🐷 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!

Hmm ... No, on consideration I would say that Havering has no connection to the poster formerly know as PPE.

That's someone else ...

But yes, 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

It was always going to end in utter carnage!

I'm also very much looking forward to the eventual Peggy conversation which will be a bit of a rude awakening for JD and the Aldridges.

Which also means I'm very worried that the writers will have entirely forgotten the conversation Peggy had with Chris and she'll do a complete volte face and toe the JD line.

I will eat the globe ones but the jerusalem ones make me feel ill and don't taste nice. Both have beautiful flowers.

I can't eat Jerusalem artichokes. I just bloat up with trapped wind and can't even release it. Farting would be a pleasure.

I think that's what they did to me Captain.
How on earth did Kate end up as she is? She does amuse me.

I'm glad that Emmur isn't my SIL. Neil would be a nice FIL though.

@Tulipomania

Artichoke distinction important.

Globe artichokes not in season yet
Jerusalem artichokes out of season

I've got a globe artichoke bought last week sitting in the fridge.

@FreezerBird

I'm also very much looking forward to the eventual Peggy conversation which will be a bit of a rude awakening for JD and the Aldridges.

Which also means I'm very worried that the writers will have entirely forgotten the conversation Peggy had with Chris and she'll do a complete volte face and toe the JD line.

I think it's 100% predictable they will have forgotten that.

I like globe artichokes but it's a huge faff to prepare and cook them myself, so I've only done it a couple of times. I do sometimes buy artichoke hearts in oil.

Asparagus is better in every respect, though - but only when it's English and in season, i.e. now.

I got some Jerusalem artichokes in a veg box a while back. Reading that they are now out of season, it must have been ages ago. They lurked in the veg drawer in the fridge until last weekend, when I finally roasted them in the oven (unpeeled), in oil and seasoned with garlic, salt, pepper and thyme. They tasted good, rather like parsnips, but the next few hours were uncomfortable (I was glad I was at home, not in a public place), so I don't think I'll be bothering again.

Unless Kate was hoping to deflatulence them, I can't see she would have bothered peeling them. They're so knobbly it's quite a chore, hence why I followed advice on the internet and didn't bother.

Sorry to have missed Asking's foray into AIBU. Not surprised it got complaints, though. I got taken to pieces years ago when I did an AIBU based on the Bloomsbury Group. Looking back at it, I can only assume some people skim read a thread title and the first few words of a post, and respond to that. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2441583-Not-to-tell-my-daughter-that-her-father-isnt-my-husband-but-my-gay-best-friend I don't see how I could have made it clearer it wasn't my own dilemma. I particularly like the post telling me that People who have enough time to post nonsense like this should find something useful to do.

Also reminds me of this glorious thread, which was the first one I ever read on MN, after it was linked on the BBC Archers message board of happy memory. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1109577-To-be-Very-Pissed-Off-at-My-Dad-for-Bringing-a-Lovely-Baby-Toy-Around Over ten years ago! Good grief.

This response gets me every time I read that thread again.

ginhag Tue 21-Dec-10 20:23:00
Oh pleeeease don't tell me that I have, for no good reason whatsoever, just read a thread about the bloody archers???

***

I was the one who complained about a spoiler warning on the AIBU thread.

Like a lot of people, I don't listen live. I save it for dog walking in the morning.
Therefore I avoid the specific Archers threads until I have listened so I can avoid spoilers.

I didn't think I was unreasonable to not want to have to avoid the whole site in case of spoilers but clearly I am.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

This response gets me every time I read that thread again. ******************** ginhag Tue 21-Dec-10 20:23:00 Oh pleeeease don't tell me that I have, for no good reason whatsoever, just read a thread about the bloody archers???

***

Oh dear, that made me cackle in true Lilian Bellamy style...

YAB a bit U @AlexCabot, because it meant that I missed the entire thread!

I also remember the glorious threads linked by Gasp0de. Not sure if I was already on MN or if it was the Cheesemaker thread that brought me here from Mustardland.

BoreOfWhabylon
I missed the entire thread!
Huh. I did as well, because I was trying to put my username back where it had been and by the time I'd done that (it didn't want to, said it was already in use) the thread was gone.

Oh well. I tried.

I didn't actually ask for it to be deleted, just to add a spoiler warning.

I'm not completely humourless, honest.

@AlexCabot

I didn't actually ask for it to be deleted, just to add a spoiler warning.

I'm not completely humourless, honest.

Well, as you can read upthread here, it was certainly not intended as a spoiler; it was actuated by a desire to see how people in AIBU would react to Emma's behaviour. A spoiler warning would have made it meaningless.

If one had been added, I would have asked for the thread to be removed.

Wasn’t the Emma fight days ago now anyway? So hardly a spoiler. I’m sorry I missed it!

It did refer to what she did last night. So although it was after the broadcast and I would have said technically not a spoiler, until after the Omnibus on Sunday it could be for some people.

"Stuck up bunch of emotionally vacant losers ..."

For the record.

However true, that was simple abuse. Like calling someone gimpy, or denigrating them for their colour is simply abuse.

Emma does have a nasty mouth on her.

@campion

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.

It occurs to me that she didn't say these things to Kate either, when Kate abandoned first Phoebe and then Noluthando and Sipho.

Via Borchester Land, Brian must have contacts within the Planning Department. A word or two in the right ear and Emmur 'Mad Dog' Grundy might find her illegal dwelling has to be removed, talking of 'losers'. That would be most enjoyable.

Again and again I forget how much I hate Kate - for telling Amy that black people don't ride horses, for being beyond vile to Emma when she was in a completely desperate state, for the loss of the Home Farm house, almost certainly for other things I've forgotten ... The odd amusing incident and I'm ready to indulge her again. Until the next outrage. But she's utter poison.

No - the Amy incident was Alice! I know.

They're both as bad as each other.