🧱 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.

*is. No Ian involvement

@cameocat

It was to give them authorisation to make decisions on her behalf. Essentially it means they can sign her into rehab without her consent as they will consent on her behalf due to being incapacitated.

This can't be right, surely? And if it isn't right, it is pretty reprehensible not to have done the research. Listening to that episode is hardly likely to help or reassure someone in a similar position to Alice.

No that can’t be right, that’s essentially a section under the mental health act

BOOP for Chris and Fallon’s chat on weds, really thoughtful

Not quite. A section puts you under the care of secondary mental health services. It most certainly does not give anyone else - husband, father etc - power to deprive her of her liberty.

As her husband, Chris is Alice's nearest relative for mental health purposes. AIUI this means he can request a mental health assessment for her. It doesn't give him authority over her.

I don't think Alice's issue is a mh one, but this authorisation thing sounds worse than a section - imagine having Brian having the say so over your life

All caught now that iPlayer has sorted itself out.

Top scene between Peggy and JD; Peggy so measured, accounting for her actions without the histrionics of JD, though I can now see that part of JD's reaction foreshadowed her later expression of her fear of Alice dying.

Also loved the denouement of the Fallon/Chris/Harrison night out: chippy supper and rubbish TV. A bit of ordinary.

A bit about that authorisation document though.

I was quite glad that JD spelt out to Alice her fears about the degree of risk that she is taking. She needed to be shocked into doing something about her illness.

I think what we were hearing was the fluttering wings of the Ambridge Health Fairy. Alice will be packed off for however long, her story will go silent having filled the schedules in recent weeks and when she quietly comes out nothing more will be said. I don't think Martha will suffer any ill-effects - that suggestion has already been quietly sidelined (ie no-one is talking about Martha anymore, it's all about Alice) and like so many big storylines it will come to an abrupt end and nothing more will be said.

The Ambridge Health Fairy will probably strike after the histrionics of JD and a big spat with Radio happens.

I do think the idea of the Aldridges swooping in and taking control is entirely believable. I'm not sure how old Alice is, but she has never really left home - her cottage was on her parent's farm, her father helped Chris buy the forge (am I remembering that right?), she's never had to worry about keeping a roof over her head - she could afford to lose her job because she knew there would be a job on the farm. Also she has the example of her sister of whom the same could be said - for all Kate's waffle and hot air and brief spell in South Africa she always floats back home abandoning her responsibilities whatever the continent. I actually know people like this is RL - bank rolled by their fathers (however ostensibly successful they have been in their careers) and therefore always slightly beholden and never truly able to stand on their own two feet.

I took it to mean that Alice has given J and B permission to investigate further on her behalf. It's tricky negotiating any sort of way forward with an adult child, especially one with complications as you have no rights at all. So Alice, finally shocked by Jennifer's fears, has acknowledged that maybe she does need help and maybe they are trying to help.

There are lots of possibilities in this storyline but, being The Archers, it can't dominate for too long but I think they will return to it as Martha grows.

About Alice never having left home; no one in Ambridge ever leaves home! The farthest they ever get is over the back gate.

Just LA - Alice has ‘gone to the loo’ in the middle of her meeting with her parents. They discuss the rehab Brine has found. He then produces a document, JD asks what it is. He replies:
“It’s an authority, for us to act on her behalf. We just need her signature and then we can crack on.”

Poorly researched by the team, I would have thought. And as a PP said, quite damaging for anyone battling an addiction.

echt
A bit about that authorisation document though.

It seems that if you've written something ambiguous in a radio show and people are wondering what on earth it meant, the thing to do is take to Twitter.

====================================================
Stephen Bowden
@wenlockhouse
The form presumably just authorises clinics to discuss Alice’s situation with Brian and Jenny. It won’t allow them to sign her up to treatment or anything like that. #TheArchers

keridavies
@keridavies
Just so. It’s certainly not an LPA or anything like that

Then one is tempted to ask why what Davies wrote, or at least what was broadcast, was 'an authority for us to act on her behalf'. Which is quite another kettle of fish.
I just listened again to check.

That was well a and b the c of d, I feel.

(As I see @JanFebAnyMonth had already accurately quoted). Apologies - saw the most recent post and rushed indignantly off to Listen Again, muttering 'pants on fire'...

@theThreeofWeevils

Then one is tempted to ask why what Davies wrote, or at least what was broadcast, was 'an authority for us to act on her behalf'. Which is quite another kettle of fish. I just listened again to check.

I haven't listened yet but could it be that that is what Jenny and Brian think it means.

I haven't listened for a couple of weeks, so I'm a bit behind.

Listening to this afternoon's episode, it sounds like Jenny Darling is a bit miffed with Peggy.

I can only guess that it's because Peggy knew about Alice's problem weeks ago, and didn't tell Jennifer.

Am I right so far?

Also, does anyone else get the feeling that Christopher is becoming a bit too fond of Emma?

It seemed to be blatantly obvious to me today.

I've probably missed a lot of the nuanced leading-up to this, by not listening for a week or two, but I'm fairly sure where this storyline is going!

Am I right? Or way off the mark?

@WheresThatCatGoneNow

I haven't listened for a couple of weeks, so I'm a bit behind.

Listening to this afternoon's episode, it sounds like Jenny Darling is a bit miffed with Peggy.

I can only guess that it's because Peggy knew about Alice's problem weeks ago, and didn't tell Jennifer.

Am I right so far?

Also, does anyone else get the feeling that Christopher is becoming a bit too fond of Emma?

It seemed to be blatantly obvious to me today.

I've probably missed a lot of the nuanced leading-up to this, by not listening for a week or two, but I'm fairly sure where this storyline is going!

Am I right? Or way off the mark?

Too fond of Emma? In what way, they've always seemed to have a pretty standard sibling relationship although Emma's never liked Alice.

Oh! How stupid am I

I totally forgot they're brother and sister!

I don't know where my head was this afternoon.

Blame it on me just trying to catch up with what's been going on.

In Ambridge and in Real Life!

I think WheresThatCatGoneNow meant Fallon rather than Emma. Not convinced that is the impression we are meant to be forming, though.

No, Weevils, I don't think that's what I meant.

I just wasn't really concentrating, and Chris just seemed to mention Emma's name quite a lot.

Sorry, Wheres. It would of course be ideal were Emmurr never to be mentioned again

Agree with JanFebAnyMonth that the scriptwriters have a responsibility to get details accurate when listeners/viewers might be in a similar situation.

I suppose the only possible explanation for the authorisation letter in a UK rehab service is if it's an American owned company operating here. I thought implied consent was the main principle in the UK and that you needed to explicitly request that you didn't want the health care provider to discuss your treatment with your family? Perhaps it's because Chris is still Alice's next of kin and so the clinic would assume he'd be the contact? I am scraping the barrel here and I don't know why as I certainly don't trust the scriptwriters to get things right. Are we also to assume Borsetshire Social Services have closed Martha's case without checking Alice and Chris have got an arrangement in place for sharing Martha's care? I actually felt sorry for Jenny Darling when she found Chris and Martha at Peggy's.

Thanks Bore, Weevils, Gasp0de and DoctorToo for the marvellous image of the River Am as the Styx and Joe Grundy as Charon.

I too think I heard a non Ambridge reference to fondant fancies, MayIDestroyYou. I can't remember where either but I know I laughed because I can never hear the word without thinking of Peggy's infamous will sharing tea with Rob and Tony etc.