🏘️ 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!

@SparklingLime

I have rarely witnessed anything as deeply unsexy as Roy’s How to Complain Politely and Effectively tutorial.

But a very necessary skill.

Is anyone else hoping that Jim's dull academic friend turns out to be Mary Beard or Joy is best buddies, from some previous charity event, with the entire cast of Loose Women?

Or Joy is best buddies, from some previous charity event, with the entire cast of Loose Women? Cheryl Cole maybe (might she once have enjoyed baton twirling?) or another professional Geordie. Or

And so the snobby, irritating, deeply unpleasant and tedious wheel that is Lynda Snell keeps turning. I have said before how her stranglehold on village events is becoming tired. Time for her to be airbrushed out so her participation in the show is as frequent as Pat’s…

I actually feel quite sorry for Ian. He is in a relationship with a man who thinks he is his superior and will always treat him as such. The dynamic is very like that of a Victorian marriage - apart from the obvious differences…

I'm surprised Ian and Adam are staying together. There is no respect or trust in that relationship.

I'm hoping that's not the last of the marital difficulties between Adam and Ian.

Adam is, of course, clearly the inspiration for the Men Who Always Sound Tired. I should have mentioned before it's not the first time Margaret Cabourn-Smith's featured in The Archers (after a fashion). She's one of the Insufferably Wry Women, rather than one of the Women With An Accent.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p02mlwdp

Is anyone else hoping that Jim's dull academic friend turns out to be Mary Beard or Joy is best buddies, from some previous charity event, with the entire cast of Loose Women?
It could be one of many, many celebrities. Apparently the world is full of famous, busy people who can turn up to open a minor fete given only a month's notice. Every. Single. Year.

Away with dire internet so no visits to Ambridge for me this week.

A scan of the chat leads me to see I was very much wrong about Roy's lady friend. I am surprised, but very relieved. After the surrogacy storyline I wasn't particularly up for the sledge hammer treatment on that particularly thorny issue.

Am I the only one who first heard Xander in Buffy?

Agreed @TawnyPipit - I don’t understand how they can stay together given last night’s conversation. Do they even like each other any more?

Yes I have Footle, and I also have heard of Kit Hesketh-Harvey, and a friend in her 20s's other half in a Kit. And I've heard of Xander that chap off Pointless.

Have you heard of Kit Harington and Kit Rooney?

@Roysnewshirt

And so the snobby, irritating, deeply unpleasant and tedious wheel that is Lynda Snell keeps turning. I have said before how her stranglehold on village events is becoming tired. Time for her to be airbrushed out so her participation in the show is as frequent as Pat’s…

I actually feel quite sorry for Ian. He is in a relationship with a man who thinks he is his superior and will always treat him as such. The dynamic is very like that of a Victorian marriage - apart from the obvious differences…

Roysnewshirt And so the snobby, irritating, deeply unpleasant and tedious wheel that is Lynda Snell keeps turning.

There is something weird about her assuming that another village would arrange its fête in order to get at her personally. I think that sort of profound egoism and paranoid thinking points to mental disorder, really. No, Lynda: Evangeline whatsitsname really doesn't care about you particularly, and probably thought your little limo excursion was infantile if she recognised you at all, which she quite likely didn't after only having met you once for a few minutes.

It's bad planning - there's probably a big overlap of attendees at both fetes, so you would try to avoid having them the same day, or probably not even the same month. I'm sure it sometimes happens, and perhaps more with things being sent out of usual timings because of covid, but it's not really likely.

As the fete rears it’s head I am endlessly grateful that the mystery plays storyline just quietly died.

I think it's a sub-sub-sub Mapp and Lucia type storyline.

oh dear god. You are probably right; they think they can write graceful, subtle comedy.

They can't.

@ILoveShula , my point was that you said these were trendy shortenings, so I was chucking in some historical examples.

If someone in TA called Richard were known as Hitch, that would be either trendy or very out of date, I feel.

What a load of tosh!

Sorry, I meant tonight’s episode

Oh dear me ...my sides are splitting.

my sides are splitting
Check you aren't being trampled by longhorns.

Yes, I get it @Footle, when they weren't so widely used they had some charm.

I really enjoyed tonight's episode.

Laugh? I nearly did…

Was that a SW auditioning for TV sitcom?

@Footle, sorry I meant when I only knew one Xander or Kit the name seemed nice but when the name is getting more popular, it seems meh.

I never thought that about Alex and Chris though.

Names like Olivia, Matilda and Freya seemed nice once but now I think they're meh.