🐷 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!

Wasn't Neil thinking about retiring before Berrow Farm remembered it has lots of acreage for outdoor pigs?

I think I might be even more annoyed with the Archers, now, than I was with the monologues last year!

Peggy was surely at the christening and would have spoken to Jennifer.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

There are holes in this storyline that you could drive a Centurion tank through and not touch the sides, that's for sure. Also gaps in it chronologically.

In fact it's a reasonable idea ruined by poor execution, which I have come to expect of The Archers of late.

Shame.

This. They have lost the plot, literally.

In complete agreement with posters there is no way Peggy would not have spoken to Jen. If Chris loves Alice soooooo much, why is he not thinking of her welfare, what a total drip. Does not ring true at all.

Well done to whoever predicted Neil as the voice of reason.
And what a surprise that Chris is being offered lots of support, just like Willum after Nic's death. Just waiting for Emma to roped into the rota.

Me too!

("AskingQuestionsAllTheTime Sun 09-May-21 20:56:51
The person most likely to be a real help, and level-headed with it, is probably Neil. (And he is compassionate mostly rather than it only being a side of his personality.)

I still think JD would have gone to check on Alice between the christening fiasco and last night's episode when she was talking to Brian -at the very least she would have phoned just to make sure Alice was okay-let's not forget this is her daughter "her baby " who has just had a premature baby. I also think Peggy would have met Jenny and disclosed her knowledge - she wouldn't have just still kept it up herself .

You would think she'd have least turned up with a quiche or casserole or something.

I too have been pondering how on earth the SWs believe it realistic that JD would not have been hammering on the door of the Nest by now (that is Chryalis’s home isn’t it?) & hauling Alice off to the best detox establishment in Borsetshire. In fact there would be a queue forming after the drama outside the church, with Alan & Peggy at the front, if they were keeping true to character and indeed the plot.

I really hope that if I were Alice, my mum would be concerned about me and my baby than about what the neighbours thought.

JD would definitely have been hammering on the door of The Nest.

Jennifer did say she had been ringing and leaving messages and Alice hadn't replied.

My mum wouldn't have left it at that from Thursday to Monday, she would have walked the forty yards or so between the house she lived in and the house I lived in and sat outside (beating on the door at intervals) until she had seen me face to face, if the last she knew was that I and my husband had been having a public row which led to me left standing in floods of tears in the churchyard without my baby, a cancelled christening, and someone she knew disliked our family shouting the odds about me being an alcoholic. In fact she wouldn't have had to come round; she's have been there in the churchyard comforting me and I would have gone back to her house on Thursday will I nil I.

Yep, what Asking said.

I don't have a map of Ambridge, but don't they all live within a 5 minute walk of each other?

Some of the SWs must lead very strange lives.

I also think Peggy would have met Jenny and disclosed her knowledge - she wouldn't have just still kept it up herself Conceivable that she wouldn't have done up to the non-Christening if she assumed that Jenny and Brian did know, but yes, she would have said something after Alice was abandoned.

And at that point even if Brian was still sticking to the line that Alice likes a drink, just like any normal person, JD would have been at least considering that the story of Alice's alcoholism might be true.

And Asking has it dead right about a "normal" mother's reaction, especially one showing such helicopter tendencies as JD. I know Brian was telling her to leave them alone, but JD would not have paid attention to that.

So we must assume the next step of the drama requires Alice to be alone. So presumably out cold after drinking whatever amount to an alcohol overdose for her, to be found by JD, who will go round now Alice has admitted to her that Chris and Martha are not there. 999 and hospital A&E drama. After all. it's been a bit quiet on TA recently and needs a bit of excitement.

Totally willing to bet on an ambulance in the next episode.

@Madcats

Yep, what Asking said.

I don't have a map of Ambridge, but don't they all live within a 5 minute walk of each other?

Some of the SWs must lead very strange lives.

According to the Magnetic North map of Ambridge, the whole village is about a mile from west to east and three-quarters of a mile north to south. Because of having to cross the Am from one to the other, The Nest is about seven hundred yards by road from Willow Cottage, rather less as the crow flies. I expect Jennifer would get in the car.

And Ambridge View is literally in the back garden of Willow Farm and Willow Cottage, less than 100 yards apart up the same access road; I'd be surprised if Jennifer and Brian don't bump into Susan or Neil once or twice a day.

Brine’s too busy scoffing the ex christening food. Adding insult to injury by virtually implying that Fallon’s catering might be even better than his lady wife’s! It was a very funny opening, but the rest of it was a bit rubbish, as we’ve described.

Boop for Joy and Elizabeth. That was well done.

ODFOJD. To the far side and then all over again, you twittering, interfering, nerk-witted, baby-obsessed ant tiresome lump of flesh and pretension.

When she ordered Alice to stand up I thought she was going to carry out some kind of sobriety check

I thought she was checking to see if Alice had wet herself.

I thought the mental health public information announcement was clunky and contrived.

And as for Jennifer ... not an ounce of empathy for her daughter?

Well, it explains why she couldn't be told earlier.

Despite Three's comment, it didn't feel to me in character for JD

But I did enjoy her laying into Alice. Of the two, I prefer JD.