🐷 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!

@BlueCowWonders

Yes absolutely drunk. She'd presumably already finished any alcohol she had stashed in the house and the desperation was clear

If Alice had the car outside the shop, she had already been drunk-driving to get there.

It sounded to me as if Susan was already looking wobbly, since Jim asked her if she was all right and offered to make her some coffee. Then there was the crashing more of it than a window would make, I thought, and not all that much like breaking glass and then Jim, very concerned, saying "Susan!", so I thought what must have happened was that she fell over and pulled a display down trying to stop herself falling.

I'll have to listen again when we can, to hear what it sounds like after knowing Susan had fallen over.

@DeusEx

This storyline is incredibly frustrating. I have family members and friends who have struggled with addiction. This story could be really useful for showing the ways to help an addict as well as showing that lapses are not the end of the world.

Instead they’re doing a masterclass in how NOT to treat an addict (bar Jenny) while also making her entirely unsympathetic.

What is the point of this storyline?!

I dunno, I'm finding much of it disturbingly accurate. It is very hard to help someone who is not necessarily in the right place to accept help. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's made something of a hash of it.

Listened again, yes you’re right, some kind of missile breaking the window. Wow.

Soo Sam will have to decide whether to press charges, personally and (?) on behalf of the shop. Who’s in charge of the management committee now, her?

Maybe an empty bottle flung at the shop window? Alice could have managed a great force to shatter the glass

I still think it was a direct action by Alish that caused the crash and she'll be done for some combination of criminal damage, drunk driving, assault or ABH.

Neil is going to be beside himself

I agree: listened again, something through the window, with added things falling. Susan was already being very wobbly and uncertain, though, presumably in shock about all the verbal vitriol Alice had been aiming at her.

I thought it was an empty bottle

So ... Kirsty is letting her house to Helen and Lee, yes? (Unless there was a purchase that I missed.)

And now Helen has given Kirsty the job in the dairy?

So her landlady will also be her employee?

No possible difficulties there. Not at all ...

@daretodenim

I also thought it was a car, then brick, then wondered if Susan collapsed from stress and fell against the bottles.

DH and I had that exact conversation!

I'm veering towards brick / rock.
Jim and Susan were good, weren't they.

Jim, Susan and Alice excellent acting.

ILoveJim

@BlueCowWonders

Maybe an empty bottle flung at the shop window? Alice could have managed a great force to shatter the glass

An empty bottle would just bounce off. It sounded like a brick or a stone.

To me when I listened it sounded like something hurled through the window like a brick or something - let's hope the flying glass didn't get Susan or Jim

Harrison will at least get a call out

BeaLola
Harrison will at least get a call out

I would very much rather that whoever attends is not Harrison. He is in a nasty position, because he already knows she has been driving when drunk at least once before, and if she is up against it she will use that against him if she is in the vindictive-drunk stage.

To sort of quote Irvine Welsh, Jim was unknown science. (Pure magic) His reasoning for selling Alice booze was absolute Jim. Boop for Jim and Alice, they were both brilliant, helped by some uncharacteristically terrific writing. Long may it continue.

I would very much rather that whoever attends is not Harrison. He is in a nasty position, because he already knows she has been driving when drunk at least once before, and if she is up against it she will use that against him if she is in the vindictive-drunk stage.

Yes, this. When someone's hurting so much and can't deal with it and they do anything they can to take anybody and everybody they can down too. Alice is right there right now. It's not only about being drunk, it's now about drowning the pain of her reality too. Harrison is a central figure to her pain right now, so he doesn't stand a chance of avoiding it. Even if another officer were to attend, she'd still mention Harrison driving her home at some point.

I thought the acting tonight was superb.

I was driving & the crashing noise threw me.

I was surprised that, when Alice brought out her threat that she'd drive somewhere else to get her booze, neither Jim nor Susan responded with "If you get into that car and start driving, I'll tell the police where to find you"

@Zzelda

I was surprised that, when Alice brought out her threat that she'd drive somewhere else to get her booze, neither Jim nor Susan responded with "If you get into that car and start driving, I'll tell the police where to find you"

Do you think that in Jim's case that he didn't realise she had been drinking before entering the shop and was hoping by not enabling her purchase she would not have a drink ?

Susan maybe too shocked that she was in the village shop buying the alcohol

I thought it sounded like a car or something quite large hitting the glass window. But it’ll probably have more to do with what their foley library/people have got than what it’s supposed to sound like!

Gosh. Will have to make the effort to listen at 7.02 tonight!

I was very struck by what Jim said to Susan after Alice left. 'You do know she didn't mean that, don't you?' (or similar) I think one of the things I would find hardest if I had an alcoholic/problem drinker in my life is not dwelling on hurtful things said when in drink. Knowing that alcohol makes a person less inhibited I'd always be wondering if that was what they'd always truly felt, and had therefore been lying/dissimilating when sober. In vino veritas, after all.

Tough listening. My grandfather was an abusive drunk, and that left its mark on my grandmother, my aunt and my father, lifelong.

Alcoholics are legally obliged to inform the DVLA. I'm surprised (or not) that Harrison never warned Alice or Chris.

@TwoBlondes

Alcoholics are legally obliged to inform the DVLA. I'm surprised (or not) that Harrison never warned Alice or Chris.

But she probably hasn't fully accepted that she is one, despite the evidence. At what point are they legally obliged to tell the DVLA? If it involves self diagnosis then it's a bit hit and miss.

I think one of the things I would find hardest if I had an alcoholic/problem drinker in my life is not dwelling on hurtful things said when in drink. Knowing that alcohol makes a person less inhibited I'd always be wondering if that was what they'd always truly felt, and had therefore been lying/dissimilating when sober.

Yes have often wondered this. In my case it was an alcoholic DP giving his views on mine and a couple of my female relations' physical appearances and shortcomings and in that moment I felt that was definitely his real opinion of us. I didn't care about me, but hated his comments about my young niece. I cut him lose after that, no-one slags off my family, especially a child. He was dead to me then and in fact might well be actually dead by now, who knows, I don't give a toss.

I had forgotten about it until the above post as it was a long time ago, but I do remember that for a while it made me feel physically sick. He was no Adonis btw.

If Susan has been injured, that’s going to be hard to come back from.

My cat jumped out of his skin at the sound of the smash!

This shows the SWs can pull a rabbit out of the hat when they try...I know it can’t be gripping every night but the difference between last night’s excellent writing and, say, the toe-curling scenes we had to endure re Mystery Play is significant. Subject matter is obvs very different but even so, shouldn’t an editor prioritise consistency?