🐷 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!

As well as Usha , Pat and Johnny have disappeared.

Johnny was around, briefly, perhaps a couple of months ago. I had fondly hoped that a meeting of his broken down old car with Alice's drunken peregrinations (all the better on her slightly damaged horse) might result in highly entertaining catastrophe.

Nothing, so far ...

@MissBarbary

As well as Usha , Pat and Johnny have disappeared.

Pat last spoke on Christmas Day 2019, as far as I know.

Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, is TA staying as 5 episodes a week forever now?

Ruari was lovely with Alice and seemed to make more "progress" than anyone. They've reflected the nature of an addiction very well, from secrecy, false promises and now someone who doesn't have the capacity to know what they want.

Hi herc (waves from another shared thread!)
It’s four episodes currently and they’ve said it’s staying that way pro tem. ☹️

Sorry, pro tem is posey Latin for “for the time being”!

Hi jan

Thanks for that, not good news! I'm an intermittent listener but have been enjoying it lately.

I don’t think Alice is an unsuitable mother because she was racist in her teens but because she is an alcoholic who can’t prioritise her baby. I’d forgotten about the incident with Amy but it was disgusting.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Back when the BBC website was worth having, there was a chronology there that was actually useful. Unfortunately I failed to grab a copy before they did away with it in favour if the (horribly inaccurate) "interactive" timeline, and then did away with that because people complained about it so much.

If Roifield and co are actually interested in making their chronology cover the programme from the start, have they come across Hesky's page at umra.fandom.com/wiki/Peter_Hesketh's_Chronology_of_The_Archers
?

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, if you have a clue where it was, or what is was called, you could try searching on the Way Back Machine: archive.org/

It was a long time ago; probably pre-2010, so I doubt that looking for it there would be easy, but I'll give it a try; thank you.

@JanFebAnyMonth

Sorry, pro tem is posey Latin for “for the time being”!

I read that as though it was Jim saying it!

Thanks for that background MayIDestroyYou. Very dispiriting. There were some comments on here a few weeks ago about the lack of teachers, nurses etc in Ambridge. Like LilianGish, I remember the previous editor saying it was all about The Archers. I actually prefer the non Archer characters. I missed the Joe-inspired 'Brian Aldridge' but will enjoy it on the omnibus

I like the suggestions for what could have been a good plot with Bethany, Gasp0de.

Roy actually mentioned his earlier racism, Cecile, when he was talking to Lexi after racist graffiti was sprayed on the caravans in which the workers from Eastern Europe employed by Brian lived. He was very ashamed and made no attempt to justify what he had done when younger. Lexi was reluctant to call the police but Roy did.

Agree that Ruari seems to be the person who is trying most to help Alice constructively.

@BoreOfWhabylon

I read that as a weevil taxidermist. Was thinking "How? HOW?!?"

You weren't the only one, Bore

(I don't think I said, btw, how much I appreciated the Weevil verses. They're just crying out for a composer ...)

@MayIDestroyYou

(I don't think I said, btw, how much I appreciated the Weevil verses. They're just crying out for a composer ...)

It's already been done, MayI

m.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDXbElN1oY

Lost half my post somehow. Anyway, glad you approved, MayI.
(Ponders WeevilsRippedMyFlesh as namechange...)

Aha!

Well outside my musical leanings - but I'm glad my instincts were correct!

Thanks for the Frank Zappa link @theThreeofWeevils . Been a long time since I last listened to him.

@Taswama.
OK, which character best fits 'He used to be a nice boy/ he used to cut the grass'? Don't look at me, genuine q.

Down in Joe's Garage Cider Shed
We didn't have no dope or LSD
But a coupla quarts'a beer cider
Would fix it so the intonation
Would not offend your ear was broadcast by the Beeb
And the same old chords tropes goin' over 'n' over
Became a symphony sinecure
We would play it again 'n' again 'n' again
Cause it sounded good to me Feedback is toothless & R4 a hegenomy...

@Tulipomania

Gosh Emma is a nasty piece of work.

Emma has always been a nasty piece of work since she slept with one man just before she married his brother, I've never understood the MN synpathy towards her.

@MayIDestroyYou

I don't like to think of the despair Alice must be living through right now - if she's still conscious ...

My sympathies are all with Martha and Chris, Alice has chosen her path and they're left to pick up the pieces.

JudgeJ
My sympathies are all with Martha and Chris, Alice has chosen her path and they're left to pick up the pieces.

I'm not sure how much anyone actually chooses to become an alcoholic; I suspect that by the time someone who drinks realises that they are drinking way too much, it is too late to alter. That's what addiction is.

My sympathy is far more with Martha and Chris than with Alice, but I can feel pity for her. She is as trapped as either of them, just in a different way.

My sympathy is far more with Martha and Chris than with Alice, but I can feel pity for her. She is as trapped as either of them, just in a different way

A character like Johnny, Neil, Fallon or even Joy descending into alcoholism would have my sympathy but Alice was so unpleasant to begin with, then no.

@MissBarbary

My sympathy is far more with Martha and Chris than with Alice, but I can feel pity for her. She is as trapped as either of them, just in a different way

A character like Johnny, Neil, Fallon or even Joy descending into alcoholism would have my sympathy but Alice was so unpleasant to begin with, then no.

This. She has always been nasty. Chris has not necessarily done the right thing but it wasn't through malice, he had the best intentions.

Just listened to last episode. Isn’t Emma an absolutely dreadful piece of work! And making out Alice was beyond the pale for coming into Ed - woman, you slept with your husband’s brother and later married him!!

I thought Alice’s admission to Jenny was excellent. Felt very realistic in how Jenny responded too. I felt you could feel her steeling herself - it wasn’t just ‘oh well that’s ok’, if was ‘I’ve seen this before, I’ve experienced this with my dad...we will overcome.’