🏘️ Archers thread #129: Casey, Macy, Lily, Alice – Decent types or full of malice? Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads, which has now passed 125,000 posts! (See below for further details.)

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 lust after Russ, 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.)

For the thread title I was very tempted to go with @R4's title suggestion of Come follow the exploits of Brine, Lily, Elizabeth, Usha, Ruari, George and Helen. Know collectively as bleurgh. because on the last thread @DadDadDad, our invaluable statistician, identified a post from @ILoveShula as the 125,000th. Many of us felt it was fitting that the post simply said Bleurgh!.

However, feeling that was a bit niche for the casual listener, I adapted @MayIDestroyYou's title suggestion in the end. Thanks, MIDY!

Back to Ambridge this week, after our enjoyable sojourn at Lower Loxley last week! Will we go with Alice to rehab? (Hope not.) Will the petulant Adam make good his threat to leave Home Farm? (Hope so.) What will Jennifer say? (Lots, I hope, and preferably to Brian.) Will the fete be a triumph? (Of course it will.) Will we ever return to Brookfield, or have they all fallen unnoticed into the slurry pit? (Let's hope Pip did, anyway.) WHERE IS PAT? (Can't answer this one.)

Over to you!

Also in agreement that Helen facing prejudice when she had to socialise with people that she's not related to was a potentially good story line. No idea why they've chucked it so quickly.

I do not think they will introduce Roy dating a trans identified male person, as drama producers seem to go for the option of women dating trans identified females when introducing tangential transgender characters into storylines. Less likely to frighten the horses I imagine. Nothing wrong with a cuddle etc.

I make a curried parsnip soup around Christmas time. It's festive and delicious and a break from the more calorific fare at that time of year.

Ha! Helen having to do childcare ! I notice that Ian had to ask twice & she still didn't say yes!

Deep joy. Helen having someone dump their brat on her at short notice for a change. How salutary.
Adam exposed as a lying embezzler. Hurrah! Ian sabotaging his own meal-ticket. Hurrah! Hopes of stabnight #2 when they get back home... Oh that would be perfect. Just imagine how disapproving and reproachful Helen would be. Please, please let that happen. Let me be very clear: I don't care who stabs who, so long as it's done good and hearty.

Stabbing would be nothing, compared to the rending, limb from limb, that poor Zander is about to endure. Even though, as he is Of The Blood, we know where he will eventually end up.

What on earth was that nonsense with Layla? What a ridiculous scenario.

have missed a lot lately.

What happened after Alice walked out of rehab?

I do not believe that Adam, going to meet someone for lunch, would leave his phone behind for Ian to read; I am not sure I believe in a phone which doesn't require a password of some sort to open it, either.

@Tulipomania

have missed a lot lately.

What happened after Alice walked out of rehab?

Alan got his daughter Amy to offer to put her up in Nottingham, and she went there.

"She sounds like hard work."

What, for that matter, was all that festering bollocks about Adam having gone off to an important professional meeting on neutral territory without his phone? Would. Not. Happen.

A London biology teacher who isn’t brave enough to talk to waiters? What sort of teen does she teach?

I've just listened to it again. It was absurd.

I assumed Ian was considering snooping through Adam's emails on his laptop?

@KimikosNightmare

I've just listened to it again. It was absurd.

That verges on self-harming, Kimiko. Be kinder to yourself. Yes, it was bloody daft. Also, surely even Adam wouldn't have been stupid enough to mention the money in so many words. 'Another conflict with Brian' would have served. But the more misery for that prize pair the better, so I suppose one shouldn't complain

And for today’s exam in GCSE Radio Drama: Compare and contrast the two presentations of a relationship sparking and imploding in restaurants...

The protracted bar scene was ridiculous - IRL Adam would have said on Ian’s arrival “I’m sorry I’ve kept this a secret while things were up in the air, but meet Bob (I forget the name) who has just offered me a new job. Now why don’t you sit down and I’ll ask the waiter for a bottle and third glass to celebrate?”
Who the fuck admits to embezzlement moments after being offered a job to their prospective employer? LTB, Ian - there’s zero trust there.

I couldn’t go on a second date with someone, no matter how lovely, if they needed to be coached on how to say their dinner is cold or their fork is grubby. Pathetic.

Unfortunately, Edmontine, Ian referred to 'texts'.

Could Adam have a synced tablet & phone?

I have an iphone and a Macbook. I can read my synced emails and texts on both.

So if I'd gone out, with my phone, my trusted cohabitee could read all of those on the laptop left behind.

I am not entirely displeased that Adam has lost a new job in much the same way that he snatched a job back from Ed, thus precipitating Heartbreaking House Loss & The Madness of Emma.

It does seem only fair.

@Edmontine

I have an iphone and a Macbook. I can read my synced emails and texts on both.

So if I'd gone out, with my phone, my trusted cohabitee could read all of those on the laptop left behind.

So, then, as Adam himself mentioned, why didn't Ian check the emails too?

Ooh- just spotted on the Spoilers thread that Leyla is played by Margaret Cabourn-Smith.

I'm bewildered by Ian's behaviour. Who does that?

Adam taking the money in the first place was out of character.

So where is this going?

Trust is gone, so I imagine the relationship will end and Ian will leave with Xander or Adam will leave and end up in a mess somewhere.

Adam taking the money in the first place was out of character
Was it? I'm not so sure.
He does stultifying patronising and sanctimonious quite a bit, but I have never seen him as a bastion of moral rectitude particularly. He clearly didn't intend to TAKE take it, exactly, but his flouncy, puffed -up outrage at Brian daring to object, was telling. 'It's All Right When I Do It! How DARE You Question Me!'
Pompous, gutless prick.

Layla was such a dishrag. She made Roy seem like James Bond - calm and able to handle any situation. Not having anything to say to each in real life is probably quite realistic on first dates of this nature but what did the tutorial about how-to-complain-politely demonstrate? Except that Roy is, of course, excellent at his job….

Ian is not as daft or socially-inept as he appeared last night. He would have read the cues pretty quickly however cross he was and backed off fast, waiting for the full story behind closed doors. Adam won’t care if Ian leaves him and takes Xander with him anyway. He’ll be back on Tinder before you know it.

I'm so familiar with Margaret Cabourn-Smith from assorted John Finnemore series that I heard her character as if it were one of his, which made it all fine (he can do no wrong for me).

Lots of ludicrous stuff in the scene between Ian, Adam and Michael, but I don't care. Finally, Adam gets his comeuppance.

If I wanted to try and pretend it was all plausible, I'd say Adam had left his laptop, desktop or tablet open and unpassworded at home*, and had WhatsApp on there as well as on his phone, and Ian read the latest messages arranging to meet Michael on there, and didn't bother looking at email correspondence. People do refer to WhatsApp in a loose way as texts, I think, because it's a phone-based messaging system for the most part, and the BBC probably tries to avoid using the brand name (although they've abandoned the unequal struggle when it comes to Twitter, Instagram and Facebook ...).

*yeah, right