🧦 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!

• Victoria: Ruth Gemmell Hazel Woolley: Annette Badland*

Oh. That puts an end to that theory. Thanks @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime!

Pets do indeed have surnames. Anyone who heard a recent radio programme I mentioned might like to guess at my pet's name

Victoria: Ruth Gemmell

Oh well, bang goes my theory. :o I didn't realise Victoria had been given a voice. Strange how she's only appeared in one episode and never heard of since, unless of course she's recognised by Blake and caught by Harrison (not likely)

Pets having surnames had never occurred to me until I got a letter from the vets addressed to Rover Jones regarding his vaccinations. Did make me laugh!

DPet was named before by previous human, so we have different surnames. DPet has a human first name. I hadn't thought of it before but it doesn't really go with my surname.

Too late for double-barrelling now

I think the Kennel Club sort of name has surnames; or at least, names associated with their ancestry. Duxfordham Marvel was a particularly memorable Dalmatian when I was young, and one of a large number of dogs who all had "Duxfordham" as part of their name.

Oh goodness, he really did exist! www.pedigreedatabase.com/dalmatian/dog.html?id=1791206-duxfordham-marvel?_v=20070525202643

And there were Dalmallys as well.

@BeardieWeirdie

Pets having surnames had never occurred to me until I got a letter from the vets addressed to Rover Jones regarding his vaccinations. Did make me laugh!

Makes sense; they may have fifteen dogs called Rover at the practice, so they need to know which one it is.

Our vet insisted on having the names of every one of the mice my son bred; dozens of them. And they all had our surname on their books; who knows how many mice they treated called Whisky, Brandy, Guinness, Vodka, Shandy and so on.

Well boop Chelsea, Bleak, Tracey, Jazzer and Jim. It's all a bit Dickensian but I like it.

I'm bored already with Gnasher's pregnancy. Tom truly is an idiot.

Yes. Anyone else and I’d have suspected an an “accidental” bloop to ensure his parents were told, but Tom is truly an idiot.

Tom and Gnasher's moving in will prove every bit of a trial as Tony and Pat anticipate.

My old surname was a word that could also be used as an animal name - like Jewel, say.

More than once I had the following conversation
Receptionist: Name?
Me: Jewel
Receptionist: No, your name.
Me: That is my name.

I thought Tom had been fired up by Lynda to defend any possession claim based on the running a business nonsense? What happened to make him go all supine about it?

Last night felt like an historic moment. As predicted by @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, T and N moving in is going to have major ramifications for decades to come…Helen and the boys will never be able to move back in again.

@Roysnewshirt

Last night felt like an historic moment. As predicted by *@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime*, T and N moving in is going to have major ramifications for decades to come…Helen and the boys will never be able to move back in again.

I actually wonder if it might result in Pat and Tony moving out (not exactly to Bert's bungalow, but to some equivalent either never before mentioned or yet to be built). I also wondered how Kirsty is going to take the news.

Oh, yes … I sighed in sorrow for Kirsty during the Bridge Farm 47th wedding anniversary lunch.

Surely the SWs will allow her to untether herself from Ambridge now?

Was also sad to hear Blake heading to a future outside the village. I was certain he would stay. (Also a bit surprised he’d trust anyone promising him a bright future somewhere else.)

It also says a lot about Tom that he has no idea when his parents' wedding anniversary is after 47 years.

Oh bloody hell. Tom is my brother- it's confirmed by the 'what's for dessert' line. And not knowing when their wedding anniversary is. It's extremely realistic- right down to Tony aka my dad saying, we'll make it work. None of the effort coming from Tom. I may be slightly overinfested but it was like a bloody documentary.

How far along is Natasha?

Tom found out about the pregnancy earlier that day and is already telling people that his wife can't stand coffee and can't eat raw eggs. Would he have known there was raw egg in mousse?

I know he is the ReddiMeels man, but I don't recall him being much of a cook

God @stilldumdedumming poor you! He is the crassest of men isn’t he and the most self involved. That at least is consistent script writing, I can’t remember him ever doing anything for anyone else? Demanding pudding when you’ve already crashed lunch AND invited yourself to stay? Fuck me. If he’s still alive (your brother) you must be very tolerant.

I’m less surprised by a man not knowing his parents wedding anniversary. Many men I know have no clue how their parents met or when or even where they got married etc. Not sure how much it’s a lack of interest and how much it’s because the “family knowledge” always seems to be handed on to the girls. If anyone on here has adult kids what are your experiences?

@WhoppingBigBackside

How far along is Natasha?

Tom found out about the pregnancy earlier that day and is already telling people that his wife can't stand coffee and can't eat raw eggs. Would he have known there was raw egg in mousse?

I know he is the ReddiMeels man, but I don't recall him being much of a cook

He’d be the sort of smug “we’re pregnant” dickhead who would eagerly look up all the things Natasha “can and cannot” do so he could know better than her about it, obviously.

I loved the Sunday lunch contrasts though. The Tracey household is clearly the only place to be at the moment. I think Bleak will give himself a life makeover and come back to be a temptation to Chelsea later on, probably when she already has a nice but boring boyfriend.

@LillianGish

It also says a lot about Tom that he has no idea when his parents' wedding anniversary is after 47 years.

Much as I hate to stereotype, I think it's a male thing. I don't think either of my brothers ever had a clue when my parents' anniversary was, except when I rounded them up to stump up for silver and ruby weddings. And only my DD ever acknowledges ours.

He’d be the sort of smug “we’re pregnant” dickhead who would eagerly look up all the things Natasha “can and cannot” do so he could know better than her about it, obviously.

Fortunately she's not the type to put up with that. It could get interesting if he tries to dictate how she should give birth and what sort of pain relief she should have.

Oh god he’ll probably want an all organic birth and our Natasha (agreeably) strikes me as a “give me all the drugs and get this thing out of me” woman.

Thinking about it, Tom might know from Kursedy's pregnancy

I can't remember when was my parents' wedding anniversary