🧱 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.

It's slightly strange the way she goes in to work when it suits her but is always available at Lower Loxley Hall to run the place in spite of their having a manager who does it, and to float about a nearby village, and to go and chat on weekdays with the pig-boy at the end of the extensive grounds.

Admittedly a long time ago but I've done 2 and half hours of telesales in my life. Also about a week of contacting customers for Scottish power as a student and I think both her shift pattern and the fact that nobody would know her surname to be believable.

The hiring manager and HR would know her details but there's no reason any one else would and it would be illegal for them to divulge her personal information. It's not like an office job where you have an email with your full name and an intranet with staff profiles. Everyone goes by first names and nicknames. You spend your shift on the phone, chat at breaks and lunch and after work drinks. It's understandable that Lily would want to blend in and not give too much detail about her circumstances. I feel like her job started as a hobby to get her away from LL but perhaps it was to pay Lizzie back for the outstanding rent from the Manchester flat.

@ILoveTracey and @ILoveShula, are you sisters in real life?

If we all had to rename ourselves on those lines, bagsy me @ILoveNelsonGabriel.

Oh, FFS, why do obvious mistakes only show themselves when you hit post? I was for some reason thinking 5 letter female name starting with S must be Susan. I can read, honest.

@MayIDestroyYou

Yes, but how?

When she applied for the job she must have given her full name. Surely? (References would have had to show her real name.) How many Pargetter families are there in Borsetshire? Even if she's not personally posing and pouting all over SM, her name connects her to LL.

But would other people connect pargetters to LL? I don’t know the surnames of the minor stately homes in my area.

@ILoveTracey, are you my sister?

There is a stately home near me that I don't know the surname of who lives there but I could look it up. It's not open to the public but recent occupants have been a Mr Prescott and a Mr Osborne.

The other ones are quite well known. Can't remember who owns it now but it used to be the Astors.

There's a fairly local one but that's Surname Park, and is the family seat of the Surnames.

Oh, there's another one nearby and that has a pub called Surnames Arms nearby. The Surnames live in the house.

Maybe the pub in Lower Loxley is called Pargetters Arms.

But would other people connect pargetters to LL? I probably assume everyone is as over-invested in the extended Archer clan as I am.

@MayIDestroyYou

Yes, but how?

When she applied for the job she must have given her full name. Surely? (References would have had to show her real name.) How many Pargetter families are there in Borsetshire? Even if she's not personally posing and pouting all over SM, her name connects her to LL.

I don't think most people would twig that unless they were local gentry or worked for or with local gentry. My particular job means that I would recognise a surname like Pargetter and wonder about it but I've been doing this particular job for over 30 years. I don't think young people in a kitchen sales centre would pick up on this.

[quote Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]**@ILoveTracey* and @ILoveShula*, are you sisters in real life?

If we all had to rename ourselves on those lines, bagsy me @ILoveNelsonGabriel.[/quote]
Bagsy me ILoveNigel

The station of LL confuses me, like a lot of stuff on TA. The RL LL is not that big, consisting of a house, gardens and parkland. There are no equivalents of tree-top walks, rare breeds, acres of vines, etc. The 'name' attached to it is long gone and it belongs to the NT.
The other local Big Houses still belong to their 'names' (I knew one but had to look up the other) but they are proper aristos with titles.
The SW like to pretend that the Pargetters are a long and noble lineage but the LL lot are remarkably lacking in family and connections.
I can't think of any minor Homes round here doing events like Deck The Halls - that's the territory of the big boys (like Chatsworth or Blenheim) or commercial operations (like the NT, the Council or Warwick Castle).
The status of LL and its inhabitants is as clear to me as the finances of Bridge Farm.

I wonder if Elizabeth actually is a gold-digger. She certainly likes the trappings of wealth - stately home, Rolls Royce etc. She talks a good talk about being a hard worker etc but she certainly finds men with assets very attractive. If Vince had the status of Eddie Grundy she wouldn’t give him house room - let alone give him access to the bridal suite. But may be that doesn’t matter and is actually true of many of us in some ways…

Just thinking out loud. It is a Sunday after all…

…and shoe was with Cameron Fraser, the conman, who appeared to be rich

She not shoe

@Roysnewshirt

I wonder if Elizabeth actually is a gold-digger. She certainly likes the trappings of wealth - stately home, Rolls Royce etc. She talks a good talk about being a hard worker etc but she certainly finds men with assets very attractive. If Vince had the status of Eddie Grundy she wouldn’t give him house room - let alone give him access to the bridal suite. But may be that doesn’t matter and is actually true of many of us in some ways…

Just thinking out loud. It is a Sunday after all…

Wasn't Fairbrother Snr (Robin), fairly well off as well?

I wonder if Elizabeth actually is a gold-digger. She certainly likes the trappings of wealth
Remember the fuss about the Brookfield inheritance? To be fair to Elizabeth, though, wasn't the figure in question around the million pound mark - I seem to remember the Kenton / Great non-Move North story mentioned that sort of figure. I think I'd kick up a fuss about that sort of money!

Brookfield was valued at £4.5 million in 2014 for the Great NonMove North and was to be auctioned to raise that money, so the super businessman Justin Elliott made a preemptive offer of seven-and-a-half million.

No actual sum of money was mentioned in 2000 when Kenton and Elizabeth wanted the farm sold on their father's death so they could get some cash out of it. (Sale being what would have to happen if it were split four ways.)

Admittedly DH struggles to paint a window frame, let alone a portrait, but wasn't Lily's "oh that's exquisite" a weird choice of phrase to describe a painting of herself?

I'm very disappointed that CMR didn't "exit, stage left" this week.

BTW how do firms sell kitchens over the phone?

Yes I thought that was a very weird/ poncey thing to say!

@Roysnewshirt

I wonder if Elizabeth actually is a gold-digger. She certainly likes the trappings of wealth - stately home, Rolls Royce etc. She talks a good talk about being a hard worker etc but she certainly finds men with assets very attractive. If Vince had the status of Eddie Grundy she wouldn’t give him house room - let alone give him access to the bridal suite. But may be that doesn’t matter and is actually true of many of us in some ways…

Just thinking out loud. It is a Sunday after all…

To be fair, she went for years after Nigel's death without any man on the horizon at all.

@Madcats, back in the late 80s we bought an old house which needed every single thing fixed (not a thing I'd ever do again, but there we are). One evening a smooth young man knocked on the door and went through the classic spiel 'Our representative is in the area this week and I wonder if you'd be interested in having him come and quote for a new kitchen'. Knowing no better, through youth and inexperience, we said yes. The so called kitchen designer, more realistically a hard sell expert, arrived in the early evening and didn't leave until he'd got us to sign on the dotted line some hours later, not just for the kitchen, but also the finance arrangement, which is where I surmise they made most of their money. Nowadays I expect the initial pitch is made over the phone, which is where Lily comes in, and we know she's a smooth talker.

(It was a perfectly decent kitchen, but I've never got over being schmoozed/strongarmed into signing up for the first one we'd seriously considered. We managed to get out of the finance deal. Eventually gave up trying to get the company to do the extensive snagging required. Lesson learned.)

If this is anything like Lily's company's MO, it's not something I'd want my child doing, no matter how well paid (no idea about this). Lily was very academically able. She's wasting her life and no one in the family seems to care. Sad.

Gaspode and anybody else, unless you are not too busy and have 1/2 an hour to waste with the "Microsoft" security advisor, do you bother answering the phone to a number that isn't in your address book/likely to be the supermarket/takeaway bloke?

We put them straight to voicemail.

No. Not now we have mobiles. I did when I was working, especially since lockdown, as it might have been work-related, but not now.

@Roysnewshirt

I wonder if Elizabeth actually is a gold-digger. She certainly likes the trappings of wealth - stately home, Rolls Royce etc. She talks a good talk about being a hard worker etc but she certainly finds men with assets very attractive. If Vince had the status of Eddie Grundy she wouldn’t give him house room - let alone give him access to the bridal suite. But may be that doesn’t matter and is actually true of many of us in some ways…

Just thinking out loud. It is a Sunday after all…

But @Roysnewshirt, what about Roy? He doesn’t fit the theory very well, does he, or is this collective amnesia induced by the complete implausibility of the storyline?

I’m not too embarrassed to admit that Roy was simply what’s known as a confidence boost.

They were both a bit drunk at a festival and they got carried away.