🧦 Archers thread #133: Woolley socks it to them! Discuss The Archers and its Woolley thinking and plotting 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 would love to take part in the Mysteries, or other unusual views.

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 @ButtonSister and @BorsetshireBanality for title suggestions. I went with their idea in the interests of keeping the title fairly short.

@LillianGish and @FoxgloveSummers made cracking but longer suggestions, which (mashed up) will do a great job of kicking off our new thread.

Evictions (Tom and Tash), depictions (Bridge Farm Christmas card), conniptions (entire cast and crew of the Mysteries), convictions (Philip) and addictions (Alice) - what are our predictions for 2022 in Ambridge? All sure to make this the Best Ambridge Christmas Evah!

This thread should take us through to early January unless something very exciting happens (ha ha, fat chance). My predictions: this is a bit left field, but I wonder if Peggy will offer to buy the shop and flat so Tom and Gnasher (great coinage, whose was it?) can stay put. I don't believe Hazel is sincere about wanting to live in/regularly visit Ambridge. She's always been utterly two-faced and rotten to the core, why would she change now?

The Mysteries will, of course be a triumph and briefly borrowing the🔮 (sorry, Bore!) I expect we are going to hear them at some point over the New Year period.

Over to you!

I found Alice's lack of basic knowledge about divorce unconvincing - possibly it was by way of teaching the audience. However her return to the bottle worked very well; I was wondering how the SWs would handle this storyline and hoped they would avoid a miraculous tidy recovery on her part.

The error by whoever it was could just as easily been attributed to Adam's confidence in accounting for the as to sexism, and Susan's spirited correction of Adam's need to get on with the washing up evened things up in the drama. I saw it as him helping out in a way that saved them the contract when Susan was entirely understandably at momentary loss when given the acronym, not the full name.

The woman was bloody rude though.

I found Alice's lack of basic knowledge about divorce unconvincing

I thought it was in character for Alice. It's in part with her inability to think things through.

@CaptainMyCaptain

I didn't have much sympathy for Alice, she said it was over. She can't have her cake and eat it.

Yes; she is the one who said she wanted a divorce, she is the one who can't bear him to touch her, she really ought not to be so storbumfurkled when he takes her at her words and goes and has a nosy to find to how to go about giving her what she said she wanted.

Alice doesn't want Chris, but she wants to keep him around to worship her at intervals. A bit like Emma with Will: she didn't want him, but the idea that he might be with anyone else made her wild with indignation. Or indeed Emma with Ed: she had chucked him out, but found Beth's existence intolerable.

Delicious bit of newbie confusion you’ve sown there, Asking!

Howso? I have only remarked on what I saw as happening at the time. Ought I to have given dates?

I meant ‘Beth’!

Oh right.

That was the name of the American whom Ed brought back from his trip abroad after Emma went and found him for a one-night stand, then told him that she didn't want him and married Will. These events happened in 2004.

I can't help it if the editorial team wanted to have a laugh about Ben with a dog called Bess and a girlfriend called Beth!

Well, I know that - but it would have been amusing if you hadn’t told new listeners!

Yes; she is the one who said she wanted a divorce, she is the one who can't bear him to touch her, she really ought not to be so storbumfurkled when he takes her at her words and goes and has a nosy to find to how to go about giving her what she said she wanted

They both have a pretty loose understanding of the process. Chris seemed virtually on the verge of hiring a lady to take to a reasonably-priced B&B in Blackpool for the purposes of proving adultery like they did in the 1950s. I can see him tucking up in twin beds and ostentatiously coming down to breakfast so the hotel receptionist can confirm adultery took place. I’m not sure who willl help with the plan? May be he will have to ask wet-fish Amy to do it but she is over-invested and that would bring an added dimension to the twin beds plot….

I think the asking for a divorce thing was merely a clumsy way of getting Alice to hit the bottle again. A means to an end - and therefore poorly thought through by the SWs. I enjoyed the dairy scene - I’m not surprised the organic shop woman thought Susan was the trainee - she sounded like a simpleton - I also loved her getting Adam to do the washing up! I wondered if there would be any comeback on promising exclusive flavours. She didn’t ask what the flavours might be and consider the difficulties of sourcing organic ingredients and flavourings.

@LiterallyKnowsBest

Well, I know that - but it would have been amusing if you hadn’t told new listeners!

Well, yes, but I try to be kind. Ish. Some of the time.

@Roysnewshirt

Yes; she is the one who said she wanted a divorce, she is the one who can't bear him to touch her, she really ought not to be so storbumfurkled when he takes her at her words and goes and has a nosy to find to how to go about giving her what she said she wanted

They both have a pretty loose understanding of the process. Chris seemed virtually on the verge of hiring a lady to take to a reasonably-priced B&B in Blackpool for the purposes of proving adultery like they did in the 1950s. I can see him tucking up in twin beds and ostentatiously coming down to breakfast so the hotel receptionist can confirm adultery took place. I’m not sure who willl help with the plan? May be he will have to ask wet-fish Amy to do it but she is over-invested and that would bring an added dimension to the twin beds plot….

Did I miss something? It seemed to me that he was solely focussing on unreasonable behaviour, not adultery.

I can't see why he's so desperate to get on with it. The vast majority of couples in their situation just sit out the two years' separation, and they've done a few months already.

He wants to get her out of his hair. From his point of view she is blowing hot and cold, leading him on then recoiling from him in horror, and he is confused and unhappy (and sleepless, hence the midnight internettery) and attributes this to now knowing where he stands with ehr. Sometimes amputation is preferable to gangrene....

not knowing, not now knowing!

When do the new divorce rules come in? Is this a PSA. Apple if this has been mentioned.

I don't see Alice as blowing hot and cold towards Chris. She's very fragile as she recovers from a dangerous illness, she handled Christmas very well with family drinking around her and is trying to find her feet carefully, each day trying to reach some normality.
The day out with Chris and Martha was one where she was beginning to feel well again until he leaned in for a kiss which caused her to feel anxious and panic knowing that he'd want it to lead on to more which she's not ready for.
She explained really well why she couldn't be more intimate but Chris was hurt and went into a sulk not letting her put Martha to bed.
I understand why Chris wants to divorce but he's not seeing how fragile a recovering alcoholic is.

Chris is a fairly simple soul though isn’t he? He doesn’t want to be pussyfooting around indefinitely not knowing where he stands. He doesn’t really understand what drove her to drink in the first place, he can’t understand why Martha isn’t enough to cure her, he naively thinks that spell in rehab has done the trick. Actually I think Chris is right - they should get divorced. He is not the right person to see her through this. Chris Carter is literally anchored to Ambridge - it’s no coincidence he is a farrier - his character is set in iron and he is chained to the landscape. Alice has always needed to spread her wings - she was going to join the RAF (have I remembered that right?) - but has had them clipped by being required to remain within striking distance of her husband’s business (if I wanted to extend my metaphor I’d say his business has constructed a gilded cage for both of them). I never really understood why she married him - other than the fact that a Las Vegas wedding must have seemed like a romantic wheeze at the time. This is the inevitable conclusion.

I don't see Alice as blowing hot and cold towards Chris either.

She still loves him but she can't be his wife any more.

Kristiffur is an oaf - they should have discussed the divorce and how to go about it calmly. Unreasonable behaviour will make Marthyr think it is all Alish's fault

When I was very young people would divorce because of 'Cruelty' and the children would be affected by that description

Re the situation in the dairy, Adam handled it well. Many a time at work I have been assumed to be the assistant. Adam is a middle aged man, well-spoken and probably tall.

Poor Susan.

She applied to join the RAF, but was turned down. I'm not sure we ever heard why, or indeed if Alice would have been told the reasons. RAF recruitment processes are one area where the TA SWs ought to be reasonably lifelike, as Keri Davies was an RAF officer for several years before he joined the BBC.

I was surprised they were both so clueless about divorce. I thought it was a matter of general knowledge that divorce needs either two years of separation or a messier but quicker process with one person alleging adultery or unreasonable behaviour. I too heard the news report at lunchtime pointing out that the law is going to change soon. I was distracted midway and didn't hear exactly how.

They didn't bother to find out because Alice had other things to worry about and Kristiffur thought she'd come back

Are they lining Mike up as a replacement character for Bert. Or handyman Philip?

Mike will pick up gossip. Then he'll need an assistant so Bleak will come back

I have a bad feeling about Rutella

@ILoveShula

I don't see Alice as blowing hot and cold towards Chris either.

She still loves him but she can't be his wife any more.

Kristiffur is an oaf - they should have discussed the divorce and how to go about it calmly. Unreasonable behaviour will make Marthyr think it is all Alish's fault

When I was very young people would divorce because of 'Cruelty' and the children would be affected by that description

Re the situation in the dairy, Adam handled it well. Many a time at work I have been assumed to be the assistant. Adam is a middle aged man, well-spoken and probably tall.

Poor Susan.

ILoveShula Unreasonable behaviour will make Marthyr think it is all Alish's fault

and Martha will be right; Alice is the one whose unreasonable drunkenness made her decide that she wanted a divorce.

Hot and cold; well, if you have a child by a man and then decide to ditch him but go halves on the child, while being aware that he still loves you and wants you to come back, it might be an idea not to go for Family Days Out with him and the child and then recoil with horror if he assumes that means you are no longer completely rejecting him. Very mixed signals. Train a dog that way, you get a neurotic dog.

Take your daughter around without your husband if you don't want to have the husband, Alice sweetie-pie; otherwise you are treating him badly.

Or should that be Struth?

It occurs to me: Chris and Alice had taken Martha to see the lights at Lower Loxley.

This rather suggests that it was dark.

Was Chris looking for the carving on the tree with a torch, or something?