🏘️ 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!

I am always puzzled by the, apparently now obligatory, response to coming out of “how wonderful”. I think JD uttered some version of it. Agree that neutral seems a more appropriate register

It has always seemed to me that since what LGBTetc people always say they want is to be treated just like everyone else, and since most parents' reaction to their child feeling a need to announce he or she is straight would be, "yes, dear" or wtte and little or no questioning, that is also the appropriate reaction if their child announces any other sexuality. Since it ought not to make any difference, it ought not to make any difference.

Finally caught up after holidays phew.

Was so confused by 1/4 too, but how did the actors not pick it up also.

Cannot bear this Neil and Shula lark. I've always liked Neil but this is beyond permission. I appreciate he made need to get out for some breathing space but it doesn't sound like he's making space for Susan to have this too. Doing chores at someone else's house when there's a pile to do at home and a wife who'd been up all night is appalling.

Also very annoyed with Susan pushing JD away. She's got willing help on tap and she should be encouraging a relationship between Martha and her maternal family. Her keeping them at arms left does no one any favours.

Cluedo was our main family game growing up. I didn't clock Brian getting 2 cards in a turn, probably because I was fuming that on the opening roll of the game he'd made it to the conservatory which is definitely a 2 roll trip minimum and only if you're Mrs Peacock (which I sincerely doubt he was.)

Gosh!

That was fun.

(I hate it when they manufacture family feuds.)

Alice is like a caged animal. What horrible words and she deserved that slap. She .ight be ill but those words were unnecessary.

It would have taken a lot for JD to do that. Poor Ruairi and poor JD.
She's always been so good with Baspofald.

What a nasty piece of work Alice is. I've never liked her.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

It has always seemed to me that since what LGBTetc people always say they want is to be treated just like everyone else, and since most parents' reaction to their child feeling a need to announce he or she is straight would be, "yes, dear" or wtte and little or no questioning, that is also the appropriate reaction if their child announces any other sexuality. Since it ought not to make any difference, it ought not to make any difference.

Yes but being straight has never come with any stigma and most people will be more or less nervous about their parents’ reaction (less so now hopefully, depending on culture) when they come out as not straight, so the positivity is an effort to counterbalance any worries about negativity.

And parents quite rightly often feel pleased that they’re trusted

That slap sounded well administered. Not that I know how to slap anybody, not having done it. Alice was generally horrible to Ruauri but that last bit was uncalled for. Hollie Chapman was great again.

Alice wants to be thrown out of the family so they leave her to drink herself to death.

She a they - may be nearing that point.

It'll be interesting to see how Jenny gets over this, especially with Rurauri. If A had said all that yo J alone, she may be able to get past it by the "She's ill" line. Far harder to do when it's involving and witnessed by the family member who is the target of the abuse. (Although arguably Jenny was the real target - it's puts her in the most difficult position).

I dearly with an alcoholic friend for a few years. This script writing has come close to the bone on quite a few occasions.

Poor poor ruairi. Poor Jenny.

CA said Brine tried to sort the situation out tomorrow, I really hope he doesn’t iyswim - there is no sorting that kind of thing out, certainly in the short term.

I do wish that JD had had the presence of mind to explain to R that, following the video episode, she had needed to discuss the past with close family but that it was in NO WAY a bitching session about Shiobhan.

Oof, that was full on. Good stuff from Hollie Chapman. “That’s just his pet name to keep her sweet while he goes round shagging other women”- wow. I actually hadn’t twigged that Ruairi was echoing Brian by calling Jennifer Jenny. What an utter bitch Alice was, and just goes to show that having Martha has not given her a scrap of maternal empathy.

Doesn't Lillian call her Jenny, too? I don't think it's just Brian.

Oh yes, she does. Although not Tony, as far as I can remember.

A yes, good point re Lilian and also interesting re Tony. I doubt very much that Peggy would ever dream of calling her Jenny, I wonder what her father called her?

Excellent writing. It didn’t feel manufactured to me. Those resentments of Ruari that Alice referred to would have been very real at the time and it’s actually very realistic to acknowledge them further down the line rather than play happy families. Taking in and loving a husband’s love-child must be one of the hardest things a wife can be asked to do and expecting the pre-existing family to accept him as well is asking the impossible, I think. It was really interesting to hear the fall-out of that decision - however hurtful it was for Ruari. Brilliantly acted by all. Jenny should be able to make it right with Ruari but it will take a bit of time and as he is heading off to university she might not have that.

Shame we had to listen to that tripe re Lynda alongside it.

Home and up to date with TA! Phew.

That was a tough listen. Poor, poor Ruairi. Brian has always adored Alice, but Ruairi is his beloved son - the only biological son he has, and I still remember his disappointment when Alice was born, as he was very keen to have a son. Siobhan was obnoxiously triumphant about having a son and very confident that it was her trump card, which would tip the balance for Brian and lead to his abandonment of Jennifer and his existing family in favour of a new life with Siobhan and Ruairi. (Obviously it didn't work, when it came to it.)

I think Alice will find she has crossed a line now. He'll choose R over A every time. That must be tough for Jennifer too, but she has a moral compass (unlike Alice, when in drink, anyway) and she will want to put things right with Ruairi.

Scarecrow nonsense - one assumes this would give everyone at the council offices a good laugh. Rural fete has scarecrow competitition, in area full of fields - but some incomers claim scarecrows are Saatanic symbols? Puhleeze. Up there with moving next to a church and complaining about bellringing, or moving to an agricultural area and moaning about the smell of manure or the early morning habits of cockerels.

What does Ruari want to do at university? Something that needs an A* and two As must be pretty popular.

Please could someone explain the incident that Alice was referring to that led to Jenny slapping her?

It's a bit odd to claim that Jenny is exclusively Brian's pet name for her. It's hardly an uncommon abbreviation, and presumably at some point Ruairi was encouraged to call her that.

It would be bizarre in a household where JD is known as Jenny or Mum for Ruari to call her Jennifer.

I hope they throw Alice out and Ruari moves back.

I have never associated scarecrows with Hallowe'en. Several villages round here, however, have scarecrow competitions in the summer. What nonsense!

@Trews2019

Please could someone explain the incident that Alice was referring to that led to Jenny slapping her?

Did you mean the whole Jenny / Brian / Siobhan thing, Trews?

If so, have a look here:

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/s6TrgP0xHM0nSn5qmlnrBC/the-story-of-brian-and-jennifer

(I don’t recall any ‘bitching parties’, though. Jenny was obvs distraught at the time but has always tried to put Ruairi before her own feelings.)

Oh, sorry! Actor photos in link!