🎲 Archers thread #134: Ambridge as human board game. We’ve had Pandemic. What now - Game of Life or Trivial Pursuit? Go! 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 warm to Hazel Woolley, 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 @LiterallyKnowsBest for the thread title idea. I also liked @LillianGish's suggestion which was Conversions abound and it’s not just Harrison - Lily’s kitchens, Hazel’s flat, Jazzer’s finances, Bert’s bungalow...come and discuss The Archers - are you a convert or could you be converted? and that seems like a good place to kick off this thread.

Who'll get the bungalow? Pip, Josh or A. N. Other?

Will Lily leave the cold calling behind and launch a bid to run LL when Elizabeth hangs up her clipboard?

Will Jazzer become a financial whiz after mastering Tracy's state of the art budgeting techniques, viz, writing it all down in a little notebook with a kitten on the front?

Over to you!

I've just read that Katie Hims wrote that episode too @HaveringWavering

Another one who has just listened and had a little weep. I thought it was really well acted.

@BoreOfWhabylon

I've just read that Katie Hims wrote that episode too *@HaveringWavering*

Oh how interesting. Remind me never to seek out any more of her writing in other areas, I d be a wreck!

They are beautiful birds but awful as names for humans.

I have a wren in the garden sometimes.

I have a very low threshold/tolerance for mawkishness, but I disagree with you @Roysnewshirt that the Tom/Kirsty scenes were a bit mawkish. It reminded me of my Mum once telling me about my baby brother who was born prematurely and died after 4 days. She said my Dad rarely talked about it until one Christmas many years later (after my second, healthy, brother had been born) when he just broke down sobbing about how that baby never saw a Christmas. I was a young teen when she told me and to my eternal shame I don’t think I was able to express much empathy in response. It’s only since having my own child 5 years ago (Mum already dead) that I truly get it. That was also why Ruari/Siobhan touched me so much, because she died when R was the age my son was at the time I listened).

Oh Amy and Chris, so subtle....

More wonderful Kirsty and now Natasha writing and acting too

Kursedy is well acted. The blankets sound lovely.

A Dfriend's MIL crocheted the most gorgeous blanket for her DC1. It wasn't your usual granny squares.

Thinking about it, Dfriend's siblings-in-law are arty, so that might be a clue. It was such nice colours not a pile of pink and pastels.

There is no way a grown woman would have so little self-control.

V. annoyed with SW tonight.

And DrunkAlice is going to say her SoCalledFriend was after Chris from the second she heard there was difficulty in their marriage.

I'm tipsy on a thimbleful

@TottersBlankly

There is no way a grown woman would have so little self-control.

V. annoyed with SW tonight.

And DrunkAlice is going to say her SoCalledFriend was after Chris from the second she heard there was difficulty in their marriage.

Self control? Nothing happened. She suspected it might and went home - isn't that self control?

I thought Amy was the epitome of self control tonight. When Chris started with the 'well you are good looking as well' stuff she was straight out of there

@BoreOfWhabylon

That was done well. (Kirsty and Tom).

Alice is going to be raging when Chris and Amy become a couple (which will be soon, as predicted way back by the 🔮). She doesn't want him but she won't want anyone else to have him.

The start of another episode in the poor Alice saga, she is by far my least favourite character, except maybe her sister. Jennifer's certainly bred some dreadful, entitled females.

Alice is far worse than Kate. Kate's a terrible person but a very entertaining character. Alice is a bore- drunk or sober.

@BowerOfBramble

Anyone else think it’s TOTALLY unbelievable that Neil and Susan (esp Susan) would leave their boy in his flat all alone ill & not come to help?

Totally unbelievable.

MASSIVE catch-up, having been away to where there is no internet and you have to boil the water.

I thought the Tom/Kirsty scene was lovely; very moving. Agree that Gnasher was rather out of character in being understanding. Glad that Phoebe is on her way up and out. Chris was just bloody annoying, and say this because the actor simply cannot control his accent. Sometimes he's all oo-arr, then switches sub-RADA middle class generic. Amy played a blinder, plainly picking up on Chris' s intent, and getting away from the situation with tact.

I like Wren as a name.

Since when was Phoebe Kirsty's bezzie mate? What happened to Helen?

@DePfeffoff

Since when was Phoebe Kirsty's bezzie mate? What happened to Helen?

And when did Fallon and Amy become bezzies?

Amy played a blinder, plainly picking up on Chris' s intent, and getting away from the situation with tact.

No, no. You’re all hearing it wrong! It was Amy who embarrassed herself with her rat up a drainpipe seduction tactics, and Chris who was forced to find a polite, but horribly clumsy way of letting her down gently.

Since when was Phoebe Kirsty's bezzie mate?

Ever since the newly separated Mrs Moss moved back in with the Tuckers (having lived with them before during the Lexi era) her relationship with Phoebe has seemed if anything, sisterly, rather than that of a mature woman and a younger one. It’s often Phoebe propping Kirsty up, rather than the other way round.

(And I’ve always been massively sceptical regarding Phoebe’s passive acceptance of their lodger. It doesn’t make sense on any level for her father to have his friend living with them. I always expected her to point out to him - sharply - that he’d never start a successful new relationship while Kirsty was taking up the empty chair in the house. It was a notable instance of the writers moving the pieces around the board with no consideration for realism whatsoever.)

@DePfeffoff

Since when was Phoebe Kirsty's bezzie mate? What happened to Helen?

Kirsty and Phoebe both live in Roy's house. So they are house mates rather than best friends. It's not surprising they would talk.

Also, I don't think anyone was seducing anyone but it was a near miss. Both were a bit drunk but withdrew before anything happened.

I think there's a mutual attraction - though I think for this to work you have to imagine Chris as being as physically attractive as he is generally made out to be. Personally I find this quite difficult based on voice alone - particularly since his transformation into Yokel Chris. I can understand Chris being attracted to Amy as she seems to posses all the qualities currently lacking in Alice - sensible, stable, reliable - in fact all the things that make her unlikely to take up with sick friend's husband (even if they are separated). Amy has only ever been single to my knowledge - with no-one in the background or on the horizon - so in a small pool like Ambridge being attracted to the devastatingly handsome Chris (I'm desperately trying to imagine him like this) is perfectly understandable (she's only human - as a comically sexist man I used to live with in a Kirsty and Roy type scenario used to believe of any woman who came into his sphere. And Totters is quite right in her supposition that he’d never start a successful new relationship while Kirsty was taking up the empty chair in the house )

Just caught up with Weds' episode and had a little cry. The Archers at its best.

Amy had a misguided brief dalliance with someone when she lived at home before. She was at a college I think and he ended up being threatening or married or something unsuitable. I can’t remember his name or the details but I’m sure someone else can.

Wasn’t it on Ambridge Extra?? I have a vague memory of an awful episode when she turned up to a Law Society shindig (a ball or some other black tie event) and the man was there with his wife, and acted like he didn’t know Amy. Think Usha imagined she was introducing a colleague to her step-daughter.

Really wish this was not still in my head …🤮

It’s Valentines Day on Monday…Too soon for a clumsy, ill-advised kiss between Amy and Chris?

If not them, are there any other slow-burn romances that could come to fruition on Monday? Too early for Stella and Will - if indeed that is even a thing; too late for Chelsea and Jake. Any others?

May be we will be treated to a Jazzer/Tracey proposal instead - I would be very happy with that.