🧱 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.

Forgetting, @R4? I, for one, shall be thanking heaven fasting.

Oh FFS!

B*r*g BBC!

(But people might still post? Some people listen at lunchtime ...)

@RandomCatGenerator

Ughhhhhhhhhh

Confirmed that he’s a user though. Commitment? Nooo, why would I want that when I can just carry on with my made up job and free studio space…

He can't win, can he?

If he were to marry Spoilt Brat he'd just be after her money/ hedging his bets.

If he doesn't marry her he's commitment phobic.

I like CMR in the same way I like Kate- they are both awful but amusing.

Maybe @KimikosNightmare. Maybe that’s the sad downside of being a child grooming, abusive asshole.

Yawn. Lily was not a child (even if Lily's estimation of her maturity was a little over-generous). She certainly wasn't suffering from low 'self-esteem' and there has een no evidence that she was groomed or that Russ is an 'abuser'. A chancer, maybe. On the other hand, we have to presume the gallery is doing ok, so he's not wholly freeloading.
To position Lily as an abused victim is A Bit Much, I reckon. Just a spoilt and arrogant brat who might find disentangling herself when she is bored with him more complicated than she expected.

Mint toffee popcorn?!?! (definitely not envy!)

@ILoveShula

Bleurgh!

@MayIDestroyYou - you've reminded me. These threads have just passed 125,000 posts, and the one I've quoted above is the 125,000th!! Well done, @ILoveShula , short and to-the-point.

Thanks for pointing that out to me DadDadDad. I've taken a screenshot. Oooh. Thrilled.

@theThreeofWeevils

Yawn. Lily was not a child (even if Lily's estimation of her maturity was a little over-generous). She certainly wasn't suffering from low 'self-esteem' and there has een no evidence that she was groomed or that Russ is an 'abuser'. A chancer, maybe. On the other hand, we have to presume the gallery is doing ok, so he's not wholly freeloading. To position Lily as an abused victim is A Bit Much, I reckon. Just a spoilt and arrogant brat who might find disentangling herself when she is bored with him more complicated than she expected.

I think the suggestion is that the grooming started when she was legally a child, but he waited to deflower her until after her eighteenth birthday. Not sure about that; he didn't know she owned the Gwen John until she had been given it for her eighteenth birthday, but it seems like a definite possibility.

I agree that she is a spoilt brat, mind.

As I recall it, she asked to meet him to show him her Gwen John, and that was pretty much the start of it. But then, of course, she did love to boast of being the chosen confidante of the staff and sooo popular (when belittling her brother). But I don't think anything we have heard on air actually positions CMR as an abuser. And actually, she holds all the cards in that relationship.

Did we know anything about their relationship before she took the Gwen John painting to show him? That must have been after her 18th birthday.

It's a bit of a leap to assume he was waiting to deflower her when she turned 18. I took it that she had a crush on him and it kicked off after she showed him the painting.

She'll find it far more difficult to disentangle herself if she marries him.

Total lack of interest in silly Lily and her stupid mother with her misplaced superiority complex. Vince could find a much better partner given his good humour, kindness and bank balance…

I think expectations have changed in terms of teacher/student relationships. Twenty years ago the former Chief Inspector of Schools Chris Woodhead just about kept his job when his ex wife said he had an affair with a pupil in the 1970s. He and the woman concerned said it did not start until she had left school.

Now, there are examples of teachers who have lost their jobs for having sex with pupils, even if they were over 16. I can't remember if Russ resigned or was asked to resign but it certainly suited him to leave. Things would have been even worse if the college had found out about his chats with Freddie after he discovered him dealing.

I don't find Lily very sympathetic. It was awful when she tried to present herself as an agony aunt. I think that was even the phrase she used. Freddie seems better at using a bit of charm.

I was a bit disappointed about the decree nisi. I was hoping for some scanal to emerge about Lara.

I found the whole Mrs Casey episode a bit far fetched. The silver lining for Elizabeth is that she needn't feel embarrassed about David and Shula when Vince has his mum and his daughter Steph the Swinger.

I've enjoyed this weeks episodes. No hand wringing Aldridges, moaning and sighing Adam, wayward Alice, gormless Helen etc. Best of all we haven't been to Brookfield for ages.

Mrs Casey saying ' bab' all the time was believable. Some brummie types do that. I was surprised that it's Susan Jameson but see that she's originally from Barnt Green, which is technically Worcestershire but pretty much Birmingham in reality..

Nigel.

Vince Casey.

Hmmm

Hyperion to a satyr/ ice-cream man to abattoir baron?

Vince has his mum and his daughter Steph the Swinger.

Oh, wow! I'd forgotten Steph, and didn't believe in her at the time - but now I realise how completely she resembles her grandmother.

Vince still doesn't have an individual entry in the BBC TA character lists, only a tiny photo of the actor, Tony Turner, in a group photo. I'm not totally convinced of his irresistibility - but perhaps he has bridal suite super-powers.

ILoveShula Bleurgh!

@MayIDestroyYou - you've reminded me. These threads have just passed 125,000 posts, and the one I've quoted above is the star 125,000th!! star Well done, @ILoveShula , short and to-the-point.

Thanks, @DadDadDad! Well done, @ILoveShula. That post sums up a large proportion of the last 125,000!

I think this will be post #919 on this thread. I'd be very surprised if this thread fills up today but it probably will by Monday. I'll keep an eye on it. Any title thoughts?

Morning! I was working on* variations of

Casey, Macy, Lily, Ho(me Farm); wind 'em up and watch 'em go ...

But it lacks specificity.

*Yes, I do have a pressing work deadline. Desperate for distraction.

Forgot to say hurrah for Bleurgh! Perfect!

Sol sounds absolutely lovely, maybe we’ll hear more from him.

Best we can hope for is that Lily becomes a serial strayer from the non-marital bed.

It did feel as if she suggested marriage partly as recompense for Scumbag's 'sacrifice' and stress and partly as a way of locking herself in because she doesn't trust herself.

Well done, @ILoveShula. That post sums up a large proportion of the last 125,000! grin

I feel so honoured.

Bleurgh! is probably my best post ever.

New thread title:
Come follow the exploits of Brine, Lily, Elizabeth, Usha, Ruari, George and Helen. Know collectively as bleurgh.

Barnt Green, which is technically Worcestershire but pretty much Birmingham in reality.
Oh no it's not! There is a wedge of Green Belt between the two. And there always will be, if Barnt Green get their way.

What seems to have been forgotten in the Lily/CMR relationship is that the deviousness surrounding their getting together played a large part in Freddie being sent to prison (in fact it feels as if the fact that Freddie was ever in prison is carefully being airbrushed from the annals - though having just watched Sean Bean in Time I find it hard to believe he would have emerged so unscathed). I thought this might have gradually dawned on Lily who it would seem is not unintelligent. I'm wondering if this is going to be another slow build up plot to the moment when she gradually realises CMR has been responsible for taking some of the best years of her life - time when she should have been having fun at university, fooling around with people like Sol rather than coming home to nurse her mother through a depression caused in part by the fact that her brother was in prison because her 'boy'friend - wouldn't pull him up on his drug dealing because he feared Freddie would tell the college CMR was in a relationship with a pupil. I don't think any of this has ever been explored properly. CMR wafted into LL and got his feet under the table far too easily. I wondered if CMR's violent aversion to marrying Lily might signal that he was about to stray again.