🐷 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!

I sincerely regret to say it but I think I might almost be done with The Archers. I'm green, having only been devout for 8 years, although I had a good few years beforehand catching the omnibus when I could.

I know Covid happened etc but its just not enjoyable to listen to anymore. Lots of characters and storylines seem to have disappeared into thin air. The stories we're left with are incongruous froth and there was a whole thing with a woman snorting pasta through her nose.

May I add 'Deck the Boars' to the Lower Loxley events, Bore?

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

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.

I was gobsmacked when I heard her say that.

God help Ambridge and all who sail in her. Was it some sort of bet, to see what they could get away with? Because quite a few people must have had the opportunity to correct that line - and they didn't. What on Earth is going on?

@nettie434

May I add 'Deck the Boars' to the Lower Loxley events, Bore?

@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.

Yes. This. I did a double take listening to Alice and Kate, thinking that I'd missed a day. It's as if the SW wrote an episode for Friday not realising that we don't have a Friday episode these days. And no one told them. Which doesn't surprise me given the chaos that is now The Archers.

Did Kate have the children before she married Lucas?

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

I assumed Kate had given her a hard time about it and told her Jakob was upset at not being chosen.

Personality Transplant Fairy on duty again. Jakob is unrecognisable from the border-line autistic gentleman who turned up at Alistair’s surgery and refused to eat a slice of cake two years ago. Even the love of Kate wouldn’t have changed him that much. He handled Alice with such sensitivity.

Did Kate have the children before she married Lucas?
In the absence of the archivist, the SW could have referred to one of the many TA blogs.

It could simply be, of course, that Kate actress misread the relevant line and no-one noticed at the time.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

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.

Well, this is a new low. I’m surprised Perdita Avery didn’t pick up on it. Here’s a clip from the BBC TA 70th anniversary website with a mention of Kate & Lucas’s 2001 wedding.

Ignore photo of blackthorn blossom which shouldn’t be there!

Goodness, I hadn't clicked that Kate and Lucas married at around the same time as Hayley and Roy - I'll bet Kate arranged it in a kind of fit of pique!
Thank you for the new thread, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, also loving @LillianGish's title! I've been saying since the Beetle's (VW - Vanessa Whitburn - former editor for 22 years of TA) time that the Beeb is deliberately trying to lose listeners to TA by poor plotting and scripts, but they've reached the nadir for me now.

@Nith

It could simply be, of course, that Kate actress misread the relevant line and no-one noticed at the time.

But there are people whose actual job is to ensure the script makes sense ...

I did think 10 years was an odd time to have been married, given the ages of Kate's children but I didn't realise how inaccurate it was. Thanks for the blog extract AND the lovely blackthorn photo Putthetulipsthere.

I wouldn't expect Perdita Avery to have realised. Kate used to be played by Kellie Bright who went to East Enders (and before that by Susie Riddell who is now Tracy Horrobin, I think). Perdita Avery only started playing the role in 2013.

Apologies for coming on to moan, but what has happened to the script recently? Ridiculous storyline of Lillian digging....as if!! The situation of teenage Mia discussing boys with Ed, would this ever happen in real life?? Finally, there's something unpleasant about Lee being coerced into posing naked for the life class and the older woman bagging a seat at the front so she can ogle. Imagine if the genders were reversed?
Such a shame as I feel the Alice/Chris story is believable, relevant and engaging.

@Chemenger

Did Kate have the children before she married Lucas?

Two of them.

Phoebe is Roy's child, born three years before Kate's marriage to Lucas.
Noluthando is Lucas' child, born four months before Kate's marriage to Lucas.
Sipho is (probably) Lucas' child, born when Kate and Lucas had been married for six years.

Has that stupid secret play happened yet?

The one that Lynda was organising....

Realised yesterday that I hadn't listened to the Archers since last Thursday's episode and decided to catch up so I could contribute to this thread . Enjoyed bits of it but am none the wiser as to what happened after Chris told Alice she was welcome to leave a week ago.

Also I've just been googling time capsules to back up my theory that 10 years is far too short a time. And I'm right most are for 50 or 100 years.

Also this: "According to time capsule historian William Jarvis, most intentional time capsules usually do not provide much useful historical information: they are typically filled with "useless junk", new and pristine in condition, that tells little about the people of the time. Many time capsules today contain only artifacts of limited value to future historians. Historians suggest that items which describe the daily lives of the people who created them, such as personal notes, pictures, videos and documents, would greatly increase the value of the time capsule to future historians."

and: "Many buried time capsules are lost, as interest in them fades and the exact location is forgotten, or they are destroyed within a few years by groundwater"

Lower Loxley Hall attic would be a better bet for a time-capsule.

Even though they've had to empty it completely not once but twice for the roof to be reconstructed - dry-rot, and death-watch beetle - whenever anyone spends time up there they find that it is still full of unsuspected treasures and saleable items and bits of discarded jewellery and pictures by old masters and goodness knows what else and all. A mere time capsule would be entirely safe there for decades, even centuries.

I'm a long time lurker on this thread and am glad to hear that no one has any explanation for why Alice's moving out hasn't had any follow up. Reassuring to understand that it is the scriptwriters, not I, who have lost the plot here.

I agree that Jakob has had a personality transplant. Kate's initial apology sounded like a declaration of war, which was very much in character, but her unloading to Alice about her fucked-up life did not convince.

Ridiculous storyline of Lillian digging....as if!

The stuff with the metal detector annoyed me. Surely it's easy enough to detect where the ground has been recently dug up?

Welcome, @Faceicle! And wave, wave to any other lurkers. Feel free to drop in any time.