🐷 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!

The 🔮 says (in a muffled sort of way) it was the green dress wot dunnit. Unlucky. Only have to look at Xander, poor motherless little soul.

Yes it paralleled Kirsty’s almost first wedding. Another reason why a scream from JD would have been appropriate

Yes Brine was quite out of character then. In the way he expressed himself I mean.

Why a paternity suit?
Chris knows about Harrison. Has Emma told him about Ed? There was stuff in AmEx (or so I am told). He also knows that she has lied to him (about the drinking). Wouldn't be too surprising if Chris's imagination went into overdrive.

I think that scene with Brian and Fallon probably only happened so he could say ‘oh, is that what she meant, hang on, who else knew?’ when it all came out.

Emma really couldn’t help herself with the ‘I told you so’ could she?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - I really hope Pip and Rex don’t end up together.

I agree that Brine's fulminations were out of character, and only there to inflame Fallon, to assist the storyline.

The very thought of Pip and Rex. Bleurghhh.

The very thought of Pip and Rex.
Just like the Grundy pattern of mating, then. At noght all brothers are grey.

night, ffs.

I wonder how exactly Chris proposes to look after Martha? Are we going to find that Susan and Emma can miraculously sync their work shifts so that they are always available?

Remember Rex was desperately in love with Pip, from afar, when the tumble (in several senses) with Toby happened.....

Delighted this is out in the open now. Lots of possible ramifications.

Peggy: Oh dear, this is what I've feared all along. I did my best to warn Chris when we were watching the Christmas lights being switched on all round the Green ...

Jennifer: WHAT DID YOU SAY, MUM? YOU'VE KNOWN THIS SINCE DECEMBER AND SAID NOTHING TO ME?

🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆

Brian: I knew no good would ever come of Alice marrying that boy. He's half Horrobin, you know. I said at the time 'Jenny, we have to just think of this as Alice's starter marriage'. It's lasted longer than I thought, but now she can start again. Plenty of decent chaps around who won't make such a fuss about Alice needing a touch of Dutch courage before a big event.

Lilian: Couldn't agree more, Brian. Pass the bottle, darling, that G&T hardly touched the sides. I need another one pronto.

🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆

Susan: I knew no good would ever come of Chris marrying that girl. She's always thought she was so much better than us, just like her mother, but just look at how her father's carried on over the years - one affair after another! And her aunt, propping up the bar in The Bull, night after night, cackling away, and that Kate, running away time after time, abandoning children on every continent. No shame, any of them.

Neil: Pack it in, Susan! We've got to think of Martha now, and our son. Badmouthing the Aldridges and the Archers won't do any good at all.

🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆

Very good Gasp0de! I do remember Chris talking to Peggy but I don't remember what Peggy actually said, beyond talking about Jack.

Brilliant @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g! What do you think Emmur will have to say (just wait a sec while I tie cushions over my ears though)?

Peggy said something to the effect of him maybe having to choose between his wife and his child one day, didn’t she?

Yes, and I think she went as far as to say he would have to leave, with the baby.

Or should, rather.

@BoreOfWhabylon, re. paternity.
Kristiffur wanted a baby and knows that Alish made a pass at PC Plod.
Kristiffur knows that Alish drank dangerously through the early stages of pregnancy, possibly causing serious harm to the Chrysalis.

Kristiffur could face bringing up poor little Marthyr alone, or might think that Alish has not only made a pass at Plod but at others. We know she has form.

Bringing up a child is not easy, and if there are additional issues, can be tough.

Might he not try to establish if Marthyr is not his?

Might he not try to establish if Marthyr is not his?

No, he's the one who has always wanted a family and children.

Might he not try to establish if Marthyr is not his?

I’d be surprised if it goes in that direction. He is obsessed with playing Dad-of-the-year at the moment so is unlikely to want to give up that newly-found identity. Emma and Susan will rally round and in the end it is probably only Clarrie who will suffer as she ends up plugging the gaps in the dairy while Susan looks after Martha.

What is going to happen to the buffet now the event has been called off? Who is going to eat the pulled pork rolls now?!?

OK. I'm pretty certain that someone will raise the issue. And, in Mystic ILoveShula mode, my money is on Fallon.

@JanFebAnyMonth

Peggy said something to the effect of him maybe having to choose between his wife and his child one day, didn’t she?

"She has seen what drink does to a family: this is about him and his child, not just Alice. It's vital to put the baby first, and if it gets too bad, he should consider leaving Alice" is what it says in the synopsis for 31st December 2020.

Her actual words were "Chris, I've seen first hand what drinking does to a family. To children. This isn't just about Alice. It's about you and your child. If in the end Alice can't stop drinking for good, it's vital that you put the baby first. If things get very bad, as bad as they did for me, then it might mean you leaving Alice."

Personally I don't think that five months is enough time for any life-changing decision to be sensible, but I don't live my life on the accelerated timetable people in Ambridge have to. To reach "the end" after only five months seems very bleak to me, but probably par for the course in a place where things happen for six weeks at a time and are then forgotten about.

Loved hearing Emma blossom into the matriarch she was always destined to become!

I've already forgotten what possible connection Rex has to the rest of the Christening congregation.

Well it didn't take Emma long to revert to type (judgemental, bitter).

How much had Alice had to drink? I'm finding it difficult to believe a hardened drinker would get that drunk and almost drop a baby after drinking a miniature.

Predicting an custody battle of sorts between the Aldridge and Carter grandmothers...

@Eastie77

Well it didn't take Emma long to revert to type (judgemental, bitter).

How much had Alice had to drink? I'm finding it difficult to believe a hardened drinker would get that drunk and almost drop a baby after drinking a miniature.

Predicting an custody battle of sorts between the Aldridge and Carter grandmothers...

Eastie77 How much had Alice had to drink? I'm finding it difficult to believe a hardened drinker would get that drunk and almost drop a baby after drinking a miniature.

Chris mentioned empty bottles in her bag, in the plural; it would only take a few 5cl miniatures of vodka to make up 35cl, half a standard-size bottle.

What makes it worse for Chris, I suspect, is that Alice can't have got hold of these in Ambridge (The Bull? The village shop? No chance) on impulse, so they must have been bought and hoarded with the intention that they could be drunk when she needed to, rather than it being a case of "Daddy gave me the wine, and I did drink". He would probably have found it less difficult to accept if she had necked the champagne sent to them by Pam Gibson and pressed on her by Jennifer.

MayIDestroyYou
I've already forgotten what possible connection Rex has to the rest of the Christening congregation.

One of the godparents. Pip and Emma were the other two.