❓ 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.

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?

She didn't fall out of love with it, she packed it in when she thought she was moving to Wales. I suppose they must have conveniently employed a replacement quickly otherwise she could have gone back to it. I'm still mystified about what the hell she's living on at the moment, let alone how she's financing wandering around trying to find the slaves.

Kirsty’s finances - is there a mortgage on the big fancy house that has to be paid? There must at least be council tax and bills.

I'm still mystified about what the hell she's living on at the moment, let alone how she's financing wandering around trying to find the slaves.

She told Helen a while ago that she had some savings, so wouldn't need to worry about her job just yet. All a bit vague.

I'm deeply disappointed that there appears to be no evidence of her having taken a degree. And somewhat dissatisfied; my whole understanding of her has been predicated on this assumption ...

Kirsty left the WT job? Sounds right. I do remember her saying 'it didn't work out' to someone though. I wondered whether it was a fixed-term role that didn't continue, or it hadn't turned out to be what she expected, when she said 'it didn't work out'. Maybe she was just being discreet about the Wales plan at that point.

Obviously it was all a bit of a plot device about Philip's comfortable / uncomfortable income allowing her the freedom to take a lower-paid job.

Sounds like Kirsty's 'college' was sixth form college only. Then a lot of shop / bar / health club work.

At one point she was being unhappy about things she was expected to do produce some report or leaflet or something at her wildlife job. Philip had actively encouraged her to leave the Grey Gables towel folding to do it, and at the time of the complaining she was part-time at Grey Gables. I think she packed both jobs in when she was expecting to move to Wales shortly, but wasn't too sorry to leave either of them.

Surely they were just inches away from moving house? Have they lost a deposit on a house in Wales? Or what?

I have no expectation that the SWs will satisfy my curiosity.

Kirsty’s finances - is there a mortgage on the big fancy house that has to be paid?

Yes the house was ‘mortgaged to the hilt’ Philip said but as it was in his name it shouldn’t affect Kirsty and it will just be repossessed when it falls sufficiently in arrears. She has moved all her stuff out already.

I remember her falling out of love with the WT job over some problems with litter during lockdown. It was all too tedious for me to have taken in the details but I think it tied in with the time when people were going to the beach and leaving piles of litter behind last year.

I’m sure Roy will be able to squeeze her back onto the towel-folding rota...it’s not what you know...

Hmph!

That episode was entirely courtesy of this thread.

Tonight's episode, in light of the comments upthread, was downright spooky.

@Chemenger

Kirsty’s finances - is there a mortgage on the big fancy house that has to be paid? There must at least be council tax and bills.

The house is mortgaged but she doesn't own it.

How old is the ghastly Jade supposed to be?

Oh yuk- I assume Jazzer is referring to Tracey. Tracey deserves much better than Jazzer.

I think this must have been written by someone who has no access to the continuity database.

Why was Kirsty on reception? She works in the Health Club.

She did NOT move into Ambridge as a student, at which time she was living with her parents, who threw her out of home over the GM crop-trashing. Before she rented a room from Roy after getting a job in Ambridge for no explicable reason, she had only ever lived in Ambridge for about four months when she moved in with Tom just before the wedding-that-wasn't. Before that she had a flat in Borchester, always.

That episode was funny!

Kirsty was quite right about the need to re-train properly (a degree or similar) and competitiveness, if she wants to change career.

I do not understand how GG is still open but suppose that having someone on reception, to discuss future bookings, is about all they are doing at the moment.

She could always use the qualification running a dairy that I swear I heard her claiming to have! That would be a career-change for Kirsty, all right and tight.

But Kirsty's parents live in Wirral.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

She could always use the qualification running a dairy that I swear I heard her claiming to have! That would be a career-change for Kirsty, all right and tight.

Yes, I heard that, too

@KirstenBlest

But Kirsty's parents live in Wirral.

Her parents moved there at some point. She had been living with them while she was at sixth-form college -- what other possible reason would there have been for her to go to sixth-form college in Borchester if she were living in the Wirral, rather than one in the Wirral? They threw her out because she got into trouble with the police, and she then found somewhere to live in Borchester until she finished her course at college.

It's in Lowfield, even: "Tommy tells her about the court hearing yesterday and Kirsty is a little envious that his mum was there for him, as her's" [sic] "clearly won't be! " on 11th August, 1999, and "Unfortunately Kirsty's parents have disowned her in precisely the way that Tommy's haven't which makes it harder," on 3rd September, 1999.

I think Jazzer is not not good enough for Kirsty. He is not up himself, has a good heart and defends his friends.

Jade was pantomime villainess in her coarse rejection of a perfectly well-meant present from Jim. Her horrible speculations about him I took to be a form of her own controlling nature. She plainly functions as compare and contrast.

She told Helen a while ago that she had some savings, so wouldn't need to worry about her job just yet. All a bit vague.

If she's paying rent to Roy - which may be a big if - the savings would have to be pretty hefty, which seems surprising for someone who couldn't give up the towel folding job because the wildlife one paid so badly. And it's pretty insane to use up all your savings if it can be avoided when, who knows, you might need to pay for some retraining?

I think Jazzer is not not good enough for Kirsty

Eh, you what now? Did I miss something or is Kirsty a braino for Tracy?
And why can Jazzer not continue his reasonably contented bachelor life? A choice between Tracy and Jade should be enough to set the poor sod aff at a run for some, any, celibate order. Or just the bungalow, maybe.

Given the accents of Kirsty and her mum (can't remember if we've ever heard her dad) I assume her mum at least was originally from somewhere fairly near the Wirral, and Kirsty must have spent some time there growing up.

News to me that Kirsty has a dairy management certificate. I don't recall it ever being mentioned before. Surely it would have motivated Helen to suggest offering Kirsty work at Bridge Farm long ago?

Maybe what she actually said was diary management in a strong and highly localised Wirral accent and it was a PA course which she never used in the end.

I hope that's the last we hear of Jade. Wasted opportunity there. More caricature than character. I did like the fact that in the end, though, it was speculating in that particularly unfortunate way about Jim that finally made Jazzer see her in her true colours. Jazzer's loyalty to Jim (and vice versa) is lovely.

Kirsty's mother had a scouse accent. Kirsty's accent is posh merseyside.

Neither struck me as Wirral accents. If I had to guess, I'd say Kirsty was from nearer Southport and her mother from somewhere like West Derby or Fazakerley.

It is lovely, I really love their friendship - and you’re right it was clearly the digs at his “old” and “controlling” and “middle-aged” friends that he thinks of as family that pushed things over the edge.

Funnily enough Jade and Tracey aren’t that dissimilar on the surface: outspoken, rub people up the wrong way, no patience for sitting around doing boring things. But Tracey ALSO has warmth and kindness and An Appreciation of Village Life.

@ILoveShula

Kirsty's mother had a scouse accent. Kirsty's accent is posh merseyside.

Neither struck me as Wirral accents. If I had to guess, I'd say Kirsty was from nearer Southport and her mother from somewhere like West Derby or Fazakerley.

I think someone on air mentioned Kirsty's mother having come down from the Wirral at some point quite recently; otherwise I would simply have assumed that like vast numbers of people in this country including Kirsty, Kirsty's parents had not been living where they grew up.

One might ask why Kirsty's accent is Merseyside when she has been living in Borchester since she was sixteen at the latest; might it be because her actor Annabelle Dowler, who lives in Forest Hill, was brought up in Formby?