🌱 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!

Well, we don't know if he was seeing a Dr but (and this is not my specialist subject) I believe a PM is not always required.

www.gov.uk/after-a-death/when-a-death-is-reported-to-a-coroner?step-by-step-nav=4f1fe77d-f43b-4581-baf9-e2600e2a2b7a

I'm sure someone here will be able to provide the definitive answer.

If he can't tell the difference between Bert being asleep and Bert being dead then I'm not super confident in his nursing abilities full stop

But he's not a nurse yet. How long before any trainees nurse sees someone who's just died?

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Will there now be a post-mortem, since he was not being seen by a doctor for any specific disease or condition?

If there s a PM, what's the betting there was something sinister about the pickled egg? More than usually sinister for a pickled egg, I mean. And for all we know, he might have been under the doctor. Though I suppose Rex would have been aware and have mentioned it tonight.

Anyone else reckon the notoriously slatternly Ruth's keenness to tidy the bedroom was motivated mainly by a desire to see if there were any jazz mags lying around, bearing in mind the foul and stunted creature is also notoriously prurient?

And what was that absolute BS about her doing CPR on Heatherpet (whose famoushly looshe false teeth would have shot out and caused a carpark shunt as they shattered someone's windscreen? Heather carked it in the front seat. Did wor Rooth unbuckle her, drag her onto the tarmac at the services and start bouncing up and down saying 'Coom on, old girl!'? Not on air she bloody didn't.

Wasn't it Urshula Titchenor who had the looshe denturesh?

Roof is certainly becoming quite the Angel of Death though. Look out Jill.

Did wor Rooth unbuckle her, drag her onto the tarmac at the services and start bouncing up and down saying 'Coom on, old girl!'? Everyone knows you're supposed to do CPR while singing Nellie the Elephant (to get the rhythm right).Not 'Coom on, old girl!'

Looking forward to meeting Trevor… what do we think? Bad ‘un?

Good point about Me Moom. She was unconscious at the Services but breathing normally, and therefore would not have needed CPR from Ruth. What she'd had was a stroke, not a heart attack.

Lowfield for 28th September, 2015, says "Heather is unconscious and Ruth has called an ambulance. The paramedics are working on her and she is being taken to hospital in Nottingham" and then "Heather had another stroke. Sadly, she never came round and she is dead."

Bee Gees’ Staying Alive surely

Wow. So dull going down Memory Lane with Ruth and Rex as they reminisced about Boring Bert. I hope it was more enjoyable for those who loved him.

@BoreOfWhabylon

Wasn't it Urshula Titchenor who had the looshe denturesh?

Roof is certainly becoming quite the Angel of Death though. Look out Jill.

Might have been both. Heatherpet had an extremely annoying voice.

@BoreOfWhabylon Inspirational !
Though not quite there with the metre....

I was wondering whether Bert has left something to Rex ? Failing that I wonder if David &Ruth will let the bungalow to Rex ?

Just need to line up a new girlfriend for Rex - Amy (as in God Squad daughter), Stella (too old ?), any other contenders ?

@echt

Well! I was about to post about the ridiculous drive-in films chosen by CMR. So I will. Even the heavily-edited version of "The Exorcist" on Netflix makes it unsuitable for a wide audience. No doubt scandal will ensue.

I enjoyed Freddie baiting Lily about CMR's "form" for young girls.

Poor old Bert. Top poem, Gaspode.

Having recently taken a couple of excited under 10s around a Hallowe'en tour, I can report that the home-grown ghost stories were easily the best part. Happily they weren't offering "The Exorcist" but if they had I would definitely have given it a swerve.

Is anyone seriously likely to flog over to LL to watch a film they can see in the comfort of their own homes on Netflix or similar?

When I was asked about a DNR for my mother, I was told that CPR rarely does the elderly any favours - at best they're likely to be left with broken ribs, but the chances are they will also have brain damage and it rarely works anyway. Fortunately for me my mother had made it clear that she'd come back and haunt me if I condoned any attempts at resuscitation, so the decision about the DNR wasn't difficult.

Bee Gees’ Staying Alive surely

Or Barwick Green. Though that may never have been heard in Ambridge...

Bert’s death will need to be the subject of a chat with the coroner (even if he’s been seeing his GP on the sly, because he was taken to hospital - see below) but he almost certainly won’t end up with a PM unless Trevor is very keen.

The rules have changed somewhat since COVID, so now for a dr to issue a medical certificate of cause of death (what you’re given to take to the registry office to get the death certificate) you need to have been seen by a dr either face to face or by video call within 28 days of death. If this hasn’t happened then the coroner must be informed. Also anyone who dies within 24hrs of admission to hospital must be reported to the coroner, so if the ambulance transported him to A+E (which it sounds like they did) then he officially died in hospital and so the hospital docs will need to call the coroner even if they know what killed him (and given that he sounded pretty dead in the pub it’s unlikely that anyone knows). Paramedics are not allowed to certify death except in a list of ‘unbelievably obvious’ circumstances such as ‘decapitation’ and ‘body decomposing’ (sorry) and so are obliged to resuscitate a patient until they arrive in hospital unless someone has a valid DNACPR order to hand.

CPR is not very often successful in any event. Certainly not done by Ruth “I kept tryin a bit of CPR” and even less so on an 85 year old heart. He’s very likely to have ended up with broken ribs, broken dignity (at least Jolene cleared the bar I suppose) and not much else to show for it. Poor chap.

In reality it’s likely that his cause of death will end up being put down as ‘old age’ (generally acceptable if >80 as a rule of thumb), with whatever other chronic but never-mentioned diseases he had put down as contributing factors.

I thought Ruth and Rex going through Bert’s things was unbelievably intrusive and should have been left to Trevor. But I wasn’t surprised by Ruth suggesting it - she does have a tendency to the prurient, as mentioned above.

Bert’s death will need to be the subject of a chat with the

• Vicar, I thought you were going to say! And Shula, who will no doubt wring as much personal pain out of Bert’s death as the rest of the Brookfield Archers.

@2Two

When I was asked about a DNR for my mother, I was told that CPR rarely does the elderly any favours - at best they're likely to be left with broken ribs, but the chances are they will also have brain damage and it rarely works anyway. Fortunately for me my mother had made it clear that she'd come back and haunt me if I condoned any attempts at resuscitation, so the decision about the DNR wasn't difficult.

Exactly. Dragging poor Bert out of his chair and thumping away at his chest would have been horrible and, even if he could have been snatched from the jaws of death, what would he have gained in quality of life? Nothing.

Poor old Bert has breathed his last,
That's another off the cast,
List.

I dislike Rex, a feeling confirmed when he wrote anonymous nasty stuff on the internet about someone else. He and Pip would go well together. Preferably not in Borsetshire.

ButtonSister

That’s next year’s Forward Prize in the bag!

Cue campaign for a defibrillator for the Bull (however inappropriate that might or might not be).

The thing with Rex and the internet was plot driven and out of character, I thought. Rex comes over as a decent person to me - particularly when stood next to Toby and Robin.

Rex will end up with Phoeble or Kursedy

What about Lily?