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Original poster

🌱 Archers thread #131: A time to plant, a time to reap. Discuss The Archers here.

994 replies

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 15/09/2021 12:15

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

Archers 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 also have a few millions lying around you're not sure how to invest, or other unusual things. Grin

Archers Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the week night 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!

Archers 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.)

Thanks to @Roysnewshirt and @Edmontine for title suggestions, and apologies to anyone I’ve missed or forgotten. In the end, inspired by Edmontine's idea and a brief discussion at the end of the last thread, I remembered that it's autumn now and the Ambridge farmers are presumably sowing barley, winter wheat, potatoes etc, so I found myself recollecting Ecclesiastes 3 (King James version) - my Church of Scotland upbringing has a lot to answer for. This led me back to one of my favourite numbers by The Byrds (written by Pete Seeger):

Roysnewshirt suggested Prayer cards, rehab, a glass of scotch, a bowl of chilli or even a dish of lasagne…we offer a range of solutions here to help you solve any Ambridge problem - large or small etc etc, which is as good a point as any to start this thread. Do we think Neil and Susan are solid again? Will Alice relapse? Will Shula confess all to the Bishop?

Reflecting on last night's offering, Edmontine said I’m musing on Baby steps … - but we need the culmination of Alice’s story this week. We have a new nurse in training, a possibly resigning midwife settling in Ambridge, Xander, Martha, Alice somewhere trying to find her feet sans grog, Shula trying to find her saintly feet sans Neil …B(ill)eth & Ben. Lots and lots of newness. Stir in Three’s blood and jam …

The blood and jam made me laugh. A lot. Just as well, as the storyline that line inspired is pants.

Over to you!

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
purplesequins · 14/10/2021 19:35

russ will go for chelsea... but will try to keep big-house-lil sweet

KimikosNightmare · 14/10/2021 19:37

@purplesequins

russ will go for chelsea... but will try to keep big-house-lil sweet
No he won't.
23minutesfromTulseHill · 14/10/2021 20:35

Russ won't go for Chelsea ( the man has some sense) but Lily will think he has/is. Huge row, recriminations, all v ugly. That ONS will come out - she had it for a reason - and all will go tits up. Widderbeth will be Team Russ. You mark my words.

MereDintofPandiculation · 14/10/2021 20:51

@EBearhug

She's been promoted twice and is a team leader now - she told us last night!
So what is between “team member” and “team leader”?
AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 14/10/2021 20:52

Russ is only staying because he gets a roof over his head and free nookie out of it; but if Lily talks to him in bed in the belittling way she talks to him everywhere else, he must long to gag her after persuading her it's a bit of vanilla s&m.

echt · 14/10/2021 23:33

After a three episode catch-up I must say how much I enjoyed the haircut episode and was Hmm about the tutoring. Chelsea is rather good. The Amy actor - what dreary voice, makes me quite like Blake's in comparison.

FoxgloveSummers · 14/10/2021 23:58

Chelsea is streets ahead of the other younger actors, definitely. Loved her victory song Grin

EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues · 15/10/2021 00:00

Has Martyn Gibson undergone a post-lockdown character reboot, or is he hiding a cunning plan?

EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues · 15/10/2021 00:00

The victory song deserves a BOOP!

KimikosNightmare · 15/10/2021 01:10

It was pretty poisonous of Lily to be so obviously hoping Chelsea would fail and. Russ would get a ridiculous haircut.

EBearhug · 15/10/2021 01:18

Martin Gibson is just thinking about BL's reputation: we're so lovely and caring, look what we have done for this poor little slave boy, how could you not want to trade with someone so wonderful? He doesn't actually give a damn about Blake.

EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues · 15/10/2021 01:42

That was part of my initial thought. Perhaps more that since Blake was already in their midst it would be better to keep him onside and avoid encouraging him to say anything detrimental to BL. But Gibson sounded completely, if only superficially, sincere.

Perhaps we’re about to have his hard knock biography inflicted on us.

Roysnewshirt · 15/10/2021 07:09

Martin Gibson is simply hoping to avoid a law suit.

LillianGish · 15/10/2021 08:39

Everyone is quite rightly trying to make amends to Blake, but what he really needs is somewhere to live - he can’t just keep being paid cash in hand if BL wants to prove it’s not exploiting him (or am I over-thinking this). Re Chelsea - the plot contortion required to get her into LL and under CMR’s nose must have been engineered for some reason. Either he’ll make a play for her (unlikely - too obvious even for the SWs) or Lily will believe he has/is trying to. Or maybe the whole scenario is there just to reassure listeners that CMR and Lily really are a love match and that relationships between schoolchildren and their teachers can work out well Hmm

EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues · 15/10/2021 08:51

I wonder whether, rather than major plot, the purpose of this week is simply to connect Horrobins to Pargetters. Usually the latter would sweep past the former, in a golden carriage, barely noticing the serf threshing and scything at the edge of a field. This way - conversation has been established, mutual aid and support between Houses may follow. It’s potentially magical.

EdmontinaDonsAutumnalHues · 15/10/2021 08:55

(I know there was the previous dinner with Tracy, but really that only set up the reason for this new interaction.)

purplesequins · 15/10/2021 09:04

reg blake - what about the right to work check?
must be a nightmare for people like him.

23minutesfromTulseHill · 15/10/2021 10:14

He doesn't actually give a damn about Blake
On that, Gibson and I are as one.

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 15/10/2021 10:46

LillianGish
Or maybe the whole scenario is there just to reassure listeners that CMR and Lily really are a love match and that relationships between schoolchildren and their teachers can work out well

If it is, they surely wouldn't have Lily being so habitually unpleasant at him? Love doesn't snipe and belittle and try to do down the loved object all the time. Lily's gloating tone when she thought Chelsea was going to make Russ look ridiculous with a bad haircut Lily had forced him to accept was nothing like any love I have ever heard.

FoxgloveSummers · 15/10/2021 11:23

What Blake really needs in the short term is a decent job with tied housing. There must be some estates locally that have that. It’ll be just like working for Philip but he’ll get paid as well.

Madcats · 15/10/2021 13:41

@FoxgloveSummers

What Blake really needs in the short term is a decent job with tied housing. There must be some estates locally that have that. It’ll be just like working for Philip but he’ll get paid as well.
Isn't there a gamekeeper's cottage going spare?
Original poster
Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 15/10/2021 16:43

No, I believe a silent and unnamed replacement for Will Grundy has been recruited and therefore probably lives there now.

Afternoon all. Been away for a few days and just caught up. Not a bad week overall. Chelsea is great. Russ is a loathsome character but one I enjoy loathing. Always lovely to hear Johnnie. Marvellous to have a character finally who doesn't think the sun shines out of Pip's fundament (and isn't one of her younger brothers).

Feedback currently interviewing two young people who never listen to the radio. My late 20s children don't either, for the most part. I wonder what this bodes for The Archers in the very, very long term.

OP posts:
KimikosNightmare · 15/10/2021 23:28

Lily's gloating tone when she thought Chelsea was going to make Russ look ridiculous with a bad haircut Lily had forced him to accept was nothing like any love I have ever heard

It was bizarre. It's not as if Lily would give 2 hoots about not hurting Chelsea's feelings.

Goodness knows where the merging of the houses of Horribin and Pargetter is going.

2Two · 15/10/2021 23:51

i do hope David and Ruth are going to decide Stella is wonderful and leave Pip on her own with egg all over her face.

I was seriously put off by Lily trying so hard to recruit Chelsea to kitchen selling. Knowing she has dyslexia, surely she could work out that Chelsea might not have time if she's to get decent qualifications?

AskingQuestionsAllTheTime · 17/10/2021 19:45

This Thurman person writing the scripts is poor on continuity: he has written Lilian as having forgotten that she learned to ride on her own pony as a child, and that she herself founded The Stables in 1966 when she was nineteen, ran it until 1976, and later sold it to Christine when she moved to Guernsey with her husband Ralph Bellamy to live.

He might not know about The Stables' past, but I simply do not credit that Lilian would have forgotten!