🏘️ 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!

She's that 'newly-single woman' that some of us hardened MNers identify as being potential trouble to a relationship.

Usually a 'damsels in distress ', man helps her out, gets appreciated, feels attracted, then it's 'the mrs doesn't understand me'...

IStillLoveShula

@Edmontine

This is where we need Usha ... Part of me thinks newly separated Shula (months ago) consciously or otherwise saw vicardom as a way to spend more time with Alan. I really don't see what else she's getting out of it.

You'd think she might have noticed that you only get one vicar per parish, or in Alan's case seven parishes...

The 'damsel in distress' is a thing in Ambridge.

Single-mother Helen sets out to ensnare Rob.
Newly-widowed Shula and Dr Locke
Joy's car repairs and Tony
Jerlene and Kenton
Lizard and Rotaboy

LillianGish
She has form with Richard Lock

I don't think that is particularly fair; she went out with Richard Locke when she was also going out (a bit) with Alistair Lloyd, while not married to either of them and while neither was married. Usha was in the process of trying to work out how to ditch Locke at the time, having cohabited with him.

Locke's a rather nasty bit of work, actually: he seemed to home in on women who were vulnerable. Debbie when she'd been caught up in an armed raid on the Post Office and was in a nervous state, Usha after she had ammonia thrown in her face and was afraid on her own in the house, Shula while her small son had an undiagnosed condition which terrified her. And the more recent time he turned up it was Elizabeth, not Shula, that he was sniffing round -- widowed, worried about her children...

Can’t they hand the baby to useless Cousin Phoebe, or any of the other underemployed teenage/young adult relatives? If there was a huge caring responsibility like that when I had a part time job my mum would have “volunteered” me before you could say “nappy”.

@BoreOfWhabylon

Shula is driving this, Neil is genuinely clueless. She has form with Richard Lock and I think she is a bit lonely.

Yes. Not long ago she was cosying up to Philip Moss too.

She should have thought of that when she disposed of her perfectly functional husband

Who she didnt love. Probably she wanted more than functional.

The whole Shula "I am not fulfilled, I want us both to drop everything to travel..." was rather odd.

You would have thought that, having ditched Alistair because he wouldn't go with her, Shula would have ventured a little further than....Felpersham.

Or at least taken one of the horses on a pilgrimage/long distance ride.

Instead she decided that vicaring was to be her calling and started chatting up Philip.

TBF, I've never understood Shula.

I think that the editorial team has not really known what to do with her since about 1995, when she'd had Daniel and settled down. None of the editorial teams. She's been very variable indeed since then, and understanding her has been a matter of accepting that she will do whatever is needed for a plot, any plot; she is no longer a character herself, just someone who reacts to whatever may seem to need someone to react to it. I think the actor is wasted.

@Eastie77

I think he tried to tell her about the gardening but Susan interrupted and ordered him to the supermarket.

Agree that Martha should spend more time with her mother's family. Susan running herself into the ground when the Aldridges are available to help (what does Kate do all day?) is silly and controlling.

What does Kate do all day? Hangs around with her Coven deciding who is next in line for one of her black magic spells. The evil auld mare.

My 5 year old son's childminder reports that he has been uncharacteristically directing 'unkind words' towards other children. He told a child he would punch him in the nose or kill someone and then laughed hysterically and said "and then I'll go to prison". The words rang a bell and I realised they were Alice's lines last week (both my children insist on listening to the Archers every evening, it's just before their bedtime)!

The words rang a bell and I realised they were Alice's lines last week (both my children insist on listening to the Archers every evening, it's just before their bedtime)!
Oh dear. Time to tell them that the radio is broken?

I've never really understood Radio 4's insistence on not having a watershed. On the one hand they are desperate to disregard their core (older) audience and chase the yoof listenership (twentysomethings) but at the same time are quite happy for the next generation after that (who are not listening with their horrified mother) to have the radio switched off on their behalf.
Half term always seemed to catch Woman's Hour unawares. They may have improved lately but I've lost the habit of listening these days so I don't know.

@Eastie77, I don't think you should let lDC hear The Archers.

They might grow up to say 'Me an' 'Name' instead of 'Name and I' or 'Name and me' or change the endings of words so that Emma and Mia become Emmur and Mere.

They might grow up thinking that it is perfectly OK to expect GPs in their 60s and 70s to provide free and unlimited childcare, that it's ok o have an affair with their DSpouse's sibling, that DDad or DGranny will throw money at any problem ...

[quote ILoveShula]@Eastie77, I don't think you should let lDC hear The Archers.

They might grow up to say 'Me an' 'Name' instead of 'Name and I' or 'Name and me' or change the endings of words so that Emma and Mia become Emmur and Mere.

They might grow up thinking that it is perfectly OK to expect GPs in their 60s and 70s to provide free and unlimited childcare, that it's ok o have an affair with their DSpouse's sibling, that DDad or DGranny will throw money at any problem ...[/quote]

A teacher getting married on Tuesday 13th July?

@R4

A teacher getting married on Tuesday 13th July?

It wouldn't happen. Ridiculous.

@R4

A teacher getting married on Tuesday 13th July?

I've not heard tonight, but just popped on to observe that a big state secondary close to us finished on 9 July this year (not sure how they managed that).

One of the boarding schools finished on 1 July (but they do have Saturday school).

Thinking of a previous observation about R4, a year or two ago it seemed as if the deliberately choose challenging topics on Women's Hour to coincide with school hols.

I think a teacher from some schools might now be in holiday time, and simply grabbed the first available slot for the wedding. For once I am not going to growl about the date being simply wrong. But I am feeling kind because the episode is over and my ears have stopped hurting.

I vote for the bridegroom choking on '[his own' - why is that always specified?] vomit in the limo as the halfwit yokels transport him back to Grange Farm. Unless they leave him on his mate's lawn, in which case he can do it there. But the former would at least shut down this limo bollocks. And I am sure Eddie could be done for something .

Blimey that was dull.

It's important to know it's not someone else's vomit presumably!

My default assumption is that it wouldn't be, still, and I haven't led a particularly sheltered life, I don't think

But if it were, would it qualify as 'secondary drinking'? I'd love to see the sordid health warning illustrations for that.

I don't think that is particularly fair; she went out with Richard Locke when she was also going out (a bit) with Alistair Lloyd, while not married to either of them and while neither was married.

Wasn't Shula hankering after him when he reappeared a couple of years ago? ISTR her being a bit miffed that Elizabeth seemed to be preferred.

Surely you would just wake the groom and get him onto the sofa? Also
presumably he has his phone on him?

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I think that the editorial team has not really known what to do with her since about 1995, when she'd had Daniel and settled down. None of the editorial teams. She's been very variable indeed since then, and understanding her has been a matter of accepting that she will do whatever is needed for a plot, any plot; she is no longer a character herself, just someone who reacts to whatever may seem to need someone to react to it. I think the actor is wasted.

I meant to say but got distracted ... I agree with this. I liked the friendship between Shula and Caroline but when they moved on to boyfriends/husbands, Shula seemed to lose her way. She doesn't even have Dan to fuss over any more these days, he has disappeared. I think the editorial teams realised that four DC and their descendants was too many Archers and they couldn't provide that many plotlines.