🧱 Archers thread #128: Alice lobs a brick, Emma hurls brickbats, Neil is a brick. Cement your relationship with The Archers here.

[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 collect superhero figures, or other unusual things.

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.)

Apologies for not using any of the suggestions offered for this thread's title. I'll paste them in here instead to get us started.

I like the leeway pun here from @ThePawtriarchy: Bacon, Bores and Booze. Elizabeth needs convincing, Helen needs some leeway and Alice is in crisis.

@nettie434 gets to the nub of what's been happening recently: Beechwood, Batman and Booze: Rex's pigs and Helen and Lee have new homes but will Lee's collection of action figures plant the apple of discord in their sylvan idyll? Alice's alcohol problems continue to cause friction between the Aldridges and Carters. Has anyone warned Borsetshire Children's Services what awaits them?

Great one liner from @PseudoBadger - ‘Nobody puts Captain America in the corner’.

And a timely bit of advice from @JanFebAnyMonth: If this evening’s episode has raised any issues for you, please call the BBC Helpline post on this MN thread for details of organisations which might help you.

So, off we go again! We may get back to five episodes a week before the next thread. Here's hoping that it's Friday we get back, not Sunday.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I find that fairly realistic. Jazzer knows, or thinks he knows, that he can handle drink. Alice can't and has behaved very badly under the influence many times. Jazzer's thinking is very black and white. He sees an extremely privileged young woman whose family would pay for her to get professional help. She seems to have had everything and is throwing it away, including her new baby, to whom Jazzer feels a strong bond because he helped with her birth. Jazzer, Ed and their circle have had much tougher lives than Alice and only a fraction of her opportunities, but haven't become alcoholics.

(A less black and white thinker might be uneasily conscious of the possible health damage from heavy drinking falling short of outright addiction, but Jazzer wouldn't.)

And yes, if his mother was frequently drunk and neglectful, especially if she was also sometimes abusive, it would be quite surprising if Jazzer felt sympathy for Alice. He isn't close to his family as far as we know.

Pity about the rain in Ambridge, while the rest of the country enjoys glorious sunshine, but their microclimate is often out of step with ours, for some reason.

Totally agree. The division between alcoholics and non-alcoholics, however nebulous, allows "normal drinkers" to stigmatise and judge alcoholics and dependent drinkers and feel superior.

Jazzer's ketamine-induced brain damage is never mentioned either.

The magic waters of the Am cured it, Bore! They have amazing powers.

A bit like the Styx!

I still find it inexplicable that the wider Archers/Aldridge clan know nobody that has successfully received professional help for substance abuse or that Chris and Alice's friend, Harrison, hasn't thought to signpost the family to guidance and support services for themselves.

Wouldn't they have thought to phone the original clinic?

I am too annoyed to listen at the moment.

@BoreOfWhabylon

Jazzer's ketamine-induced brain damage is never mentioned either.

Bore, you beat me to it! If the SWs had even remembered the overdose, they might have made Jazzer less judgmental. Still, continuity seems optional these days.

There are a few hints that Jazzer's animosity to Alice is triggered by personal experience, presumably of an alcoholic mother.

The Aldridge's are awakening very painfully from years in denial. They are only just realising that being an Aldridge isn't always enough to make you superior to the rest of the village.

Jazzer was on ketamine?!

@BoreOfWhabylon

Jazzer's ketamine-induced brain damage is never mentioned either.

That's because it was the result of taking too much on a single occasion, and as is usually the case when that happens his short-term memory-loss didn't endure for more than a few months.

He'd been taking small amounts of the stuff for about three weeks, at that point, and after he came out of hospital never took it again.

Has the possibility of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome dawned on Brine and JD yet?

JD sounds so relieved to have found someone whose fault it might be, even if it is her mother.

I shouldn't think so. They're still being Chris for sending her over the edge (and now Peggy).

Sorry my response was to @Zzelda

Yes @FreezerBird that is exactly it. Everyone else's fault.

@BoreOfWhabylon

A bit like the Styx!

Joe Grundy rows the boat, and it's guarded by his three headed dog, Ciderus.

Damned iplayer isn't loading tonight's episode.

@KimikosNightmare

Damned iplayer isn't loading tonight's episode.

It's trying do do right by you, dear.

That having been said, Peggy is a magnificent beast. But where was Hilda? Could she not have earned her keep by stealthily stifling The More-Important-Than-Anything Marthurr while Christifurr was stuffing his yokelish gob with cake? That cat is a sore disappointment to me.

Love that @DoctorTwo !

guarded by his three headed dog, Ciderus
Oh, perfect, @BoreOfWhabylon
The poor brute doesn't have three heads, it has a hangover, and is merely the most recently mentioned in a series of animals that have suffered Grundy neglect. It was unsupervised at the Cider Shed and died as a result. Its agenda and that of Joe's shade may well turn out to be very different. One will need to widdle frequently, or spend two pennies, as he puts it in his quaint old grasping country way as he claws for the orbits of the recently deceased; the other has a collar and Χάρων.

Why have the Grundys been reinvented as exemplary stockmen?

Sorry, no disrespect to Bore intended but I meant @DoctorTwo, too (darlings).

It's the spectre of Scruff, Weevils

BOOP for the mention of lemon drizzle cake.

(Who was it who wrote so convincingly on the ritualistic, metaphorical significance of particular foodstuffs in Ambridge? The dressed salmon, the chilli, "those biscuits you like"? I'm sure I heard the words 'fondant fancy' quite recently - but I may have imagined it.)

@BoreOfWhabylon

It's the spectre of Scruff, Weevils

Well, that would be terribly sweet in some ways, but why did the stupid mutt not drag the Snell-menace down with him and abandon her midstream? No sense of public service, some hounds...

Ah, Weevils, all the animals of Ambriudge masu disappoint you.

Otto the Bull had a perfect opportunity and failed quite to kill Tony. for instance, and a herd of cattle stampeded through Brookfield and trampled nobody, not even Georgie who was in their way.

masu? must!

I expect the llamas fended him off Weevils
I understand they are v protective creatures and deploy extremely accurate spitting.