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

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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

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.

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!

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!

But Lilian talked about it being her own family history in the Stables - which were started by her Aunt Christine.

And, on top of all that, Shula is An Archer - why the devil would she be collapsing into jelly before an upstart incomer like Justin? He has no power over her business whatsoever. It was nonsensical.

Unless you imagine Lilian exists (ghastly thought) then that is the SW continuity cock-p!

The Stables were definitely started by Lilian!

@EBearhug

But Lilian talked about it being her own family history in the Stables - which were started by her Aunt Christine.

She did indeed; but since they were started by HER, not by Christine (who took them over more than ten years later) she had had complete bollocks put into her mouth by the scriptwriter.

Lighthouse Lil really is obnoxious. I think I dislike her more than Pip. She's such a stupid and unpleasant woman.

@23minutesfromTulseHill have to ask...a Carter fan?

@stilldumdedumming, nah, just a Sarf Lunnon-themed name change. It was the Pitney (that tried to be Putney!) song I was referencing rather than Tulsa County. A lot of time for Anita C, though.

I would never go into business with Lillian. Let alone Lillian and Justin. Shula should have nipped the plan in the bud when she went over yesterday and put the plan down to too much gin and tonic on Thursday. Big Mistake! Huge…

Although I must confess to a slight sneaking feeling of joy at the thought of Shula being tormented by that dreadful pair…

I can't believe that having concocted all that rubbish about Lighthouse Lil and sailing in Guernsey (well I suppose it might have been true, but it had never before been alluded to and just felt like a rather lame and tedious attempt at a comedy episode), the SW have entirely forgotten that she set up the stables. I am away again next week and I'm seriously thinking of giving up - there's really no point in trying to keep up if the SWs are just going to rewrite history in the hope or expectation that readers will have forgotten. I'd be better off not knowing in the first place.

Yup - this calls for a stiff letter to Feedback. It’s inexcusable.

Re Lily's job. My guess it is team member, supervisor (of maybe 3 other people), then team leader (team of 15-20).
Getting a 10p / hour pay rise with each promotion.

Excruciating. I just don't buy that a man of Justin's age and background would be so abominably rude to a woman of Shula's age, a close relative and friend of his partner's. That's before we even start on the massive continuity error others have already pointed out (which I must say I would have missed, as it was well before I started listening - but clearly lots of listeners were around then). OK, the archivist left/retired, and wasn't replaced. However, her archives presumably remain and the scriptwriters could surely be furnished with copies of The Ambridge Encyclopaedia and The Book of the Archers.

Not enthused by the hilarious sibling rivalry of David and Kenton either.

@23minutesfromTulseHill I meant the Carter USM song!! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jfamvqrYvBU

I think Alistair will talk Shula out of it!

The archives were transferred to computer amid much triumphalism on the BBC blog that existed in the early days of this century. However, digital archives are only any use if they are used. People who don't know (or don't care, which is what I am starting to think is the case) that they don't know something won't bother to check them.

Daniel Thurman has written three full weeks and ten two-day weeks of Archers scripts, started in September 2019, and seems to know the square root of bugger all about the characters or the programme's history.

@stilldumdedumming, I honestly didn't know of that song at all. This place is an education.

World Menopause Day today: off to wax my moustache

Ouch … Lilian’s lines sound even worse second time around!

Why on earth didn’t the writer check and double check the correctness of his script?

I'd put the blame on the whole production team, and especially the senior members. They agree the storylines in outline months, and sometimes years, in advance, at a meeting attended by the Editor, the producers, directors and all scriptwriters. They all have a chance to talk about whether a particular character would do whatever they're considering.

Now, I know from my own work experience that sometimes it's theoretically possible to query a senior management decision but in practice it would be a very bad move. That must be even more pertinent when the people concerned are freelancers who might be dispensed with if they're perceived as a problem. Maybe that's what's held some of the longer-standing SWs back here.

Anyway, having agreed on the outline, they go off and write the scripts they're allocated. Surely these scripts are then scrutinised by somebody senior? And what are they looking at if not making sure the scripts hang together, not just from day to day and week to week, but also year to year and decade to decade. That's what makes the Archers different from all other soaps.

Clearly the ‘somebody senior’ either didn’t look, or didn’t know. And didn’t know they didn’t know …

Or. They’re deliberately gaslighting us to facilitate Justin’s elbowing of his way into an Archer family business. (On the basis that if Lilian was only ever a stable girl she has less standing in an argument about its future.) Which would be …

Bless their little cotton socks, Lilian was never a stable girl at The Stables.

At the stables attached to Grey Gables, the ones in which there was the fire that led to Grace Archer's death, yes, Lilian worked as a stable girl for a year when Valerie Trentham was running them before starting her own stables but that was never an Archer family business.

If you were to sack a member of staff in order to put a family member into their job, and she were to take you to an Employment Tribunal, what would be the likely outcome?

And if the outcome were that you had to reinstate her, how would you do that?

Stella can be sacked for any cause or none for about the next 22 months.

I fail to see how either of the previous investment possibilities viz. buying a yacht or an eventer, would meet Justin's criteria for a decent return.

I am furious about the major disruption of Archers history. Somebody mentioned Archers books up thread. I think we should club together and buy the production team second hand copies of any that can be found.

Or we could offer Asking's expertise. For a price...

I am busy, dammit! I havenae got time to deal with people who canna be airsed to do their bliddy jobs.