🏘️ 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!

Doesn't it feels like the SWs have no idea what he will be studying let alone where? Perhaps it'll never be mentioned!

I don't want R to leave. Poor bloody JD. Honestly this is where martyrdom gets you. (My own mum also a victim of this and me trying not to follow in her footsteps but failing frankly).

It's not important to the plot. Maybe not, but verisimilitude is important for reception of plot. I need to believe the SWs know everything about the characters - so it’s a poor show if they can’t commit to sending him to a particular place.

Although admittedly they did send Phoebe to Oxford and then discover they had no clue whatsoever about pretty much anything, during or after her undergraduate years.

@campion

It's not important to the plot save that he's going to a serious institution and it's in London- Big City and Far Away, so he'll have little reason to rush back to Ambridge, unusually. And we're now to believe that he's rejected the Aldridges en masse thanks to Alice's mouth.

I'll be sorry to lose Ruairi as I like him and he's well acted.
Alice's acting btw is terrific atm.

I agree KimikosNightmare that it was such a sad episode. I suddenly felt quite emotional listening to Jennifer.

I cried! Last time TA made me cry was when Caroline was in intensive care following the riding accident!

@Edmontine

It's not important to the plot. Maybe not, but verisimilitude is important for reception of plot. I need to believe the SWs know everything about the characters - so it’s a poor show if they can’t commit to sending him to a particular place.

Although admittedly they did send Phoebe to Oxford and then discover they had no clue whatsoever about pretty much anything, during or after her undergraduate years.

I agree. Like it or not, the Radio 4 listenership is made up of a majority of people who are likely to have a lot of knowledge about universities and who care rather a lot about what Ruari’s choice on subject and institution say about him. With the A* s I’m surprised that Oxbridge was not considered, though he probably saw what a colossal waste of time it was for his half niece. Also he does seem more of the personality type to fancy London life over Oxbridge.

I have decided that he is doing Economics at UCL. Not LSE, because a mate at school went to UCL and said the social life was better and LSE economics students are a bit stuck up.

I thought it was vaguely OK for Ben to talk about London; the fact that neither R, JD or Brian came out with something like “LSE here we come!” seemed less credible and definitely gives the impression that the SWs/ senior people haven’t bothered to work out what exactly he’s going to do for the next three or four years.

Yes, thinking about it, the way Phoebe’s undergraduate experience was references made it seem as if written by someone of... oo, I don’t know, Roy Tucker’s background. Whereas I’d lay money on there being at the very least one member of the editorial team who is Oxbridge educated!

@JanglyBeads

I thought it was vaguely OK for Ben to talk about London; the fact that neither R, JD or Brian came out with something like “LSE here we come!” seemed less credible and definitely gives the impression that the SWs/ senior people haven’t bothered to work out what exactly he’s going to do for the next three or four years.

Agreed. Ben was talking about London as in his life in the city. Brine and JD would have spent hours and hours helping him with University choices.

Shame there will be very little Ruari in the next few years.

If only Pip could go on a long trip somewhere..

How useful has knowing that Phoebe did PPE at Oxford been to anything, apart from a certain disbelief? It was a ' girl from half humble background (Roy) does well' kind of thing . Obviously having Kate as a mother was also a disadvantage. Pointless.

Ruairi needs to spread his wings without specific expectation then return to Ambridge to demand his share of the farm. Inevitably, Adam will still be mooning - and moaning - around letting everyone know how unfair his life is.
I just hope Xander has inherited his anonymous mother's personality traits; another Adam is a depressing thought!

@TheSilveryPussycatI'd only use it as a term to indicate a 'man who was gratuitously nasty' or as an adjective in the same way as pesky or something. We did use a female version of it but I've not heard others use the word.

My username is from something Susan Carter said to Shula. My own posterior is small and pert well, it's small anyway

If Ruairi is going to Brunel or Royal Holloway, he'll be disappointed as they're not in London AFAIK. Brunel is in Uxbridge and Royal Holloway in Egham, and Brunel has a site near Egham too, I think.

He's probably going to Thames Valley University. I'm not sure if Ealing would count as London if I were a young man hoping for bright lights, big city.

My money would be on UCL OR LSE. I seem to recall that he wanted to be something like merchant banker.

Whereas I’d lay money on there being at the very least one member of the editorial team who is Oxbridge educated!
Dulwich College and Oxford, apparently.
He was appointed in 2018 which was, I think, before Phoebe graduated and started her glittering career.

Re. Fattism.

Someone was telling me about an acquaintance who had been told to lose 2 stones if they wanted to be in a chorus line, and that they considered it wrong.

My argument was that is it any more wrong that turning someone down because they were not attractive enough or not the right height? One can lose weight, but you can't change your height, and I doubt that if two actors went for the same part, they wouldn't give the part to the least genetically blessed in the looks department.

Generally though, it is not acceptable to make unsolicited comments about someone's weight.

I'm sure we haven't heard the last of Ruairi. Brian will be bankrolling his studies, so he'll have to come back to Ambridge occasionally.

Back to TA.

Pots and kettles. Has Alice thought about how she is as a mother. Poor Martha wasn't exactly wanted by Alice. At least Shovehorn wanted a baby.

What if someone told Martha a few home truths one day? Your mum's an alky, your father's a caveman, your aunt went off wih her brother-in-law etc

I'm sure we haven't heard the last of Ruairi

Ruari is the plot twist that just keeps on giving. His existence will have ramifications for generations to come…

Has anyone read the Morland series written by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles? It is a series of books charting the Morland family through the generations. It starts during the Wars of the Roses and certainly runs up to the sinking of the Titanic, if not beyond. I stopped reading at around the 1912 point as it went off the boil a bit but Harrod-Eagles was an excellent researcher and the history in them was very accurate. She also managed to successfully avoid continuity errors and always knew how many children the main characters had, which I always find to be a big plus point…

I guess Ruairi could end up having a breakdown and returning for at least a while?

Poor lad!

At some point in the future 'They' will decide what it is that They need Ruairi to have read. Law could come in handy with that shower. For the foreseeable, all we are going to need to know about him is 'estranged, in London/Ireland '.

At least we were spared anything like the sudden and unconvincing interest in current affairs that was briefly stapled to Phoebe.

Wapping I realise the origin of your name change.

"My username is from something Susan Carter said to Shula. My own posterior is small and pert well, it's small anyway"

FWIW I don't think Shula's bum is big.

Re fat: I once had to delicately explain to my Aspergers father that it was not the done thing to joke to women about their size/weight.

Another time I was at a gathering, and someone asked me to point out someone else that they didn't know. Cue me trying to think of some way to refer to her other than her main identifying feature - being fat having a large body . I managed to say "it's the woman over there with the white cardigan."

I'll be sorry to see Ruari go. And agree that Alice is being well written and acted. It's good to be able to actually want to listen to TA instead of doing it simply because of overinfestment and this thread.

I welled up at You and Yours the other day. Monday, I think. It was about the sick puppies that people no longer want because of the vet's fees.

Not white, @TheSilveryPussycat, ecru!

With the A s I’m surprised that Oxbridge was not considered, though he probably saw what a colossal waste of time it was for his half niece. Also he does seem more of the personality type to fancy London life over Oxbridge.

I have decided that he is doing Economics at UCL. Not LSE, because a mate at school went to UCL and said the social life was better and LSE economics students are a bit stuck up.

Loving all this! It’s true the SWs might have realised they’d shot themselves in the foot when they decided on three A*s - because one would naturally assume either Oxford or Cambridge would have been on his UCAS form.

Apart from one or two extreme exceptions I don’t really recognise any difference in personality between Oxbridge people and London university people. My friends and associates have tended to flow easily between them all. I’m happy to go with UCL for Ruairi too (although the young people I know who went there did have tales of unsuccessful Oxbridge applications). Also my father was at LSE and Ruairi’s nothing like him. .

Maybe the plan is that Ruari will be become so wealthy in the City that he will return to buy back Jenny's beloved farmhouse.

I'm not buying the idea that boarding-school educated Ruari hasn't ever reflected on his somewhat unusual family set up before yesterday.

Do you think somebody should mention to "single vaccinated at best" Ruari that he should probably get his second jab before heading out to Ireland?

Apart from one or two extreme exceptions I don’t really recognise any difference in personality between Oxbridge people and London university people.

Thinking about it, I'd say the same.

Maybe it's the people I know but there's a difference between Durham and Oxbridge personalities, and maybe there is a 'type'.

Sometimes people at work say things like Tom* is very brainy, he went to Cambridge, and I'll think 'bet he didn't' and he will have been to somewhere like York. It's a bit like saying 'all the cabinet went to Eton ', but it will be one or two went to Eton, and others went to other top public schools. Mr Sunak is an old wykehamist, I think.

Poor JD. She should be upfront with Ruari. There’s no point pretending everything Malice said was completely untrue. I don’t think there is any harm in admitting to an intelligent 18 year old that his mother’s & Brian’s actions caused her a great deal of heartache so it was hard welcoming him into the family. However in the 14 years since she has grown to love him. It isn’t the same as the love she instinctively felt for her biological children but it is there all the same. A bit like Brian and his non-bio children (well, in the case of Debbie anyway…)

Ruairi cannot realistically have expected JD to have never uttered a negative word about his mother although I suppose the reference to a ‘bitch fest’ was a bit hard to stomach.

But, yeah ... so strange not to name the institution. Perhaps every real life university in the country is now so horrified at TA’s factual inaccuracies that they refuse to have anything to do with it?

And we knew Debbie was at Exeter, and Alice at Southampton, and Phoebe at Oxford (did we know the college, though?) Most/all the ag.colls have been real, too. And almost anyone else was at Felpersham if they went anywhere. So yes, it is odd not to know.