🐷 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!

@WheresThatCatGoneNow

I do ❤ Neil.

I wish he was our Prime Minister! He would do such a good job.

Anyone agree?

I'm waiting for the poster @EmmaGrundyForPM to put in an appearance. She might have something to say on the matter.

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"

Wasn't the whole point that Alish didn't have to drive to get to the village shop, and she was using needing to drive to take her thirst custom elsewhere as leverage in her negotiation with Jim? Had he not pried into her well-being and taken it upon himself to decide what was good for her, and simply sold her the vodka, she would simply have toddled off home to get stocious and it would have been much better all round. OK, 20/20 hindsight; but it's so satisfying when sanctimonious sticky-beakery goes gloriously spectacularly wrong.

He had the right to decline to sell booze to a drunk. Actually, he has that duty in law, with a fine for him if he sells it to her. Pity he didn't know that law and simply tell her so.

@WheresThatCatGoneNow

Why was Helen being so bloody difficult about giving Kirsty a temporary job in the dairy?

It sounded horribly like she thought that the job was so menial, that it was beneath Kirsty's social status in Ambridge.

Which really highlights Helen's snobbery, and reveals her true opinion of Susan and Clarrie, as working-class yokels who should think themselves lucky to be allowed to work for her.

Thoughts, anyone?

I agree with you. I had the same feeling.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

He had the right to decline to sell booze to a drunk. Actually, he has that duty in law, with a fine for him if he sells it to her. Pity he didn't know that law and simply tell her so.

This.

It was not immediately obvious that she was drunk. And being an alcoholic is not in itself illegal, so he should have been ok.

@theThreeofWeevils

It was not immediately obvious that she was drunk. And being an alcoholic is not in itself illegal, so he should have been ok.

It was totally obvious she was drunk. Sleazing up to a man in his eighties in that flirty way was frankly a dead giveaway: Jim would have seen at once that she wasn't sober.

I didn't think it was obvious she was drunk until she lost her temper. Before then, it was borderline, particularly to those who don't know her that well - very well acted, I thought.

Well I twigged that she'd had a drink right away!

The vaguely mischievous tone she was speaking in was a dead giveaway.

She also seemed to be speaking very slowly and carefully which made me think she was drunk. In the same way as I suspect people driving with excessive caution late at night of having been at the pub and over-compensating.

@FreezerBird

She also seemed to be speaking very slowly and carefully which made me think she was drunk. In the same way as I suspect people driving with excessive caution late at night of having been at the pub and over-compensating.

@FreezerBird spot on, ex DH got stopped for parking too carefully in the middle of the day! He was twice the limit

@FreezerBird

She also seemed to be speaking very slowly and carefully which made me think she was drunk. In the same way as I suspect people driving with excessive caution late at night of having been at the pub and over-compensating.

She sounded drunk to me. I don't think Jim's behaviour remotely resembled "sanctimonious sticky-beakery"

Forgive me thread-ees for I have sinned. It had been 18 months since I last listened to The Archers.

But now I'm back! I have heard the last month I think, and have kind of deduced what has been going on whilst I have been away.

@PseudoBadger! Our founder has returned. Lovely to see you here. TBH, the last 18 months will have been the easiest in Archers history to crack, given the dreadful monologue interlude last year.

Welcome back @PseudoBadger .
I'm sure someone could give you a summary of the last 18 months in a few sentences if they were so inclined.
Or read the thread titles to give you an idea!

Finally a social worker!! I will be furious if they screw this up

Welcome back @PseudoBadger!

For your penance you must offer up a novena to St Smugula of The Horses and process three times around Lakey Hill. On your knees.

“ OK, 20/20 hindsight; but it's so satisfying when sanctimonious sticky-beakery goes gloriously spectacularly wrong.”
As so often I couldn’t agree with you less. Alice and her family need help, rather than people saying it’s none of their business.

It certainly wasn't any of Jim's business. He is nothing to do with Alice. (Since presumably Alice will now be banned from the shop, it now is, of course.) And I doubt that you, or many other posters, would welcome 'help', i.e., interference, and nosiness masquerading as 'concern' from random neighbours if one of your relatives were to take up regular public piss-artistry.
It is a great pity the brick missed Susan. How many of us have not from time to time wished to lob heavy objects at our mothers-in-law?

If not the filth, then Emmur seems to me the likeliest candidate for reporting Alice to SS - out of sheer spite and not concern for the blasted baby, as she knows it's being taken care of.

The police would have reported it to social services. It's standard.

And when SS have established that the child is not at risk, would they have grounds for further involvement with Alice? I hope they wouldn't - that would be a waste of public funds apart from anything else.

@theThreeofWeevils

And when SS have established that the child is not at risk, would they have grounds for further involvement with Alice? I hope they wouldn't - that would be a waste of public funds apart from anything else.

Children's services have no remit with adults unless it is in relation to the safety of a child, of course not. However I would not say that Martha is not at risk, not at all. The issue of contact with her mother is not settled, and the question of how she is to be kept safe during contact with her mother needs to be addressed. The family don't seem capable of making these arrangements themselves at the moment do they - they need help.

If it is Children's Services, then as you say, obviously they won't be interested in Alice except in relation to 'contact'. That will probably not cheer up JD (who I am fairly sure said 'Social' - the stigma!) all that much. So that's all right

@theThreeofWeevils

If it is Children's Services, then as you say, obviously they won't be interested in Alice except in relation to 'contact'. That will probably not cheer up JD (who I am fairly sure said 'Social' - the stigma!) all that much. So that's all right

She said social services. It would only have been Children's services. Adult social care don't get involved with people who get drunk and throw bricks at shops. If they tell the story properly the social worker will do a full assessment involving the family. Contact will be part of it.

That's a big "if".