🏘️ 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!

Maybe Grey Gables has won a government contract to be used as isolation hotel for all those arrivals at Birmingham ?

@BlueCowWonders

Brian -get her in the car and lock the doors!

I'd have preferred he just left her there.

[quote AskingQuestionsAllTheTime]Ages ago, in the "Tracy Saves The Day" storyline when she stood Jazzer up in order to comfort Oliver all evening, Oliver said that if things hadn't picked up by Easter he would have to sell Grey Gables. I don't see how they can have picked up, given lockdown again, so it ought to have closed or been sold by now.

See Monday 1st February, 2021 at ambridgereporter.org.uk/synopses/2021.html#February[/quote]
I thought posh country hotels were booming? I have 5 nights booked in one in August and then 2 nights at Gleneagles. I couldn't get the dates I wanted and it's impossible to get dinner in the Andrew Fairlie restaurant at Gleneagles for months ahead.

But Kimikos, TA hasn't been doing proper Pandemic; it exists only when it suits them (dear). A bit like Martha for Alice, really

A splendid episode. Alice so desperate, and Brine, for once, holding back.

That episode was quite something, I know Brian has many faults but having to take his youngest & previously favourite child to rehab must have been horrific.

Hotel rooms in nice country hotels are like hen’s teeth, GG will be packed.

Go Brian! Good episode. I think Brian is one of the most consistent characters, he behaved completely in character in that one.

GG will be packed now, yes, but they had months and months last year with no income coming in at all, and presumably much reduced income earlier this year too. However, I don't want it to close, so I'll just pretend not to have thought of that, which is what the SWs must be doing.

Cracking episode last night. Alice actor sounding so chirpy when Brian tracked her down was well done - several vodkas inside her by then. That used to be how she sounded most of the time and as Jennifer pointed out a few weeks back we now know that was the vodka/wine talking. When there's no alcohol in the system she sounds like she did in the car at first, full of self-doubt. Then when full of alcohol and challenged, she turns nasty. Grim. I wonder how Brian, who is not in his first youth, is supposed to have actually manhandled her into the car, made here stay there, and drove to the rehab place without having an accident while she railed at him. Maybe best not to think too hard about that, though.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

GG will be packed now, yes, but they had months and months last year with no income coming in at all, and presumably much reduced income earlier this year too. However, I don't want it to close, so I'll just pretend not to have thought of that, which is what the SWs must be doing.

Cracking episode last night. Alice actor sounding so chirpy when Brian tracked her down was well done - several vodkas inside her by then. That used to be how she sounded most of the time and as Jennifer pointed out a few weeks back we now know that was the vodka/wine talking. When there's no alcohol in the system she sounds like she did in the car at first, full of self-doubt. Then when full of alcohol and challenged, she turns nasty. Grim. I wonder how Brian, who is not in his first youth, is supposed to have actually manhandled her into the car, made here stay there, and drove to the rehab place without having an accident while she railed at him. Maybe best not to think too hard about that, though.

I got the impression that she had passed out in the car, she was that sort of drowsy sobering up way at the check in.

Brian is a farmer, he’s used to wrestling unwilling animals. I imagine him as quite solid.

having to take his youngest & previously favourite child

Ruari is his youngest.

@Chemenger

Brian is a farmer, he’s used to wrestling unwilling animals. I imagine him as quite solid.

I was hoping this was going to say "He's used to wrestling unwilling cows into vehicles". I think he had actually more or less succeeded in his clever mission to get her (more) pissed and she would be like when you're forcing one of your pissed friends to get a taxi home, a lot of noise but essentially not putting up a real struggle.

Brian played a blinder.
I was however a bit confused as to where they had stopped for the loo. I had assumed motorway services, but would he have poked his head around the door of the Ladies? And doing a runner on foot from there would be tricky too.

It's possible I'm overthinking this....

I assumed motorway services but a small one - a petrol station basically. Since roads go through normal countryside lots of them have nearby pubs etc that cater to people wanting a break from the motorway. Although I imagine she could have walked a mile or two.

Yep in my mind it was a petrol station/Starbucks type place on an A road with one unisex loo and pub within walking distance.

It's actually mildly distressing to think of Brian driving around the countryside, searching every pub. Must have been ghastly.

@Taswama

Brian played a blinder. I was however a bit confused as to where they had stopped for the loo. I had assumed motorway services, but would he have poked his head around the door of the Ladies? And doing a runner on foot from there would be tricky too.

It's possible I'm overthinking this....

Doing a runner on foot from the motorway services would be easy compared to getting the car out of them and onto the local road system to get to the local pub, I would have thought. Last time I tried to escape from the crowded motorway going into London onto Watling Street instead (it's about five hundred yards from the Watford Gap Services, on the far side of the motorway over a bridge) they had put a barrier on that services' exit road to prevent anyone not an employee from using it.

I think it's actually illegal to leave motorway services other than via the motorway unless you are emergency services or possibly employees.

A 'service station' (petrol station, shop, loo combination)off an A road makes sense.

Agreed @Edmontine.

A 'service station' (petrol station, shop, loo combination)off an A road makes sense
Doesn't to me: it's kind to plug the holes for them, but Alice could hardly have slipped away unnoticed from that sort of set -up, and the bogs wouldn't have had that 'large, empty tiled space' acoustic.

...and who calls those 'service stations', anyway?

@theThreeofWeevils

...and who calls those 'service stations', anyway?

I’d definitely call them “the Services.” Have done many times on the A303.

@theThreeofWeevils

...and who calls those 'service stations', anyway?

If you're driving the sign to anything that sells you petrol and has a toilet says "Services".

It was clunkily written though, would have made more sense in a properly big services as you can lose people there, he'd have asked a woman to go in and yell ALICE for him.

Presumably in a small petrol station/shop Alice had snuck out while Brian was reading a copy of Auto Trader.

I do, but I'm not a driver and not au fait with modern driving parlance.

I'm not a driver and not au fait with modern driving parlance
It's probably me who is out of touch, in fact, as I'd call that kind of thing a garage or petrol station.