🧱 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.

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?

We don't need to assume, nettie, thanks to ambridgereporter.org.uk/synopses/2021.html#May

social services have offered [Alice] a referral to drug and alcohol services, which she refused, and asked if she was OK about Martha living with Chris and she said yes. Lilian points out that the last thing they need is a custody battle

Their interest was in the child. As long as it is being adequately cared for, I can't see why they'd be over-bothered who was doing so, and they'd found Pig-Ark View to be nice and clean...

PS it was the 24th May episode.

Thanks Weevils. I listen to the 2pm repeat most often but it's a popular time for Zoom meetings and I sometimes miss a vital episode unless I listen to the omnibus or rarely via Sounds.

I do love the name Pig-Ark View. Soosan would be horrified.

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?

This isn’t true. Confidentiality is absolute in adults unless we have specific consent to share information. With children it is assumed that we can share with those who have parental responsibility. It’s a bit grey in the teenage years and goes really on a case by case basis depending on the child and their capacity and situation. Similarly no one can give permission on behalf of another adult (who has lost capacity for whatever reason) for treatment to be given or withheld. A conversation would usually be had with loved ones to discuss the situation but ultimately medics act in the patient’s perceived ‘best interests’ (which would partly be determined by establishing the family’s views/prior knowledge of the patient’s wishes).

‘Next of kin’ doesn’t really have any bearing in life (contrary to popular belief) - it’s a term that is really only applicable after someone has died. You can choose to share you information with anyone or no one. (I have patients for example who give permission for me to discuss things with their neighbour who helps them out/collects prescription etc, but not with their son/daughter who lives miles away).

@RedthroatedCaracara

If my mother was aged 90 odd I don't think I'd risk telling her I'd never forgive her. Jenny might not get the chance.

Chris irritates me.

I really don't understand the animosity towards Chris, Alice is the one who has destroyed their relationship, he's the one who is trying to do the best for the baby she couldn't care enough about to stop drinking, a lifestyle choice. He's the victim, not her.

So Fallon recollects times with her drunken father. Peggy went through hell. How come Jenny D, remembers nothing of times with her alcoholic father. Most children have a horrendous time.

@Minimammoth

So Fallon recollects times with her drunken father. Peggy went through hell. How come Jenny D, remembers nothing of times with her alcoholic father. Most children have a horrendous time.

I find it fascinating that Fallon recollects times with her drunken father even though she never saw him when she was a child; that was her complaint against him when he turned up in Ambridge after not being part of her life since she was about three. She wanted to go and live with him and his new partner when Jolene got together with Sid and told her that they would be living at the Bull, but he didn't want to have anything to do with her.

When Waye was found by her fallen over and incoherent somewhere in Borchester, what ailed him was not drink but pneumonia.

@JudgeJ I agree. I think there is a bit of snobbery going on.

If there is - and that's a charming accusation - then it might provide a counterbalance to the inverted snobbery of the current programme. Aldridges bad and blinkered; peasants, right (but frequently repulsive)

What is calling someone a yokel if not snobbery? He has a highly skilled trade without which the horsey toffs would be lost.

He was recast and given a 'local' accent and since then has been considerably 'dumbed down' from the intelligent, assured Chris that Alice married. It's not listeners' snobbery that has driven that. Could be pure coincidence, I suppose.

You may have noticed that I am rude about pretty much eveyone, yokel or not. Except Hilda.

@CaptainMyCaptain

What is calling someone a yokel if not snobbery? He has a highly skilled trade without which the horsey toffs would be lost.

If snobbery is looking down on somebody for the class into which they were born, there is a lot of it around, and as Weevils points out, much of it aimed against the Aldridges and Archers.

Thanks for that background Prestissimo. I still feel rather frustrated by the lack of clarity (for me at least) in Brian's reference to the 'authorisation'. Alice has capacity and she is an adult. So why can she not decide what she will tell her parents?

We are told upthread that Keri Davies clarified he was not referring to a lasting power of attorney in his script. It was also mentioned that 'authorisations' are not the norm in rehab services.

I don't suppose we will ever get an explanation of why Alice had to sign something but I will just put in in my list of Ambridge mysteries.

I find it fascinating that Fallon recollects times with her drunken father even though she never saw him when she was a child; that was her complaint against him when he turned up in Ambridge after not being part of her life since she was about three. She wanted to go and live with him and his new partner when Jolene got together with Sid and told her that they would be living at the Bull, but he didn't want to have anything to do with her.

I thought exactly the same about Fallon's memories of Wayne and then wondered if Had somehow forgotten large chunks, but I don't think so. I think it's another example of soap writers changing the past to suit the current narrative.

Then we have JD who actually did grow up with a alcoholic father who seems either to have blocked out his behaviour or is in complete denial. She also has no empathy for her mother wasting decades of her life with a selfish drunk and instead of sympathising with her mother over the waste of those years instead blames her for Alice's continued drinking, JD is so deluded it's like she is on a different planet. And she was an absolute bitch to her mother. I'm so sick of listening to JD's breathy whining.

How can Brian and JD have lived so long and not know anything about the nature of addiction, whether it's smoking, betting or alcohol, no-one but the addict can make themselves stop, you cannot cure an addict unless the addict wants to be cured. This part of the storyline is just not credible.

Aaaaand breathe, I feel better having got that off my chest.

Script by Weevils?

Dum de dum de dum de dum
Dum de dum de da dum

Hilda: Miaow.

dum de dum de dum de dum...

We need more Hilda.

Hilda inflicting amounts of pain and scars on JD would be great. Especially if Peggy said "disloyal daughters get stitches"

He was recast and given a 'local' accent and since then has been considerably 'dumbed down' from the intelligent, assured Chris that Alice married this is so true. He was literally re-cast as a yokel.

I mentioned on the last thread that I was baffled by Fallon's revelation that Wayne was/is an alcoholic. It was never mentioned before Alice's current storyline and it seems odd that Jolene offered him a job in the Bull if he was addicted to alcohol. There was no need to rewrite history in this way. Fallon is a nice person, she could have been just as kind and understanding of Alice's illness as she is at the moment without an alcoholic relative.

@TheSilveryPussycat

Script by Weevils?

Dum de dum de dum de dum
Dum de dum de da dum

Hilda: Miaow.

dum de dum de dum de dum...

You forgot the screams as Hilda tears the rest of the cast limb from limb.

I was sort of assuming that had already happened in a previous episode

Is the Archers not going back to 6 episodes Sun-Mon?

Keri Davies has tweeted about writing for 5-episode weeks but we don't know when that will start. The "Next on" bit of the website is showing a continuation of 4 episodes a week at least to the end of June.

I get very annoyed with the "let's rewrite history/characters" attitude of the current editorial team. Wayne deserves better and presumably he has been banished to the back of the cereal cabinet, rather than being one of the stars of lockdown.

Completely unrelated, my Twitter feed tells me that June Spencer is 102 today!