🧱 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.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I think it is the hunting bit that is illegal; you can get together with friends and dogs and go for a long cross-country ride together without breaking the law.

During that long cross country walk with friends and dogs, you can also lay a drag scent for the hounds to chase. All legal.

Not legal: setting said dogs after a living animal.

If the dogs end up going after and killing a living animal anyway….

M'yes. In the wood near us where I walked my son's dog when she was in the country, we came across a dead deer which had almost certainly been chased, pulled down and killed by a dog. It's unlikely to have been hounds in a pack, or there would have been a lot less of it left -- no hunt goes through there anyway, as far as I know. I doubt that the owner of the dog in question was in a position to stop it from happening; probably a long way away at the time, calling frantically to the effect "Fenton! FENTON! Oh Jesus Christ!" Stopping a large dog from chasing another animal isn't always the easiest thing to do.

(Son's dog walked past the corpse with the air of one who would say "nothing to do with me guv." And when we were walking back about an hour later, the carcass was gone: someone must have come with a large car and got some free venison.)

in case people don't get the reference there.

Changing the subject completely, my Facebook had an ad for this place that offers yurts, therapists and converted horseboxes: Kate and the (never to be mentioned again) hunt stables could be on to a winner this Summer!

www.nestacamping.co.uk/accommodation.html#yurts

On second thoughts I remember 'kennels', not stables, but there must be plenty of rustic horse transporters in Ambridge.

Listening again - it's a bit unlikely, isn't it, that Brian could have been unaware of Adam's birthday? I'm sure it's cause for days of reminiscence and present wrapping on Jenny's part every year. There's no way - even with Alice - that Jenny would have let him forget.

Brian has probably learned over the past forty years and more to ignore most of what Jennifer says when she is in witter-mode. Her signal-to-noise ratio is low.

Yes, if Brian didn't actually LIVE with Jenny it might have escaped his notice, but otherwise rather unlikely.

They much too much fuss over birthdays on The Archers. Especially birthdays of relatives as removed as second cousins, which apparently demand a card walked over in person to the other side of the village.

So who bets Adam will be back sighing on a tractor by the end of the week, or will the silly ass realise that going it alone doesn’t entail simply setting up as a contractor to serve your ex-company’s former clients?

Only just caught up with Alistair/Shula/Nandie McDowell episode. I know she’s a nasty piece of work but really, what kind of cow says to her dumped ex husband “if I didn’t know you better I’d think you were jealous.” He probably is bloody jealous because he was in love with her and didn’t want to get divorced! Never thought I’d feel sorry for Alistair. Ffs.

She really isn't a nasty piece of work.

One day the scales will fall from your eyes ILoveShula, yours and Alistair’s.

Never unless she has an affair with Neil

Um... Don't they say that love is blind?

What's LOVE got to do with it?

Doesn't he smell of pigs, and wouldn't the thought of a furious Susan put the fear of God into you?

@ILoveShula

Doesn't he smell of pigs, and wouldn't the thought of a furious Susan put the fear of God into you?

Not unless he rolls around in the muck. I assume he has a shower and sticks his overalls in the washer when he comes home. Susan, though, is much more fearsome.

@ILoveShula

What's LOVE got to do with it?

Your name....

I needed a username and I thought it might be available.

Actually, she is one of my favourite characters. I didn't like her carrying on with Richard Locke, I think she is well acted.

My question was in terms of having an affair.

Other favourites: Brian, Peggy, JD, Dobbin, Kate, Alice, Neil, Helen, Kursedy, Frilly, Jim.

I adored the real Tom Archer and liked the ghastly teenage Pip.

I think Shula is a good person, it's just that she doesn't come over very well when she offers her well-meaning advice, or does something well meaning. So flawed, yes, but no Christian thinks themselves without flaw, and Shula does at least try to reflect on herself.

We are about due for an affair, but Shula and Neil would be a step too far (though part of me thinks the repercussions of such a liaison might be quite fun to listen to).

Couldn't it be just that Neil and Susan break up and then he gets together with Shula? Not that I want that to happen but they're both pretty godly (and with Neil I think that's in reality not just in theory).

I like Neil and Susan's marriage, it seems realistic. They care for each other and tolerate/get exasperated by each other's weaknesses. In a way that Ruth and David don't seem equal or realistic.

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!

Hang on, I've just turned the radio on having not listened for a week or so.

Who is this? What is going on?

For a couple of confused seconds I thought it was Freddie - then realised that no, it really couldn't be.....

I've not listened for ages. I was just about to ask what's happened to Russ, when suddenly his oily voice wriggled into my ear.

And then Freddy has just uttered my other question: "Vince Casey? Really?!"

I've got whiplash...