, now, that Kirsty will never be involved with the rewilding project is that it would have to be over Brian’s dead body.

Surely that is the most obvious reason for her to be involved? Conflict! Brian being yet again reduced to the status of completely unimportant and redundant by his female dependents! Come on, you know as well as I do that's what the editorial team like as "plot".

Just caught up on the week and this thread. 5 years for Gavin. I thought he'd get off somehow!

Out in 18 months, it’ll fly by

Kirsty's a practical, respond to what's in front of your face (even if you can't recognise it for what it is), person. Not a strategist, visionary or policy person

Kirsty is more suited to working as a recycling officer for the local authority. They go round dropping off recycling bins and advising people of how to recycle effectively. I think they also advise on composting too and distribute compost bin liners.

Re the Guardian: I succumbed to the pressure & now pay them £7 a month, and still get irritating reminders about what I'm reading and how they need money ... so I'm no better than before. Did you create an account and do you log in to read?It's the combination of paying and being logged in that is supposed to protect your from the begging notices - I'd be interested to know if it doesn't.

I also pay, but have never bothered to log in, and was wondering whether I should start.

Out in 18 months, it’ll fly by Why 18 months? 50% sentence = 2.5 years, less time on remand, which can't be more than 6 months, surely?

Gavin clearly didn't have a very good barrister - the discrepancy between Philip and Gavin is very small. On the other hand, to an outsider, the person who did all the hands-on stuff must have seemed just as culpable as the "brains". Hence the need for good legal representation to get his story over.

What's Kirsty's history? Does she have a degree?

I would add that "carrying out research, thinking critically and developing an opinion" doesn't qualify you as a person with a vision. That is a separate attribute, and not necessarily related to education. None of the re-wilding lot have struck me as people with the faintest idea of what they actually want to achieve. More that they might have read a newspaper review of Isabella Trees book on Knepp.

Kirsty afaik doesn't have a degree, She did a course in hospitality or something prior to working at GG. Before that she worked a Umbridge Orgasmics.

But in my memory she was at university when she met Tom. (Though the BBC site says 'at college' - which is never something I find easy to interpret.) Or, at least, at the time they were prosecuted over the GM crops.

Don't recall what she studied.

Pretty sure she's subsequently used the words "at Uni" in relation to herself. I'd be sorry if I've invented her academic history.

Kirsty was born in September 1981 (Tommy Archer was born in February 1981), finished college in July 2000 and started work full-time at Ambridge Organics at the beginning of January 2001. So whatever she was doing at college it can't have been a three-year degree course unless she started it when she was sixteen.

In July 1998 Tommy jacked in his A-levels at college in order to become a pig-man, and as a sop to his mother agreed in September 1998 to do a day release course in farming leading to a NVQ, one day at Borchester College, four days on the farm. That was when he met Kirsty at Borchester College and got involved in her schemes to trash GM trial crops.

What a shame that Lynda saw only a rival in Evangelina. They’re two of a kind, why couldn’t she see this and make it the start of an warm friendship? It doesn’t feel like Lynda has friends, just people she somehow wears down into taking part in her shows. It’s quite a sad existence.

There’s time yet, @BeardieWeirdie! Crikey can you imagine what a force they’d be if they got together? More fun perhaps to be had out of their rivalry though.

I think Lynda and Robert are soulmates, of the sort who will be lost when one dies.

More fun perhaps to be had out of their rivalry though...

Err?!? Fun?!? Not exactly...