🐷 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!

How can there be a grandparent custody battle when Martha has one competent, sober, loving parent? If my husband died/walked out/became a drunk, there’s no bloody way my mother-in-law would get custody over me! She’d be laughed right out of the solicitor’s office.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

The responses on AIBU if someone wrote there asking whether they were justified in finding their son-in-law's sister out of line for behaving as Emma just has would be interesting. Would she get a lot of sympathy?

I'd also like to see a 'how the ** do I get rid of my mother, she's driving me up the wall? ' one from Alice's pov. How dare JD muscle in where she is evidently not wanted? Alice has capacity and it's her bloody house.

Martha's paternal grandmother has already blocked her maternal grandmother from seeing her. What if Susan, or Christopher, refuse Alice access to the child? (Perhaps she truly isn't bothered, but the Aldridges will be determined that she maintains contact with Martha.) Things could escalate very quickly and messily.

I think they are starting a Carter / Aldridge war.
A shame I think as it is distracting from the story of Alice's battle.

Things could escalate very quickly and messily
Hope so. But Alice probably won't play ball and be quite ok with not seeing the baby, which doesn't give the Aldridges much leverage. Then Emmur will take over some of the runt work from her poor, tired, broken-hearted ickle bruvver and make damn' sure the Aldridges are excluded. Frabjous! Calloo callay!

Earlier examples were Aunt Laura, who thought that having money meant she was entitled to tell Dan Archer how to run his farm, and Jack and Peggy how to run a pub; Jack Woolley, the Nasty Businessman who wanted to buy up the village; Lynda Snell who told everyone how they ought to behave while knowing nothing about village life or the countryside; Marjorie Antrobus who stuck her oar in everywhere...

Sorry: was following a post on the previous page about baddies who are then turned into goodies in TA.

Wow. Haven’t read the latest comments but I thought that episode was brilliant. So good I listened to it again straight away. So many great lines, from Kate’s “no room to swing a cat let alone peel a Jerusalem artichoke”, some good pig talk between Rex and Vince, Fallon with Rex AND Emma, an absolute tour de force from Emerald O’Hanrahan and that little moment of the scales falling from Brian’s eyes before Kate whipped him back into denial. Bloody marvellous.

Tonight's episode must have been quite fun to write and record.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

MissBarbary Tulipomania "Gosh Emma is a nasty piece of work." She didn't say anything that wasn't true

First, is it true, then is it kind, then is it necessary?

True, mostly (though the "stirring up trouble between me and Ed" wasn't really, because the only thing that upset Ed about it was Emma going off and having a rant about it at Chris).

Kind? Well, hardly.

Necessary? Not really, because it would have no particular effect except to harden Brian's dislike of Emma. It wouldn't change anything for Chris (except possibly make it worse) or Neil and Susan (except possibly make everything more difficult for them, since Neil works for Brian), and wouldn't help Martha in any way.

You forgot “Is it a radio drama?”

Yes!

I am very happy to enjoy listening to Emma make bad comms choices because it was delivered so well and it is a soap opera after all.

I didn’t like the way Kate spoke to Brian when she first arrived. Seemed very disrespectful- is Brian really so benign and tamed that it’s ok to order him around in his own kitchen?

A class war seems to have broken out in Ambridge overnight. Surely the touching scene with Susan and Jenny bonding over the baby-faced biscuits can’t have been for nothing...

And is Rex now going to overcharge Elizabeth for his zero-miles pork?

zero-miles pork

Which it won't be anyway: it has to go to the abbatoir and back, as was mentionrd a couple of sentences earlier. They aren't even consistent within a single episode now.

Perhaps Maurice (😍😍😍) could move into a disused outhouse in LL grounds?

It was a bit rich Jennifer saying to Alice "because you're her mother, the only one she's got and she needs you" (or something like that).

She didn't seem to think mothers were remotely important when Xander was born. Couldn't get rid of Lexie quick enough.

@HaveringWavering

Wow. Haven’t read the latest comments but I thought that episode was brilliant. So good I listened to it again straight away. So many great lines, from Kate’s “no room to swing a cat let alone peel a Jerusalem artichoke”, some good pig talk between Rex and Vince, Fallon with Rex AND Emma, an absolute tour de force from Emerald O’Hanrahan and that little moment of the scales falling from Brian’s eyes before Kate whipped him back into denial. Bloody marvellous.

I agree it was a good episode. Emma overplayed her hand, which was realistic of her character.

Re Jerusalem artichokes, are they still in season? I adore them but they are one of the few vegetables which still seem to be seasonal. Waitrose didn't have them last weekend. Depending on what you're doing, they don't need peeling.

peeling jerusalem artichokes makes them less farty

Who knows re veg accuracy, still wouldn’t ruin it for me. I also enjoyed “get me a heavy-bottomed saucepan, a nutmeg and a fine grater!”

There are none at Riverfords ...

So where's Kate getting hers?

@MayIDestroyYou

There are none at Riverfords ...

So where's Kate getting hers?

I was just disappointed they didn't have Kate saying how fiddly it is to get the 'chokes' out, tbh.

Brava! to Asking. 83% saying Emmur was out of line, until taken down because spoilers (pah! The episode had been broadcast)

@MayIDestroyYou

Boop for Vince - just for being a normal grown-up.

Yes, he's rather an asset to LL. I like hearing him wandering around spreading benevolence and calm good sense. (Only he doesn't sound terribly much like the man who infuriated David, or the man who clumsily tried to get Lilian drunk at an expensive restaurant so she'd tell all Justin's secrets ...)

Perhaps because Lizzie has bowled him over

I was just disappointed they didn't have Kate saying how fiddly it is to get the 'chokes' out, tbh

That's globe, not Jerusalem.

@MissBarbary

I was just disappointed they didn't have Kate saying how fiddly it is to get the 'chokes' out, tbh

That's globe, not Jerusalem.

It was something they could have got wrong and, surprisingly, failed to. Why otherwise would I have been 'disappointed '?

< farts pointedly but slightly out of season >

Artichoke distinction important.

Globe artichokes not in season yet
Jerusalem artichokes out of season

So glad this thread hasn't descended into fartijokes.

I'm entirely with HaveringWavering on this (PPE is that you in disguise?) - including in agreeing that out-of-season Jerusalem artichokes were worth a mention on the grounds of their comic effect, indeed I would go as far as to say they were deliberately chosen to further demonstrate Kate's hypocrisy in matters of being right-on. The real joy of Chris and Alice's union has always been the bringing together the of House of Aldridge and the House of Carter which has paid off in spades in this storyline. Emma's outburst, outrage and indignation was entirely in character and it was far easier for her to burst into the Aldridge's downsized kitchen than into the custom-made splendour of Home Farm. Kate being the one to show her the door was the icing on the cake because it will surely be Peggy (who is currently putting Kate up - or should that be putting up with her?) who will make them all see the truth. And how will they react when they find out she's known for months and that she's entirely on Chris's side? I can't wait.