🏘️ 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!

Talking of Lynda's last-minute plans, I was reading the local rag this morning which had an article about one of this winter's upcoming amateur pantomimes. Auditions started 30th July with rehearsals commencing in September.
Just saying.

Surely rewilding in its purest form must include humans fighting off marauding attacks from cattle. I presume if you manage to slaughter the beast with your camping spork you’re allowed to eat it and hang it’s hornèd head on the outside of your tent as a sign of your might.

Edmontine
Always nice to see new people! If you haven’t already, you may find it helpful to browse here:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/3VLG6MxxfQpKXF2Chky4Fmh/characters

Just for goodness' sake don't take its content as reliable: many of those entries are several years out of date. They are good about who is related to whom, not so good about who lives with whom or where or anything they have been doing during the past four or five years. To take the first few: Jill now has a boyfriend called Leonard; stuff has actually happened to David and at Brookfield since Ruth came back from New Zealand on 1st January, 2016; ditto Ruth; Pip's halo slipped some more when she joined a consortium of yoof to compete against her parents for a half-million grant offered by Peggy; Josh has become a speaking part and done several things not mentioned there; Ben has been at university for a year reading Geography, then changed track to start a nursing course in September...

@FoxgloveSummers

Surely rewilding in its purest form must include humans fighting off marauding attacks from cattle. I presume if you manage to slaughter the beast with your camping spork you’re allowed to eat it and hang it’s hornèd head on the outside of your tent as a sign of your might.

I like this idea.

@Prestissimo

Well at least we know why they’re returning to 5 episodes weekly for the 15th August - the date of the fete! I can’t decide if it’ll be too dreadful to listen to. Fete episodes are usually pretty dire anyway, but now it seems Lynda has finally lost it. Unless it’s a cunning (!) double bluff by the SWs where we all think it’s going to be a dreadful Lynda-non-celebrity episode and then - last minute - a real celebrity appears and saves the day. Hurrah

I just assumed a while ago that this would be the storyline...

@R4

Talking of Lynda's last-minute plans, I was reading the local rag this morning which had an article about one of this winter's upcoming amateur pantomimes. Auditions started 30th July with rehearsals commencing in September. Just saying.

🤦‍♀️

Sorry, I meant Peggy, not Jill, re the rewinding funding. My point stands - isn't the original funding likely to have been used by now, what with rent, setting up an office, buying tents, loos, etc. I know there's a bit of money coming in from the tents but at this stage it must be fairly minimal, so how does it keep going and what is Phoebe doing for an income? Surely there's a limit to how much Brine can bail her out, especially after forking out for Alice's rehab.

You would think so, wouldn’t you, Terhou but money in Ambridge is a strange thing, it’s both infinitely elastic and easily mislaid. See also random enormous electrician’s bills requiring the embezzlement of thousands of pounds for no reason.

I know it's unrealistic to have no mention of the Christmas show until December, but in this case I'd prefer realism to take a back seat. I can cope with a few weeks of auditions, rehearsals and snippets of performances, but not months and months.

Good point, Gaspode

I liked the year in which it was mentioned in September and then no more was heard until December...

Fully agree @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

And I fully agree with Asking. They could easily slip in the odd reference during autumn but leave the big mentions until Christmastime.
How on earth has Lynda been doing this for decades and yet every year it is a last-minute scramble? It's utter nonsense like most of TA these days.

I wonder if there are lots of normal people living in Ambridge who just shudder at the thought of all these dreadful community events and just leave them to the clique who appear on the radio.

Yes, that would work, R4.

@Roysnewshirt,,

@Roysnewshirt

I wonder if there are lots of normal people living in Ambridge who just shudder at the thought of all these dreadful community events and just leave them to the clique who appear on the radio.

Definitely!! I always wonder who does the tech for the shows? Who sells programmes? Who serves the wine?

Have I missed something?

About Neil and Shula?

What's going on? Why did he sound so terrified?

Give that horse a medal. Not a very big, important medal, though, since it was arm, not neck.

Neil and Shula go back a long way, have a lot of respect for each other and are close.

I don't think an affair is on the cards but I think a bust up with Susan might be.

What is Neil and Shula's history?

This is news to me (new listener from 2014)

How long are we gping back?

Just what the hell have I been missing all these years?

@WheresThatCatGoneNow

What is Neil and Shula's history?

This is news to me (new listener from 2014)

How long are we gping back?

Just what the hell have I been missing all these years?

He fancied the pants off Shula before Susan grabbed him; Shula was not so keen on what Phil called "going out with the hired help".

It’s before my time but they had a bit of a flirtation before they married their respective spouses Susan and Mark.

This was back before 1984.

Neil's voice was bizarre - so querulous! The pigman who's used to dealing with any number of injured animal and humans.

Please don't let it be a heavy handed 'signal' about Shula. I don't think I could bear it...

Making a mobile phone call while riding an unfamiliar mount for the first time. So probable. How many decades of experience is she supposed to have?
I mean, don't get me wrong, this was better than last week's unmitigated shite, but not by much. Still, PSAs on The Diseases of the Hen to look forward to, plus an outside chance that the escaped horse encountered and trampled Susan and Martha as she took the blasted thing for an airing. While the Only Ambulance in Borsetshire was already on a shout, too