🐷 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!

Is anyone else wondering if TA made a mistake and skipped an episode? Like a pp up-thread, I was sure I must have missed one, but I hadn't. And yet, nothing made sense ...

I second the welcome to Faceicle and anyone else hovering on the brink of posting. (Trying, and failing, to catch up with the LOD threads has re-set my lurker empathy ...)

Thanks for the welcome!

It occurs to me that there's been very little development of Jenny and Alice's relationship over the years, beyond JD being initially sniffy about Alice's relationship with Chris and then some years later wanting another grandchild. Jenny was always nice to Alice when she was a child and teenager, so it doesn't make much sense to me that Alice wouldn't approach her for support. And why on earth hasn't Chris pointed her in Peggy's direction?

It may be that Alice's horrible attack on Jennifer, for the crime of having been landed with Brian's child from his affair with Siobhán, somewhat soured their relationship and meant that Jennifer was no longer able to feel that she trusted Alice not to go for her without warning. I know I'd feel a bit wary of someone who'd behaved like that to me. It might also mean that Alice, aware how vile her behaviour was, is ashamed to appeal to Jennifer for help when her own life has fallen apart as Jennifer's did.

But didn't they have a reconciliation a few months ago - around the time Alice was first pregnant? IIRC she acknowledged how hard the Siobhan / Ruairi events must have been for her mother, and Jenny was quite touched.

I assumed that was the SWs specifically moving their mother daughter relationship to a more mature level of understanding - though we haven't yet seen it bear fruit. (Perhaps we never will - given they don't even seem to know where Alice lives at the moment. )

@BoreOfWhabylon

Are we all looking forward to this Autumn's Ye Olde Pigge Slaughtering Festival at Lower Loxley? Learn how to hog tie acorn-fattened pigs! Charcuterie for beginners: Lard rendering, black pudding making, sausage tying. How to flay a carcass Hide-tanning - make your own pigskin driving gloves

Fun for all the family!

I know i must be a sentimental old thing but I can't understand how Rex, Jazzer and Neil can have such affection and respect for their pigs know they're going to end their days terrified in a slaughterhouse.

I know they're reared to die and provide food but I'd have thought pig farming would appeal to the cold hearted rather than softies.

Farmers are people. People come in many different sorts. Some farmers (all I have known) are not cruel by nature, are attached to the animals they rear, and have respect for them.

They do not as a rule anthropomorphise them; as a rule that is done by people who have never reared animals in any number.

I draw a distinction between farmers and people who run or work in hen- or duck- or cow- or pig-factories, mind.

(Joe Grundy was cruel to his animals, keeping them in poor conditions and not giving them necessary medication when they became ill. This may be why he and his son went bankrupt.)

And let us not forget "come 'ere, Peggy".

Farmers are people. People come in many different sorts.

I know that. And I'm not anthropomorphising pigs. But they are intelligent creatures and the slaughterhouse experience is terrifying for them. I'm not interested in an argument for or against rearing animals for food, just saying that - for example - Jazzer's affection for his "girls" seems odd given he knows what awaits them at the abbatoir.

You can't beat Tom Archer's sausages though.

@KateWinceyette

Farmers are people. People come in many different sorts.

I know that. And I'm not anthropomorphising pigs. But they are intelligent creatures and the slaughterhouse experience is terrifying for them. I'm not interested in an argument for or against rearing animals for food, just saying that - for example - Jazzer's affection for his "girls" seems odd given he knows what awaits them at the abbatoir.

I know a few pig farmers and they have incredible affection for their pigs - similar to how they treat their farm dogs. Even those they intend to slaughter. Same with sheep farmers - So affectionate towards them, treating the lambs like cute little baby animals not like potential profit makers. Must be a very hard part of being a farmer, to be able to make that distinction.

In TA, the only people who have been shown as callous in their treatment of their farm animals are the elder Grundys, and Pip -- who carelessly killed lambs because she was too interested in dangling after Spencer, and forgot to check the flock, in 2013. ("David has found a dead ewe, probably with staggers but Alistair will confirm that tomorrow. Nearby her two lambs had died of starvation. Pip is supposed to have checked them; she could probably have saved the lambs if she had spotted the problem.")

Yet another reason to loathe Pip.

I've been trying for more than a decade to find any reason not to dislike Pip. So far it hasn't happened.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I've been trying for more than a decade to find any reason not to dislike Pip. So far it hasn't happened.

I can't think of a single occasion when Pip has said or done something where I think well that was well done/kind/ the decent thing to do.

Characters like Helen, all the Grundys (except Clarrie) Russ, Joy who generally fall in the "not nice" group have all done that.

It's seriously puzzling to me; presumably the editorial intention is not to make the wretched woman into a person anyone with sense would cross the road to avoid? I mean, they want her to be the future of Brookfield and thus an important part of the programme for the foreseeable future, so why have they so consistently made her behave in a horrible way and be nasty to and about everyone? Surely they don't think that is admirable?

The first thing I remember about her was in her early teens: her being vilely rude to someone in the village shop, and her mother dotingly excusing it. I remember thinking at the time that if I had talked to a grown-up that way my mother would have made me apologise even if she thought I was in the right, which as I recall it was debatable anyway.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

In TA, the only people who have been shown as callous in their treatment of their farm animals are the elder Grundys, and Pip -- who carelessly killed lambs because she was too interested in dangling after Spencer, and forgot to check the flock, in 2013. ("David has found a dead ewe, probably with staggers but Alistair will confirm that tomorrow. Nearby her two lambs had died of starvation. Pip is supposed to have checked them; she could probably have saved the lambs if she had spotted the problem.")

This is so awful :( why on earth is she still such a regular and supposedly sympathetic character - she’s so awful!

I think we’re genuinely meant to root for her.

@DeusEx

I think we’re genuinely meant to root for her.

Like every one of her unfortunate "friends": like Izzy, who put her neck on the line to get Pip a job Pip didn't bother to turn up to, and was then never mentioned again.

It really is the case that "with friends like Pip, who needs enemies?"

Pip has no redeeming features at all. She's a selfish know-it-all, who is nasty to her siblings.

I'm the sort of person who sees good in everyone, and did like the ghastly teenage Pip as a character, but current Pip is not even well acted.

And Pip isn't helped by being played by an actress with appalling eNUNseeaSHUN. I cringe whenever she speaks.

I've been pleased there's been minimal Pip recently, even with the other awful storylines.
Glad it's not me that's confused about where Alice is living, I was convinced there was an extra episode I couldn't find somewhere...

Although I did think the Lillian/Justin bit was quite funny, think I'm in the minority though!

OK I'm posting for the first time after lurking for about two years thanks to @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g and @MayIDestroyYou's kind reminders to join in. You've always seemed a welcoming bunch, mind you

I also thought I'd missed an episode and had to check my feed. Now I think they're rewriting characters as they reappear and that's why it makes no sense. Joy's first appearance in many months (that I can remember) stood out as weird with Kirsty saying how much she'd miss her after previously spending months pretending not to be in when Joy called round. Jakob is now a sensitive, caring adult (although a bit weird to discuss his relationship with his girlfriends sister so openly) after previously being almost rude and definitely not open to chat. Lynda was kind, organised, caring and yes, OK, bossy, but is now getting Kristy to do her dirty work and not getting the legal side of her productions sorted, which is just unbelievable. Only the dopeys and Pip (and St. Smugula) seem entirely unchanged, sadly.

Hello, @Ulelia! Delighted to see another unlurker here. I agree with everything you say there. Depressing, isn't it.

Welcome to all the newbies. It would be interesting to find out whether the actors mind/notice that their characters aren't as they should be. Actually I seem to remember that 'Nigel' and 'Kathy' sometimes made their thoughts known.

I've concluded that Rob Titchener has joined the writing team (and is gaslighting us).

It's the outdoor life drawing class today, isn't it? I expect that will be "hilarious".