🏘️ 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!

@Madcats

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.

My take on the notion of travelling was that the idea was a symptom of a bigger issue, rather than the cause...

@R4

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.

Radio 4 is for adults. It's supposed to cover news, current affairs, politics, the arts, culture and society.

It's nonsensical to think they can fit their remit in and not broadcast anything unsuitable for children until after 9.p.m

It's your responsibility, not Radio 4's, to monitor what your children hear. It's no different from taking a 6 year old to film rated 15 and complaining it's not suitable.

Ruth’s eulogy about the chemo nurses was over-scripted and very dreary. And Ben sounded way too earnest - I don’t know many 19-year-old boys but would be surprised if a real one would sit listening in wrapt reverence while his Mum ploughed on with her interminable memories of a cancer ward 100 years ago. I know Ben is a bit of a favourite on this thread but that surely can only be because his siblings are so dreadful.

And why were they drinking hot chocolate in July?

Re hot chocolate, I can't stand it, but don't people often have a hot milky drink when struggling to sleep? It wasn't that warm here last night and it was pouring with rain, so I can believe somebody having hot chocolate to warm up too.

Dull but worthy. Obviously Ben is now going to smash his interview. (Unless the SWs decide to relive the time when Alice applied to the RAF and was rejected, against all expectations.)

Limo story - yawn. As for a teacher getting married on 13th July, maybe he teaches at an independent school, or has come down from Scotland, where the schools broke up a couple of weeks ago.

Limo story - yawn. As for a teacher getting married on 13th July, maybe he teaches at an independent school, or has come down from Scotland, where the schools broke up a couple of weeks ago.

I thought they were trying to leave him at his house so he's not from Scotland. He could work at an independent school, though. I expect the SW think teachers get loads of holidays and take time off whenever they want. Unless things have changed (Academies can change the rules but generally for the worse) the contract says you can get a day off at the HT's discretion, usually without pay, for the wedding of a close relative but teachers are expected to have their own weddings out of term time.

@CaptainMyCaptain

Limo story - yawn. As for a teacher getting married on 13th July, maybe he teaches at an independent school, or has come down from Scotland, where the schools broke up a couple of weeks ago.

I thought they were trying to leave him at his house so he's not from Scotland. He could work at an independent school, though. I expect the SW think teachers get loads of holidays and take time off whenever they want. Unless things have changed (Academies can change the rules but generally for the worse) the contract says you can get a day off at the HT's discretion, usually without pay, for the wedding of a close relative but teachers are expected to have their own weddings out of term time.

It was the bride who was the teacher.

I think that you are being over-harsh about Ben talking to Ruth @Roysnewshirt. He had an interview to be a nurse the next day and had asked her specifically about her experience in hospital- equally, it was appropriate for her to go into detail given the context.

What shocked me was when he causally threw in that he had only set foot in a hospital 3 times in his life! How in earth can he have worked out that nursing is for him when he has pretty much only seen it on TV?

What shocked me was when he causally threw in that he had only set foot in a hospital 3 times in his life! How in earth can he have worked out that nursing is for him when he has pretty much only seen it on TV? Me too. A friend's DD has just got on to a nursing Post Grad and had to have loads of hours of relevant experience (which she got working in a care home in her uni holidays and through lockdown - much like the example quoted in the episode).

How in earth can he have worked out that nursing is for him when he has pretty much only seen it on TV?

Inspiration struck him when he saw Leonard have his vaccine, didn’t it? Talk about suggestible. Aren’t St John’s Ambulance volunteers doing a lot of the jabs? He might be better off just doing an eight week first aid course. The boy doesn’t really seem to know what he wants…

@theThreeofWeevils

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.

What you need is Spinal Tap about 35 seconds in.

It was the bride who was the teacher
No it Pygmalion wasn't.

When Eddie rang Clarrie to tell her it was all going well Clarrie asked "so what's the bridegroom like?" and Eddie told her "He's a secondary school teacher". So I rather think m'learned Weevil is correct.

@Roysnewshirt

How in earth can he have worked out that nursing is for him when he has pretty much only seen it on TV?

Inspiration struck him when he saw Leonard have his vaccine, didn’t it? Talk about suggestible. Aren’t St John’s Ambulance volunteers doing a lot of the jabs? He might be better off just doing an eight week first aid course. The boy doesn’t really seem to know what he wants…

I think I read that the St John's Ambulance we're all trained up, but not used. They ran a drive-thru flu jab clinic near me and it was much better organised than the GP led Covid clinic.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

When Eddie rang Clarrie to tell her it was all going well Clarrie asked "so what's the bridegroom like?" and Eddie told her "He's a secondary school teacher". So I rather think m'learned Weevil is correct.

Fair enough, I stand corrected, had an extractor fan going in the background. I don’t understand the Pygmalion reference though @theThreeofWeevils.

@LillianGish

What shocked me was when he causally threw in that he had only set foot in a hospital 3 times in his life! How in earth can he have worked out that nursing is for him when he has pretty much only seen it on TV? Me too. A friend's DD has just got on to a nursing Post Grad and had to have loads of hours of relevant experience (which she got working in a care home in her uni holidays and through lockdown - much like the example quoted in the episode).

Yes, my point was less about him not having got enough experience to apply, it was the step further back about not having had enough information to even know for his own personal reasons that it was for him (which is obviously what the work experience requirement is designed to weed out). But Ruth had a good point that no care home will have been taking work experiences/casual workers over the past year or so. (Or is that a fallacy- might they actually have been desperate for cover staff?)

Pygmalion reference - 'Not bloody likely!' Shocked the nation to its core when George Bernard Shaw wrote this. (Musical version = My Fair Lady.)

'His house' in the context of place where he gets dropped off night before his wedding could be his parents' or other family member's house, so I'm going to cling to my admittedly far-fetched theory that he could be a teacher in Scotland.

Ben may have little experience of being a patient, but he's got lots and lots of experience of looking after livestock, watching for early signs of illness/infection, assisting with births. Surely there must be some relevance to human healthcare there?

My second jab was administered by an army medic in uniform at a local medical centre, FWIW.

HaveringWavering
I don’t understand the Pygmalion reference though

I am not a weevil, but that reference is because in Pygmalion Liza Doolittle, when she was being all polite or at least trying to, was asked whether she would walk home through the Park and replied, "Walk? Not bloody likely! I'm taking a taxi" or something of the sort. The play was first put on in 1914, in London anyway, and "bloody" on stage was really shocking, so quite a lot of people started using Pygmalion as a swear-word instead of "bloody".

I didn't realise we had such a Venerable Weevil on Mumsnet, though.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Pygmalion reference - 'Not bloody likely!' Shocked the nation to its core when George Bernard Shaw wrote this. (Musical version = My Fair Lady.)

'His house' in the context of place where he gets dropped off night before his wedding could be his parents' or other family member's house, so I'm going to cling to my admittedly far-fetched theory that he could be a teacher in Scotland.

Ben may have little experience of being a patient, but he's got lots and lots of experience of looking after livestock, watching for early signs of illness/infection, assisting with births. Surely there must be some relevance to human healthcare there?

My second jab was administered by an army medic in uniform at a local medical centre, FWIW.

I’m well aware that Pygmalion was the basis for My Fair Lady! In fact I wondered if the reference was something to do with the song “I’m getting married in the morning”, which is sung by Eliza’s father (memorably played by Russ Abbott when I saw it at the THeatre Royal Drury Lane many years ago).

Thank you to those who explained. I’m not sure that an expletive (albeit a literary-inspired one) was warranted though, I genuinely thought that was what I had heard, sorry I didn’t qualify it with “I think” and had to be put back in my place.

Ben has been the gentlest Archer child for some time now. He has had some lovely conversations with his grandma, and his kindness is amplified by its juxtaposition with his siblings' behaviour. I really hope Ben makes it on to his course. It might not be realistic, but we could hear about some of the aspects of the course and placements that he finds challenging.

And wasn't it Wossname Two-phones' house, not unconscious bridegroom's anyway? Otherwise our bumbling rustics wouldn't have been ringing him on both his phones, oh do stop, my sides are splitting. Not.

Oh, and @HaveringWavering, no, an expletive as such wasn't warranted, hence use of 'Pygmalion'. Which appears to have caused more trouble than it was worth anyway.
Yours,
the Venerable Venomous Weevil

State schools in some parts of the Midlands broke up last Friday.

@WorriedWishingWell

State schools in some parts of the Midlands broke up last Friday.

That's what I thought, but I couldn't find the information easily.

Schools in Leicester break up very early and go back in the middle of August. It's to do with the traditional factory breaks - Wakes weeks.

I think we now know neither the bride or groom are Scottish.

@CaptainMyCaptain

Schools in Leicester break up very early and go back in the middle of August. It's to do with the traditional factory breaks - Wakes weeks.

I think we now know neither the bride or groom are Scottish.

[Stamps foot]

Yes, I accept that now.

I've done interviewing as a lay person for a health-related course (not nursing, but similar). The set up was similar, although for the course I was interviewing for it was MMIs, multiple mini interviews, with several different interviewers in succession, each with a separate question to ask. I can see for budgetary reasons that was never going to happen on TA. The actual questions acted struck me as reasonably OK. He is, of course, going to be offered a place.

At least he knows enough not to grab a partially-sighted person by the arm and take them across the road without asking first what they want, and not to take their arm but let them take his! A surprisingly large number of people don't know this: my blind father-in-law used to spit tintacks about it. Another mistake is the "now, we're coming to three steps. I'll count them with you..." but not bothering to mention whether they are up or down.