🎲 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!

Rant over 

Also did they strictly steal your idea @BoreOfWhabylon or did you have a premonition? It's not the 🔮 it's the reader after all.

Actually, there’s a lot of interesting jobs in the Civil Service (including rewilding, increasing biodiversity etc)

That is a fair and true point Mere.

I acutely have surprising number of friends in the civil service and was feeling a tad guilty as I typed. (None of them in DEFRA though.)

Still I think running a rewilding trust is impressive, but also happy if someone has put a boot in Phoebe's arse as it's clearly not right for her.

@MereDintofPandiculation

Actually, there’s a lot of interesting jobs in the Civil Service (including rewilding, increasing biodiversity etc)

They stole it! Although I do think Giovanni demo-ing the Argentine Tango would be infinitely preferable to what Jim came up with.

I also think it's entirely believable that a few characters would drift along in boring jobs. People do get stuck in a rut. (It's just ludicrous that's always Ambridge women.)

You could argue that a few of the men are in quite boring jobs. Will delivering veg, Rex driving a cab, Roy organising rotas, Adam picking veg etc.

Some of the women have careers. Kate is doing OK, as is Debbie, Shula is doing her vicaring . Helen is a career bottle organiser. Susan is a postmaster. Ruth and Pip are farmers etc

Kirsty is in the deepest rut of any woman in Ambridge. She has energy and intelligence and spends her days folding towels. Clarrie has never had a very high status or well paid job, but her work at the dairy is skilled and valued except when she's poisoning the yoghourt with E Coli. Kirsty has never managed to hold down a job requiring as much skill as that for any length of time. She worked in Ambridge Organics for years and didn't last long at the Borchester Wildlife Trust (can't remember why now, exigencies of plot probably). I blame the SWs. I don't think they've ever really known what to do with her. I live in hope that if Phoebe leaves Kirsty's career may have a late flowering.

There are many other women in Ambridge with much more interesting and demanding jobs. Kathy runs Grey Gables and it's so exhausting she is now unable to speak.

Usha has a career of sorts, and Lilian rather unbelievably turned into a businesswoman during the Matt years after decades of being a Lady Who Lunches and then hits the gin bottle long before the sun is over the yardarm.

Fallon is running her own business. Jolene is the driving force in The Bull.

Peggy was a career woman perforce, as Jack was unable to work after a bit. She ran The Bull, the Estate Office and Grey Gables at various points.

What did Joy do for a living? If we've ever heard, I've forgotten.

*I meant Jack Archer, not Jack Woolley

** Ambridge Organics was a shop in Borchester, which eventually closed and was replaced with the current Farm Shop at Bridge Farm. Who runs that? Is it Helen? As usual, I've forgotten.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

*I meant Jack Archer, not Jack Woolley

** Ambridge Organics was a shop in Borchester, which eventually closed and was replaced with the current Farm Shop at Bridge Farm. Who runs that? Is it Helen? As usual, I've forgotten.

It runs itself- like many businesses in Ambridge

I haven't ever seen much evidence of intelligence in Kirsty, to be honest. Quite apart from being extremely gullible and having terrible taste in men, she has never done anything requiring her to use her brain much. Took a course at Borchester College at the end of last century and has done nothing with it; knows a bit about birds; Cares About Causes (but never seems to do anything practical to forward them)... She left the Borsetshire Wildlife Trust at the same time as leaving her job at Grey Gables to move to her dream cottage in Wales with Philip and become self-sufficient by gardening. (I don't remember that she has ever actually kept a garden since we have known her, because she has never had a garden to keep, so I have no idea whether she would have made a success of that or not.)

I am sure the answer to this has been mentioned or explained, but I have missed it. Who looks after Martha while Chris is at work? Now that she is a little older it is possible that she sleeps through the night, so Chris might not have to do night wakings and then go to work the next day. Is her care during working hours managed by a combination or Alice and Jennifer? I think Susan and Neil are back working full time.

Fairies, Kendrickspenguin. Special Ambridge fairies.

Which makes it all the sillier that Amy is now tending exclusively to dogs, when both Martha and Xander (and probably lots of other nameless Ambridge lockdown babies) will need regular daycare.

Though perhaps strangely penniless Adam intends to comer his share of the bills with only a couple of hours a week filling in at Bridge Farm

@Kendrickspenguin, the grandmothers, I suppose.

Why would Amy be the obvious childminder, she's a midwife by training, not a childminder or nanny.?

[quote WhoppingBigBackside]@Kendrickspenguin, the grandmothers, I suppose.

Why would Amy be the obvious childminder, she's a midwife by training, not a childminder or nanny.?[/quote]
Quite. She would also need suitable premises and have to register with Ofsted to be a childminder. I suppose she could look after the children at their own homes as a nanny but dog walking is probably less problematic and more flexible.

She lives at the vicarage, which is her father's clergy house, so presumably couldn't childmnd there.

I don't really know what a midwife is expected to know but I don't think it includes looking after children aged 1+ yrs

@WhoppingBigBackside

She lives at the vicarage, which is her father's clergy house, so presumably couldn't childmnd there.

I don't really know what a midwife is expected to know but I don't think it includes looking after children aged 1+ yrs

I'm fairly sure Amy has actually said on air that she doesn't know about small children, or even babies, only about mothers and birth.

She did.

Pip's acting is getting worse; as is Pip the character.

What a horrible, spoilt brat she is.

Oh dear, never mind, what a pity.

Apart from the pity it wasn't being trampled in to a deep pool of flood water by a herd of rampaging Herefords.

I think Elizabeth was moonlighting in Casualty last night.

@KimikosNightmare

Pip's acting is getting worse; as is Pip the character.

What a horrible, spoilt brat she is.

Agreed.

And what a bizarrely paper thin plot. Do we need to be spoon fed every storyline?

Apart from the pity it wasn't being Pip trampled in to a deep pool of flood water by a herd of rampaging Herefords.

I never really liked Josh but Pip tonight has changed all that. What a brat!

Have they dedded Ruth? I was only half listening.

What was it being trampled in to a deep pool of flood water by a herd of rampaging Herefords? As I said, I was only half listening

What did Joy do for a living? If we've ever heard, I've forgotten

Well I've told this forum several times. Joy is in deep, undercover, lifetime witness protection.

It's the only plausible reason for a woman of Joy's age, who has no connections with Ambridge, never receives visits from friends or family, has almost no past history (beyond talking about a daughter whom no- one has ever met) no employment history or obvious source of wealth would move to a large new build house in Ambridge.

@MereDintofPandiculation

What was it being trampled in to a deep pool of flood water by a herd of rampaging Herefords? As I said, I was only half listening

No it was Ruth falling into something or having something fall on to her.(I think)