🧦 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!

Funny how hazels pathetic , breakers , long Covid persona has evaporated !

I really hate Natasha. What a poisonous piece of work she is. I hope she has to sleep in a ditch.

The 🔮 says Asking has done very well.

I do wonder if Gnasher's profligacy and hinted at bipolar disorder will be revisted or have the SWs forgotten all about that (again).

I must say I absolutely loved it when Natasha finally said the unsayable thing, viz, that Susan is the Village Gossip, and Susan took umbrage.

Eddie's behaviour to Hazel was just plain nasty, though, and characteristically dishonest - charging twice for the same bird!

Hazel evicted him and his family after the flood when they already had a major misfortune on their hands (and for once one which they hadn't brought upon themselves), so he feels that she is a person deserving to be treated -- well. let's say "less than immaculately". She also told him, almost first thing she did, that she was spoiling Tom and Natasha's Christmas by evicting them. Taking some petty revenge by making her walk through muck in unsuitable shoes and offering her the chance to kill her own turkey seems quite a small, un-life-changing matter.

characteristically dishonest - charging twice for the same bird
Yes, this.
Pore ole Joe never got over being evicted from Keeper's Cottage? Ah, the crying shame of it, boo fuckity hoo. The insolvent, insanitary, chiselling old scrote died in luxury at Grange Farm thanks to Oliver's soft heart and softer brain.
Never do a Grundy a good turn.

Getting a bit bored with the Nasty Hazel Woolley Show.
And I doubt Soosan will reflect overmuch on why, if you notoriously have a gob the size of the Blackwall Tunnel, the natural assumption is that you have opened it (again).

Presumably Hazel has a right to end the tenancy at some point without having to evidence fault on the tenants' side, which would be easier and cheaper than trying to prove a contested breach of tenancy? (And probably quicker in the long run).
If T&N have an assured shorthold tenancy their right to stay indefinitely is very limited.

We can now safely predict the wrongful accusation of Susan

the inevitable discovery that the information came from Fallon - leading to further bad blood between her and Natasha

and Tom and Tash being forced to move in with Pat and Tony for Christmas.

Brava, Lil’G!

And all this for First Family royalty with pretty much unlimited access to funds and 90% of all built property in the area available to them the minute they say “Can we move in tomorrow?” - without even please or thank you. It’s completely nonsensical for the creative team to have picked this particular couple for Mary and Joseph.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Hazel evicted him and his family after the flood when they already had a major misfortune on their hands (and for once one which they hadn't brought upon themselves), so he feels that she is a person deserving to be treated -- well. let's say "less than immaculately". She also told him, almost first thing she did, that she was spoiling Tom and Natasha's Christmas by evicting them. Taking some petty revenge by making her walk through muck in unsuitable shoes and offering her the chance to kill her own turkey seems quite a small, un-life-changing matter.

That was one of the few Grundy 'escapades' that I actually enjoyed.

Well I am thoroughly enjoying Hazel’s return, Natahsa’s comeuppance, Susan’s outing, the Grundy revenge. Always better when there is a villain somewhere at work.

It’s all starting to feel a bit Christmas Carol. Rather than being visited by ghosts, Ebenezer Woolley is revisiting her own ghosts - and realising what dreadful esteem she is held in by most people. The Bridge Farm lot though are far too well off to be substitute Cratchetts - as the recipients of her generous turkey (though perhaps their various degrees of misfortune and disfunction are meant to stand in place of Tiny Tim’s disability). Are we going to be treated to her peeking in through the window on Christmas Eve to watch them decorating their tree before they invite her in to share the turkey and she undergoes a Damacene conversion and they all laugh uproariously when they discover Eddie’s trick?

Tiny Tom surely

The Grundys will have the turkey

and it will be a reeurl grundy farmilee chrismurze

@FoxgloveSummers

Tiny Tom surely

23MinutesfromTuIseHill
And I doubt Soosan will reflect overmuch on why, if you notoriously have a gob the size of the Blackwall Tunnel, the natural assumption is that you have opened it (again).

The standing Scriptie "Joke" is that Susan constantly grumbles that the village is a terrible place for gossip and doesn't think for a moment that she does it herself.

Remember the boring, boring "give up gossip for Lent" garbage in 2012? I don't blame you in the least if you don't, but Susan couldn't really understand why such a resolution was needed for her. She even said so in so many words: Lowfield has it. She told Neil that as one of Alan's random acts of kindness (those were to be instead of spite, I think) he might go and paint Gary's room. "Neil retaliates by suggesting that Susan might also take up Alan's challenge and stop gossiping. Susan informs him that would be no challenge for her."

Ha ha ha how we didn't bother to laugh.

@FoxgloveSummers

Tiny Tom surely

🤣🤣🤣

Enjoyed Natasha showing her true colours.

And Hazel is quite deliciously unpleasant.

Isn't there a brand new housing estate in Ambridge. Can't they move there?

Also quite good timing with the government announcing we have to go back to working from home yesterday with Natasha getting into trouble for doing exactly that....

Told ya!

Mary and Joseph and …

Oh fgoodness s they’ve done ‘no room at the inn’ several times before, haven’t they?!

@LiterallyKnowsBest

Told ya!

Mary and Joseph and …

... a tiny chipolata!

Flippin' heck, a married woman pregnant in a soap.
That's a new one

What the hell does Natasha want a baby for? I mean, she's had time to get to know Tom and to observe Helen's brats at close quarters. A large mifepristone and coke apple juice is the way forward

It would be ever so nice if Natasha were perhaps to apologise to Susan, now she knows that going for her in the way she did was not justified.

I didn't notice her expressing any horror about it, though, so perhaps she feels that Tom apologising is enough and she doesn't have to admit her own fault.

I think that part of the Hatezel story will be Tomtasha moving into Fridge Barm

Hatezel will probably try to weasel money/an inheritance from Peggy