🏏Archers thread #136: Howzat! Oliver’s bowled a googly, Kathy’s out, Grey Gables left with nightwatchman. Tracy knocked for six. Is Ambridge on a sticky wicket? 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 are entranced by new character Adil, 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.)

Apologies if anybody made a thread title suggestion and I missed it. I decided to mark the start of the cricket season in the hope that things will take a turn for the better for poor Tracy.

It feels like months since the last new thread, which was just after Phoebe departed for Scotland. Has she been mentioned since? I can't recall. Not greatly missed, by me, at any rate. Her fish gifts didn't last long.

I can't shake off the feeling that The Archers is going through a long dull patch. I don't feel greatly engaged by anything that's happening at the moment other than Tracy's plight. Such a good actor, which helps, of course.

What's keeping you listening? Habit? Genuinely enjoying it? Over to you!

(PS In the process of starting this thread, I've discovered that our custom-made Archers emoji has gone. You used to get it by typing . Not any more.)

@KimikosNightmare , Amber Heard has plaits her hair, or braids if you are american. Braids in the UK is usually a term for styles for afro-caribbean heritage hair.
I often have my hair in a plait or plaits but would not refer to them as braids (I am british and caucasian)

@SaffyRosie , the splitting of assets is because of the divorce. Custody is a separate matter.

Having been through what used to be called custody proceedings, I'd way the assertions and arguments are going is not uncommon.

Ha!

Adil doesn’t know what Roy did to Usha, does he???

When I was growing up (in northern England) plaits we're just straightforward plaits, but a braid was when you plait the hair in a little bit more each time so it's flat against your head, if that makes sense (like you would do a horse's tail). So definitely a white hair thing. Unlikely to be what Denise has just had done though.

OMG!

They read my mind!

What did Roy do to Usha?

Well, as he described. He got involved with a racist gang who terrorised her.

In fact I was part way through writing a post wondering if the writers had forgotten when Roy came out with it.

@Frogsonglue , I'm sort of northern and hair plaited so that it lies flat against the head was still a plait or plaits.

Showing my age, but I can remember we admired Bo Derek's plaits. We knew they were the cornrows hairstyle but times were different then.

A braid was something that african-heritage women did with their hair

Crikey, I don't remember that - must have been before I started listening. I haven't got round to listening to tonight's episode yet.

That was in the early90s iirc

Stupid thing to do. If you’re going to confess that your previous self was a shit, wait until the guy you’re confessing to knows the “real” (new) you.

The really stupid thing to do is to completely minimize the impact of enabling a violent, racist gang and claim the victim is completely fine now since she's married to the vicar and still lives in Ambridge.

I note Roy neglected to mention the gang threw acid in Usha's face.

He sounded quite self-pitying. Also I'm confused. He said he wasn't racist and the gang beat him up because they realised he didn't think like they did. Then at the end he said he doesn't "think like that anymore" so seemed to suggest he was actually racist at one point.

I hope Adil gets rid of him.

The really stupid thing to do is to completely minimize the impact of enabling a violent, racist gang and claim the victim is completely fine now since she's married to the vicar and still lives in Ambridge. Reprehensible, yes, not sure it can be explained by stupidity. Or maybe lack of empathy is a form of stupidity.

Adil will probably decide he won't do anything about the racism but that he can't stomach the concept of Roy shagging Elizabeth.

Of, entirely reasonably, he could get fed up with being called Aardle.

I wonder if Adil is regretting sticking Roy on the website as the welcoming and friendly face of GG?

So did Adil and the "investor" not have the slightest clue about what to do with the hotel other than offer the staff "generous redundancy packages"?

There doesn't seem to be much of a plan and even the SW seem confused

I do think he is quite dim. I can understand 17 year old Roy not fully comprehending the seriousness of his actions. He is now mid-forties(?) and still doesn’t seem to quite get it.

He only told Ardil because he was worried someone else would first.

I'm sort of northern and hair plaited so that it lies flat against the head was still a plait or plaits.

I'm southern, and that's a French plait to me.

I think Roy and Usha was about 1995, because I remember listening to it in bed with my then boyfriend not long before I went back to uni to do a masters.

Possibly Usha is fine as far as Roy knows. I think when he said he wasn't racist he meant now, I'll have to listen again.

Should have added that I think the point of the scene was to accept that people can change. Adil recounts with humour and forbearance the implicit racist attitudes and changed behaviours of his childhood NDNs and Roy links back to the capacity for change explicitly.

Whether this flies is quite another thing.

It was odd. Maybe the point was Roy and Adil's developing relationship, somehow?

I wonder whether there are meant to be links to how Roy feels about the attack on his car and whether he'll forgive that?

Roy's steady, but really not dynamic or bright isn't he?

What Adil was describing (as I understood it) was moving in next to a white family who were initially unwelcoming due to the colour of his skin, but who having got to know them realised their inbuilt prejudice was wrong and became friends. What Roy was describing was how he was part of a racist gang who deliberately targeted Usha (and presumably others) drove her out of her home and attacked her after he told them where to find her and he seemed to think this was a comparable scenario on the grounds that 'people can change'. I'm not sure what he was thinking (either then or now) and I thought Adil's disbelief and bemusement were reflected well in his reaction. I'm not sure what to think - as the years have gone by and the incident has been put further and further behind Roy I was inclined to think it had been a blip for dramatic purposes. Having heard him explaining himself away yesterday I'm revising my opinion - particularly his glib comment that Usha was fine because she married the vicar.

That new kitchen they put in at Grey Gables after the explosion can only have had a few months' use. Getting rid of perfectly good kitchens seems to be a bit of a theme in Ambridge.