🌱 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!

Have I made up that Caroline was Willyum's god mother or similar- didn't she leave him money?

@TheSilveryPussycat

Also, why do some posts offer Quote, while others don't? Hence my cut and paste.

As far as I can make out, posts which are already quoting a previous post, like the one of mine you replied to, don't offer the quote function. Ones that aren't quoting do.

If that isn't it, then I am baffled.

@stilldumdedumming

Have I made up that Caroline was Willyum's god mother or similar- didn't she leave him money?

Caroline was William's godmother (but left the same amount of money to each Grundy boy). That does not mean that her subsequent husband, thirty years later, was in any way obliged to buddy up to William's grandfather!

Caroline was William's godfather. Oliver was Ed's mentor. Also, when Oliver first bought Grange Farm, Joe and Eddie bore a totally unreasonable and illogical grudge against him for having bought the farm after they lost it by falling behind with the rent. Oliver did not tell them where to go, oddly, and agreed they could carry on using the apples for the cider club. Then of course he agreed they could rent Grange Farm for a ridiculously low rent. Rich man's guilt?

Rich man's guilt?

Nah …

Before The Fludde everything made sense, Caroline keeping an eye on Will, Oliver becoming a support and mentor to Ed. After SOC’s apocalypse things turned weird and wrong, including the Sterlings spending billions of insurance money on refurbishing Grange Farm and then renting it to the Grundys, and Caroline becoming a mean shrew. Of course some of this must have been necessitated by Sara Coward’s illness - but it hasn’t been helped by too many editors in quick succession.

I’m often puzzled by why Oliver is still in Ambridge. My own parents lived abroad for most of my early adult life. When one died, the other moved back to be near their children and grandchildren. I could never understand why (after Caroline’s death) Oliver didn’t buy a nice ranch within a day’s flight of daughters and decent restaurants …

I mean - if he had taken up with Tracy and made her Queen of Grey Gables, I could have seen the point. But it didn’t happen. There’s no point to his being there at all now.

Just checking into this thread. I’ve given up for the last month but maybe I’ll try to start listening again…

Good luck, RandomCatGenerator! It's not a golden period at the moment, to be frank.

I agree with a lot of that, Edmontine, but Oliver is very English and perhaps he didn't want to live abroad for the first time in old age. I have friends who moved abroad to be closer to family for a time after taking early retirement, but eventually felt obliged to return to the UK because health care was so expensive in the other place (there were pre-existing conditions which insurance wouldn't cover). That wouldn't apply to Oliver, as far as we know, but there are plenty of other reasons not to leave the UK.

If we take down the fourth wall, another reason for keeping Oliver is that his actor has a very distinctive and easily recognised voice, and is also a pretty good/reliable in demand actor (I often see him on TV), so worth shoving into a storyline from time to time as the listeners know who he is.

We but @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, Oliver lived in Italy with Caroline! Italy is, last time I checked, abroad.

Thinking about it (having just caught up on a few days’ worth of posts inc the end of the last thread - Helen Bonham Carter already IS Kate. I’d just never realised before.

Yes I’m hating this Eddie “persuades” all other competitors to withdraw from the relevant classes of the F&P storyline, and particularly his using poor old Ollie in that episode. It felt manipulative, almost abusive - Oliver was a poor weak innocent to be used by mastermind Eddie. A bit like Scrooge or possibly a mafia boss.

True, I'd forgotten about Italy, but that was with Caroline. Very different from going to the States on his own.

I'm hoping that the F&P organisers will cancel the whole thing due to inadequate entries.

@Droite

I'm hoping that the F&P organisers will cancel the whole thing due to inadequate entries.

Hoping for a massive sinkhole myself. My natural optimism is not yet wholly crushed, but it's a near thing.

Lynda can excruciatingly mangle the pronunciation of Jules Verne as she hurtles to the centre of the earth, which - I am reliably informed - is really hot and melty in a way Grey Gables' kitchen fire just wasn't. And then the afterlife... 🔥

That should of course be read with the sense of 'including but not limited to' the Snell monstrosity: plenty more candidates for being swallowed by the tired earth are available, after all.

Oliver's baffling social position is indicative of something that I've banged on about before, which is that no one has mates at the moment. Weren't pip and Alice friends at one time? I'm trying to recall who raided natasha's wrinkle cream collection when they had the cocktail party in the tardis flat. Aren't Brian and Oliver friends? Wouldn't it have made more sense for them to talk about oliver's experience of supporting ed through his drug addiction and hitting of rock bottom than that excruciating scene between Jennifer and Ed. There are loads more examples. I'm just so fed up of it all.

I could cry for that lost scene, Faceicle …

But I’ve just remembered - was it Fallon who described someone as a sweet/lovely ‘old boy’ a few days ago? She Would Never … It sounded incongruous at the time; now it’s bothering me.

Was that the man whose birthday party she was doing the catering for? With the blazer?

Yes.

Oliver's baffling social position is indicative of something that I've banged on about before, which is that no one has mates at the moment

This is very astute and actually reflects a wider trend I have noticed in TV/film which is becoming unbearable. So many references these days to how great and important family Is. ‘Family is the only thing that matters’ or ‘You’re family - that’s what counts’ is a repeated mantra that seems have taken on a quasi-religious meaning. So many people have dysfunctional family relationships which are the main source of stress (money aside) in people’s lives IRL yet still this myth persists. US shows are particularly bad at perpetuating this ridiculous ideal - I blame Norman Rockwell - but it’s become a very British thing now too. The SWs are just reflecting what they see all around them I suppose but the importance of true friendships is being woefully devalued.

We do have some friendships in Ambridge (Helen and Ian; Clarrie and Susan for instance), however, they are often socially and/or economically unequal (Kirsty and Helen; Emma and Fallon; Pip and Rex). Kirsty and Roy actually do seem like real friends but even he is still her boss.

Oh and the Jazza/Prof/Alistair thing works ok in the show though I think the chances of it playing out successfully IRL are limited.

@Pinkycheeks

Take the baby and run Alice!

Oh yes, an unrepentent drunk takes a baby away from her father who has had care of her since her mother had to go into the drying-out facility! I hope that Chris has had legal advice regarding his position, the courts tend to take the stupid idea that a mother, however bad, has more rights than him. If anyone should take the baby and run it's Chris, at least he cares about her.

“Nice old boy …”

Ha! That explains it - this week’s writer, Nick Warburton, was born in 1947 and is clearly so well established in his occupation that he doesn’t need to know or converse with anyone of Fallon’s age - 36.*

Fortunately at least half my colleagues are in their thirties - and I (not in my thirties) can confidently state that not a single one of them is aware of the phrase ‘old boy’ as a way of referring to an elderly man.

*I have no reason to believe other people born in 1947 would make this mistake …

The annoying thing is that they used to be good at this stuff. Kenton and Kathy didn't live together because some couples in middle age just don't. Ruth and usha used to celebrate their birthdays together. And now not only are there no normal social relationships but the characters themselves don't have a consistent believable voice anymore.

her father who has had care of her since her mother had to go into the drying-out facility
And single-handed at that, poor bloke.
Chrystiffer has done very little actual childcare as fat as I can make out, but he talks a good game.
He wanted a baby.
He's got a baby.
So can he please undertake not to whine about it (Adam and Ian also take note).

That’s so true @Faceicle!

Kenton and Kathy didn't live together

Yes they did, as soon as Kenton could inveigle himself (and his bookcase of books) into her house. Before that he had been scrounging a bed off first his parents, then his younger sister. Eventually Kathy got fed up with subsidising him and with his wannabe adolescent outlook and asked him to leave, so he took his hard-luck stories back to Lower Loxley in a plot-driven way so that he could cause Nigel's death.