🏘️ 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!

Agree there was a certain schwarm in Neil's voice that will no doubt lead us down some SL to nowhere.

Is this going to scupper Shula’s plans to become a vicar?

Poor Shula.

The thin egg shells could be not enough calcium or protein in their diet.

Surely Josh must have pretty much cracked (sorry) what to feed his hens by now?

R4 did a two parter of Joseph Andrews recently starring Josh Archer. The character is supposed to be a paragon of virtue but I just expected him to be scamming his granny out of hen money.

The thin egg shells could be not enough calcium or protein in their diet.

That's what I thought, but surely an experienced poultry farmer would have already thought of that and dealt with it/proved it's not the problem?

Yes, you would think so.
I'm no expert on hens but we had some when I was a child.
I think the hens would lay thinner eggs when old.

Thinner-shelled eggs, not eggs with a small diameter.

The problem was limited to two henhouses, though. Who presumably get the same feed.

Interesting ... (The egg shell problem.)

Unlike Shula’s tumble.

The egg shells thing has got to be a metaphor..

BOOP for Jazzer and Neil’s bonding as “brothers in law”. Idiotic of Shula to be on the phone on horseback but I guess she was a bit all over the place.

Experienced riders on horses they know do use phones on horseback, but I don't think they'd do it on a horse they were riding for the first time. And she didn't need to ring Neil at that point anyway. She could have done it after her ride, or even before it as soon as she realised from what David said that people had noticed how much time Neil was spending at her place.

Given how Mark died I’m amazed Shula feels comfortable using a mobile phone anywhere other than sitting, in slippers, at her kitchen table.

Also, I feel justifiably cheated of the clearly promised Drunk Alice + Flighty Horse Carnage scenario.

Me too Edmontine.

I wanted the accident to be before Marthyr arrival.

Maybe it will cause him to realise quite what his feelings are for Shula? She really isn’t bothered about him though!

Five episodes from 15 August?? Why has this not been R4 headlines???

Oh, and I really thought when Neil started a somewhat hesitant sounding question for Jazzer about Tracey, he was going to enquire whether the lady in question ever “made that chilli”.....

AFAIK, the horse is still running loose and available for general and specific carnage.

They’ve also wasted the additional carnage potential of Johnny’s jalopy.

So bloody frustrating. Who cares about Shula’s broken whatever and subsequent failure to decamp to Birmingham?

"Pip caused a nasty outbreak all round the village"
Doesn't surprise me at all...

Was that a “Mr Keri” written episode - he missed a trick n not having James Taylor’s “you’ve got a friend” playing in the background when Neil was at Shula’s!

It was either Caroline Harrington or Sarah McDonald-Hughes.

Can I just say that I would be furious if my husband was behaving like Neil the lapdog.

Me too, and hopping mad if he was helping another woman with her domestic tasks while I was so busy I had to take time out of work to care for our grandchild.