🧱 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.

Vince and Elizabeth seem to be getting on terribly well and I thought Vince was quite jolly when accepting the keys to the bridal suite. But, what were we supposed to make of the froideur that descended over the picnic re Vince’s anger with his excellent, though presumptuous employee who wanted some time off. I know Elizabeth thinks she is businesswoman of the year but she got cross enough when Vince overstepped the mark with regards to Rex’s pigs and LL’s business affairs. Yet here she was basically instructing Vince not to fire his stock manager and then sending him off to make her supper as if she was talking to a teenager. Trouble in paradise or just a gentle reminder they are both high-fliers?

In Lily’s mind’s eye she probably looks like a Pre-Raphaelite. She is going to hate CMR’s avant garde interpretation of her beauty…

Pre-Raphaelite - d'you think? I'd have imagined that given her Gwen John leanings she'd prefer to be portrayed as all attenuated and angular, with a tinge of suffering thrown in!

(Don't @ me if any of those turn out to be by someone else. I only grabbed the most appealing google images.)

I think Lily thinks of herself as a little like this ... or perhaps like that portrait Mrs De Winter dresses up to look like in Rebecca.

But I wouldn’t bet him going full Botticelli or something and painting her as a nymph.

Does Lily actually have Gwen John leanings, or is it just she was left the painting?

I think another reason the divorce took so long was that CMR was never very active in pushing for it. I can imagine he wasn't very quick with returning any paperwork etc. Do we know when the process actually started?

@DadDadDad

But at least the scriptwriters used the term "staycation" correctly to mean a holiday where you stay at home - in contrast to the irritating habit (in the last year especially) of the media to use it to mean "holidaying in Britain"! We've had lovely holidays as a family without leaving the country - but they were real holidays, don't demean them as staycations just because it's not two weeks on the Med!

Sorry, rant over.

While agreeing with PP about the term "staycation", it does give an idea of how many people's ideal holiday is sunshine, hot weather, swimming and drinking.

So next year, god willing, they will be back to holidaying abroad.

I have another peeve with staycation - it is an amalgam of stay+vacation. In my young day, only universities had vacations. And nobody British says they are going on vacation, they go on holiday!

We did a staycation over the bank holiday weekend. Admittedly we are in an area popular with tourists, but it was quite fun to visit a few local places we've not visited for years.

When did Lizzie and Vince decide they were more than "just friends"? I felt certain there was a conversation a few weeks ago....

Anyway it's nice to have a week focusing on LL. Adam was beginning to annoy me intensely.

I'm really quite interested to "see" the painting of Lily.

And more interested than hearing from Lily.

Ugh I hope she’s dressed.

Question: was Nigel actually a nice character?

To a newer listener of mere years rather than decades, he seems like a right dick - leaving Freddie Lower Loxley and leaving Lily…a painting?

Oh but I love Lily. Not nearly as much as Freddie of course.

Nigel was adorable.

Nigel didn't 'leave' Freddie LL. It was passed on by a covenant or something.

Nigel was wonderful and loved him even more than I love Freddie.

Nigel was one of the very few characters in The Archers during the 1990s who was not malicious. That is why people liked him. Yes, he was a nice person.

He did not leave Lily a painting; he put a painting in the bank to be given to her for her eighteenth birthday present. On the same date lucky old Freddie got an women's engagement ring which had belonged to his grandmother as his eighteenth birthday present from his father.

(Amazing how Nigel knew that he was going to die unexpectedly so he had to leave presents from him in the bank for their eighteenth, isn't it. And amazing how he knew Lily would be Artistic and want to impress a man twice her age who fancied himself as an artist....)

especially since he knew absolutely nothing about art himself, preferring Uncle Rupert's amateur daubs to the valuable pictures he had painted them over.

Question: was Nigel actually a nice character?
Nigel was luffly. He has been a bit beatified in recent years but he was luffly.
Have a listen to this, in which Nigel Seed is slightly more waspish than usual but still has his beautiful, mellifluous tones:

It is normal for something like LL, or a farm or whatever, to be left to one child, for obvious reasons. That doesn't make Nigel 'bad'.
He was irritating, and a bit of a fool, but not malicious. And he did occasionally put his foot down when his horrible wife was being particularly awful.
Did enjoy him being splatted, though.

Freddie inheriting Lower Loxley rather than Lily is simply old fashioned male primogeniture in practice. It's why people like the Duke of Westminster have vast estates rather than a title, a few medals and a tarnished silver teapot.

What's interesting is that according to The Archers website, Lily is actually the elder:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/19Hb0vR1nVvzTrBBgjn7lPv/lily-pargetter

While the Royal Family changed the rules to enable Charlotte to be next in line to the throne after George (unlike Princes Anne), that only applied to the Royal Family and other families can carry on with eldest son inheriting.

I've enjoyed the switch to Lower Loxley too. Russ is awful but he is entertaining listening.

@nettie434

Freddie inheriting Lower Loxley rather than Lily is simply old fashioned male primogeniture in practice. It's why people like the Duke of Westminster have vast estates rather than a title, a few medals and a tarnished silver teapot.

What's interesting is that according to The Archers website, Lily is actually the elder:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/19Hb0vR1nVvzTrBBgjn7lPv/lily-pargetter

While the Royal Family changed the rules to enable Charlotte to be next in line to the throne after George (unlike Princes Anne), that only applied to the Royal Family and other families can carry on with eldest son inheriting.

I've enjoyed the switch to Lower Loxley too. Russ is awful but he is entertaining listening.

You're confusing titles in the sense of being called The Duke of Westminster with titles to actual land. The former pass to male heirs- the latter can pass to anyone.

In reality an estate like LL may well be held by a corporate or trust vehicle rather than an individual.

In some ways Lily will be better off than Freddie. The child in such families who "inherits" is the one tied to the estate and expected to be there, whilst other children are free to do what they want.

As long as the estate isn't broke I've never come across a situation where the children who didn't "inherit" weren't more than adequately compensated by other trust arrangements.

@RandomCatGenerator

Question: was Nigel actually a nice character?

To a newer listener of mere years rather than decades, he seems like a right dick - leaving Freddie Lower Loxley and leaving Lily…a painting?

I'm no expert on trust law and I strongly suspect the production team has no expertise in it either but in 19th century novels like Pride and Prejudice Nigel would have had no choice in the matter, as inheritance would have been dictated by a family trust deed or whatever it's called. Mr Bennett was going to agree with his son to do something to the entail to break the trust (?) but of course he never had one, hence Mr Collins being in line to inherit.

Thank you all - I feel informed and Nigel has risen in my estimation as a result of your collective affection.

Nigel was really nice, fun, scatty and kind. I was always bewildered as to why he fancied Lizzy so much, she always seems like a rather arch PITA. But her REALLY did and it was nice when they got together and got married - I'm feeling old now. He was very sweet!

BTW am I the only one finding myself humming this ode to teenage masturbation song?

The DoW is my secret crush

Am still cross about Nigel.

All that cheery impulsive posh loveliness wrapped up in adoration of Lizzie and fun with his kids. Christ why David couldn’t have gone instead…