💀 Archers thread #132: The Grim Reaper joined the cast; The Bard of Ambridge breathed his last. 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 think Shula will make an excellent vicar, 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.)

Thanks to many of you for title suggestions. @JanglyBeads said that this thread had to be a Bert tribute so needed a rhyming title. From an excellent field, I chose the suggestion from @BorsetshireBanality (who also has a cracking username).

Check out the last thread for the other suggestions and various poetic offerings inspired by Bert Fry's passing. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/4349822--Archers-thread-131-A-time-to-plant-a-time-to-reap-Discuss-The-Archers-here

So, who'll get the bungalow? Rex, Stella, Pip? If Rex has to move, will he doss down beside his pigs at Lower Loxley? Or will Rex be a resident at Her Majesty's pleasure, having bumped off Trevor for being the world's most boring man? Now Freddie's on the case, are Russ's days at LL numbered? Will we ever hear Jill again, or was Bert just the first of many older cast members to be dedded?

Over to you!

Shula Hebden Lloyd
Would be very annoyed
After My-Friend-Flicka-ing
And part-time vicaring
To be redeployed
On Stella deknickering.

Pip Archer
Swift departure

@ILoveShula

Pip Archer Swift departure

Love it!

More likely:
Jill Archer
Swift departure

@23minutesfromTulseHill

Shula Hebden Lloyd Would be very annoyed After My-Friend-Flicka-ing And part-time vicaring To be redeployed On Stella deknickering.

Tsk.

I don’t know why the fairbrothers are being so dim - surely the two of them just live together in the bungalow.

Duh sorry just listened

It would make sense for Toe B to live nearby not with the odious one as Parent without benefits

Well, I guess as Phoebe is grown up now, George is self sufficient, Mia is marginal, there’s room for another child-of-two-households in Ambridge.

Except that Martha already has that role. 🤔

@ILoveShula

It would make sense for Toe B to live nearby not with the odious one as Parent without benefits

Exactly! How far apart are the place pip lives in and the bungalow? I’m picturing a 5 min walk.

Anyone else think there were shades of Kate about Pip yesterday? They only know how to so certain models of motherhood don’t they. That’s why Tracey is a nice change, she’s the only parent I can imagine actually having fun with their kids.

In the Archers only the working class can parent well - discuss.
Pip and Toby did search for a nursery after the "men in the Bull" look after Rosie incident. Adam and Ian also send Xander there (there was a conversation), but don't want him to be full time despite both having full time + jobs (ridiculous in my opinion).
I don't know anyone who didn't do the childcare versus career balancing when they had kids. If you want full time jobs then you have full time childcare (possibly from a mosaic of sources). And in their situation I would expect a Nanny or multiples (with back up Grandparents etc).

Pip is just awful. To be honest I don’t know why: yes Rooth and Dayveed have their faults but they haven’t done anything drastically wrong in her upbringing. Is it just PFB syndrome?

@ILoveShula

She's having a passionate affair with Stella

.... in the overactive imaginations of some listeners.

Back in the boring old real world, I'm not sure Shula and Stella have even met yet.

Is Rex going to leave? I still hope to hear him moving into a sty with his pigs. He would then have a legitimate reason to sound pissed off all the time.

[Ruth and David] haven’t done anything drastically wrong in her upbringing
...apart from failing to smother the owl-bothering, sheep-murdering little twunt while she was still young and weak. Bigged up, indulged, given the idea the sun shines out of her fundament, and conspicuously favoured over her siblings: nah, can't see where the Dopeys went wrong at all.

[Ruth and David] haven’t done anything drastically wrong in her upbringing and She's having a passionate affair with Stella
are in the same category

Why would he leave when he has an apparently thriving pig business and a stake in a gazillion pound rewilding project (aka glorified camping site)?

Despite his whining he has actually plugged himself very successfully into the upper echelons of Ambridge society. All he has to do is maintain his position.

Tbh I’m not sure why he isn’t co-something-ing the pigs and the re-wilding, doing a PhD and building up a serious side hustle (with his Oxford PPE collaborator ) giiving lectures and running re-wilding workshops all over Borsetshire …

I kind of feel a bit sorry for the Fairbrother boys. I don’t particularly like either (esp after Rex wrote those poisoned reviews) but they are both utterly rootless. No one cares about them at all apart from Pip who has some warped sense of what her child’s father’s role should be and who enjoys having Rex make cow eyes at her. Their own father isn’t remotely interested in them and the fact Rex is supppsed to be in deep mourning for a man who was essentially his landlord for two years tops doesn’t make sense. His life just seems so utterly pointless…What is he thinking every day as he goes off to farm his tiny flock/herd of pigs?

Anyway, they need to expand their current peripheral role pretty soon else they run the risk of emulating Kirsty - living life on the fringe…with the highlight of her week an apparently mysterious meeting with the dreary Lynda Snell…

But how could you pity Toby?

He started up, and then sold (profitably, we understand) a gin business, from scratch, within a handful of years of arriving. (It’s true the SWs don’t seem keen to enlighten us regarding his current working situation - I hope there won’t be any blatant retconning happening.)

And he’s the father of a Brookfield heiress!

(And his own father’s favourite son.)

That’s not bad going. To my mind Toby is winning at life.

Surely the meeting with Lynda isn't that much of a mystery. We're now in the run-up to Christmas. Lynda hasn't given up running the Christmas show quite as much as she likes to tell herself (and Robert.)

When you say 'isn't that much of a mystery' my heart sinks. It will be the bloody mysteries, won't it, now Evangeline Lowminster will have forgotten all about Lynda not paying for the rights, mere months again. And no doubt Blake will get dragged in in 'heartwarming' fashion and show a surprising talent for something or other (dying silently in a ditch would be favourite).

Ago, not again. But also, very much 'again'.

Oh god is it that time again. I don't think I can take another round of

Lynda comes up with a ridiculous idea for a show no-one in the real world would go to

Weeks of her badgering various villagers to be in it

Eddie trying to make money

Eddie winding Lynda up

Near disaster with a prop

Etc etc etc etc

Can't we just have an episode where the Grundys watch The Great Escape and eat chocolate and have done?

Do we know what Stella's sexual preferences are?