🐷 Archers thread #127: Discuss the boars and sows of Ambridge here - or should that be bores and soused? You decide.

[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 live opposite Joy, 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.)

These threads normally last around a month. When I started the last one, we were bracing ourselves for the Mystery Play, but that storyline, which had never exactly set the airwaves on fire, fizzled out and has (I hope) gone away, never to return.

@LillianGish proposed a new thread title which I'll use instead as a scene-setter for this thread. What a carry on - Nurse (Ben), Sergeant (Harrison), Camping (Kate), Jack (either one of them), Regardless (all of us for continuing to tune tune in)

What a carry on, indeed! Other storylines sputtering away:

• Alice, Chris, Martha - Have they split up, and if so where is Alice living? Will there be a christening and who will be godparents? When will the Aldridges and Carters find out about Alice's drinking? Too much to hope that Alice will get blind drunk at the christening party in full view of the entire village, I suppose. I'm still clinging to my hope that she lamps Alan after a suggestion that they pray together.

• Will Rex find a new home for his pigs? If Elizabeth weakens, will the pigs escape and disrupt the Lower Loxley life drawing event on Monday? Might they stampede, knock Ross out and devour him?

• Will Jazzer go to work for Neil? (This isn't exactly a cliffhanger. Of course he will.)

• Will Justin bury Lilian under the patio? Not a jury in the land would convict him, I feel, if they were played a recording of that appalling cackle and her gloating about the daffodil photograph.

• Will the life drawing event on Monday be a brilliantly amusing interlude, exemplifying how to write character-driven drama, with both comic and more serious moments? Answer: No, obviously. I may have to listen from behind a cushion.

There are more. I find myself struggling to care.

Oh, and one final mention - I've proposed a webchat with the Archers editor. @MayIDestroyYou's idea. You'll find it here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/4231475-Webchat-idea-The-Editor-of-The-Archers-Or-another-Archers-production-team-representative

Over to you!

Thanks, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

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< Melts back into shadows >

Excellent title!

Thank you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I fell asleep in the middle of yesterday’s episode (listen at night) and woke up to Lilian’s cackling. I didn’t realise I’d missed anything, but will have to LA now.

Heavens - that's a masterclass in Thread Opening. Brava, Gasp0de!

There's a lot going on, isn't there? It's just the quality being so variable.

Yup. It's like panning for gold, and about as likely to turn out a good use of our time and efforts! Still, you never know. We may strike lucky yet.

Bravo Gaspode - you just squeaked in there in the nick of time with only two post to go before the thread went POOF (I wasn't sure what the thread etiquette was for linking a new one - I also think of you as de facto Head Girl these days. Anyway, should have known you wouldn't let us down )

Excellent title, Gasp. Thanks for the new fred.

Thanks for the new thread, brilliantly executed.

I failed to notice there was about to be new, and posted this on the old one:

lottiegarbanzo
Rex clearly wouldn't be a problem tenant but Elizabeth is entrenchedly anti-Fairbrother. Particularly Rex, given that her affair with Robin F ended when he discovered his wife was pregnant, with Rex.

What baffles me is why anyone in the village would be pro Fairbrother, given that their grandfather (there for about eight years sixty years ago and more) was regarded as a bad farmer and a nasty person by most who lived there at the time, their father was a philandering shit who only appeared in order to betray someone sexually, and neither of the brothers is worth a light, one being a chancer and the other a whinger.

Thanks Gasp0de. Excellent OP. And thanks to LillianGish too

Superb title Gasp0de. I loved LilianGish's as well. It's a shame some of the scripts don't match up to the quality of the thread titles. Still, we persist. There have been some good snippets. Alice has been excellent in terms of how believable she has been and Soosan and Vince have been good. It's a big night for Rex tonight. I wonder if he will be leaving Ambridge.

Carry on the good work Gasp

I've caught up with the thread, and for the second time ever I'm not sure I can be bothered to catch up (the first time was last summer with the monologues of course). I have no wish to hear about accidental life-drawing or a picture of Justin dressed as a daffodil.

I think Ben is about the only good thing this week. Or was he last week?

Ludicrous for SWs to have Justin and Lillian digging. The only nearly old person who can dig must be Bert.

A slice of for @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g!

I know little about Lizzie and Robin but you would hope that the SLs have delved sufficiently deep into the archives to realise it happened. Scripts are so superficial at the moment that Lizzie’s anti-Rex stance could just be a coincidence or based on his trolling of Brookfield a couple of months ago.

Alternatively they could be laying the foundations for history to repeat itself with Lily falling into Rex’s arms. Hard to tell at this stage.

Boop for Vince pushing Lizzie to think further than her self-congratulatory nose!

A boopier Boop for Jakob, I think.

That conversation Alish had with him was bizarre, though.

It was. I have a secret crush on Jakob now.
Oops not secret any more.

Alice needs to tell someone. Maybe if she told Kate, it might give Kate someone to look after.

I still dislike Pip.

So Alish is still living with Chris? The last we heard from her she moved out, but maybe I missed something?? Just listened to tonight’s episode, fully expecting her to have moved in with St Shula.

Checking in on new thread, great intro post Gasp0de :)

@Putthetulipsthere

So Alish is still living with Chris? The last we heard from her she moved out, but maybe I missed something?? Just listened to tonight’s episode, fully expecting her to have moved in with St Shula.

I think they have forgotten the Alish leaving scene.

And what on earth was that nonsense from Alish about not wanting to upset Jakob not about not being a god parent?

I've concluded that I need to think of The Archers week-week handovers as being a bit like the party game "consequences".

It was always ridiculous, rarely funny unless you were polite or (post 18, obvs) drunk.

I am making a point of downloading episodes on Sounds, just in case they are trying to kick it into the long grass!

@Madcats, was that the one where you rolled up a piece of paper and passed it round so you'd only see the last entry. We played that and found it funny.

Are we all looking forward to this Autumn's Ye Olde Pigge Slaughtering Festival at Lower Loxley?
Learn how to hog tie acorn-fattened pigs!
Charcuterie for beginners: Lard rendering, black pudding making, sausage tying.
How to flay a carcass
Hide-tanning - make your own pigskin driving gloves

Fun for all the family!

Kate has amnesia of some sort.

She said she had married Lucas "ten years ago this month."

She has a teenage child from that marriage (Sipho was born while it was still going on, and that was in 2007), and she and Lucas actually got married in April 2001. You'd think she might remember something that important.