❓ 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.

I always wonder why it’s ONLY some members of the village who develop accents other than RP. Do all the Archer etc kids go to “posher” private school? Where I come from when everyone gets lumped together in school they end up with similar accents just stronger/fainter, if only to fit in.

Sometimes I wonder if they think Pip and Phoebe are ”doing” an accent rather than just sounding whingey...

Editing standards must be pretty low at the moment given all those inconsistencies were allowed to slip through the net and end up on air.

Hopefully that’s the end of Jade. I think it will be. Unless she ends up on Toby Fairbrother’s arm in due course - I can only imagine her views on Pip and Rosie.

I loved Jim’s pep-talk encouraging Jazza to seize the day. I have been worried in the past about the finances of Trazza but may be that doesn’t matter for now and they will just continue with their existing living arrangements and address actually living under the same roof further down the line.

I'm always bemused by the random medical staff who turn up - every single one seems to have exactly the same 'accentless' RP delivery.

Returning the used slow cooker to Pat and Tony was a bit weird by the way. I think a nice notelet or even a conversation with Pat (and anyone else who was kind enough to give her and Philip a wedding present) addressing any embarrassment would be a better way of dealing with it. A used slow cooker is surely the last thing Pat needs.

@Roysnewshirt

Returning the used slow cooker to Pat and Tony was a bit weird by the way. I think a nice notelet or even a conversation with Pat (and anyone else who was kind enough to give her and Philip a wedding present) addressing any embarrassment would be a better way of dealing with it. A used slow cooker is surely the last thing Pat needs.

Tbf I don’t think she’s used it! How long was there between the wedding and the “revelation”? A couple of days? I think that’s why she corrected herself to “it’s an expensive one”. I’m not sure she can face them and what on earth do you put in the note?

“Dear Parents of the Man who Left Me at the Altar,

Thanks so much for the lovely slow cooker, what a generous wedding present! Sadly due to my husband being a criminal - and now in jail! - who traumatised the village and exploited vulnerable young people, and my not having a home to go to or a job to enable me to buy food, I won’t be able to use it after all. Thanks again for the kind thought!

Kirsty”

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?

I haven't lived in Scotland since I was 9 (which reminds me that it's almost 50 years to the day since we moved south) but I still have a noticeable accent. Interesting to hear that AD is in Forest Hill. That's not a million miles from me. I believe that Felicity Finch lives in SE London too.

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.

When I said 'somewhere fairly near the Wirral', that was from the perspective of living in London, @ILoveShula! All those places are a lot nearer the Wirral than I am.

Does anyone know what Kirsty did study at college? It might have been an NVQ (or HND? I'm not sure of the difference but know both used to exist) rather than A-levels.

HND much closer to degree level. 2 or 3 yrs FT study, I think.

There used to be HNC as well as HND. NVQ I thought could be done at different levels, e.g. level 3 or level 5.

A-levels are level 3, HNC level 4, HND level 5, degree level 6.

But I suspect it was never fully specified, what Kirsty did - like finances and do on, these details are often kept vague unless it's critical to the plot.

I also heard her say 'dairy management' but, as far as I know, she has never worked in a dairy.

@lottiegarbanzo

Does anyone know what Kirsty did study at college? It might have been an NVQ (or HND? I'm not sure of the difference but know both used to exist) rather than A-levels.

The Archers Encyclopaedia gives no clue what she was studying and I don't think we were ever told on air, but she is much the same age as Tom (he was born in February 1981 and she was born in September of the same year) and she finished at college in July 2000 and started work at Ambridge Organics full time in January 2001, so if she took a three-year course in whatever-it-was instead of taking A-levels the timing would be right. (Tommy was doing one day a week at college and four on the farm for some qualification or other rather than A-levels, too.)

thanks for the reminder that he used to be called "Tommy"!

There's a thing though. The encyclopedia says she was born in September 1981 (so she was a school year below Tom), which means she was 18 when she finished college in July 2000. So a two year course.

But in last night's episode, I'm sure she said she was turning 40 next month.

The BBC TA website says she was born on May 5 1981 ...

The BBC website says Kirsty's birthday is the 5th May. So same school year as Tom and yes, 19 on leaving college in July 2000. So three-year course.

Cross-posts!

It's incredibly frustrating - 'The Archers Archives' doesn't mention Kirsty at all in relation to Tom and the GM crops, but I'm perfectly sure that that was when I first became aware of her; waiting around court for the verdict in Tom's prosecution.

Kirsty and Tommy were both prosecuted for trashing GM crops, but separately: he did Brian's (and she probably did as well but I think it wasn't stated at the time) and then a couple of months later she was caught in a different county but wearing Tommy's jacket with a bank statement of his in the pocket, or some such. His bail conditions included him not contacting any of the people he'd trashed with, and he was deemed not to be allowed to contact her so I assumed she was there for the Ambridge incident. (And we had a lot of them sneaking off to see each other in cornfields and the like.) Her bail conditions were the same: no fraternising.

He was found not guilty in September 1999, and charges against her were dropped in September the following year. That was when she turned up in Ambridge again, and discovered that Tommy had moved on and was dating Lauren.

Poor Kirsty, I've never really thought about it before but she's spent her whole life trailing around after totally-not-worth-it "Tommy". And is it really fair that when she finally got over it she was rewarded with a sociopath criminal? Fascinated that the editors don't think it's weird/noteworthy that a pair of best friends have both ended up with utter criminal nutters within just a few years. Was it her "punishment" for being the cool, feminist friend who could see through Rob? It's sad is what it is.

Personally I'd like Kirsty to win the lottery and start her own large local eco project with the express aim of pissing off Brine as much as possible, eventually taking over the rewilding and forcing Phoebe to get a proper job at Costcutter*, get IVF (Helen must still have the phone numbers) and have a baby, and raise it with Roy as a stay at home dad. The Green Grande Dame of the Am.

*This is what happened to my friends who left university without having thought about what to do next.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, I think you miss my point, neither of them sound like they are from Wirral.

It's like comparing a Hounslow accent with a Croydon one or something

@TheThermalStair, Helen didn't have IVF.

She had AID.

There really have been a lot of court cases over the years, haven't there.

Is Jill the only Brookfield Archer to have been in court - for the flapjack-throwing incident, with Kirsty? Freddy is part of that lineage of course.

Have any of the Grundys ever been prosecuted or imprisoned? Was Ed at any time, or has he got himself into a lot of trouble without ever being caught and prosecuted? Are they the only major Ambridge family not to have a criminal record, or at least a prosecution?

Oops, she's off the wagon.