👑 Archers thread #139: Who’s the Daddy? No ceremonial required to join us – 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 like the sound of Lilian’s Cinnamon Chicken, 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.)

I'm often struck by the time a thread ends how irrelevant the previous title has become to what's currently going on in The Archers. The Queen's death has only been mentioned very briefly in TA, of course, but I suppose that was to be expected in a time of budget constraints. In a few weeks when this thread fills up I wonder if we will still be thinking that, and about Chelsea and her pregnancy. That depends on what she decides to do, which at the time of writing is still up in the air.

As usual, I asked for title ideas and for various reasons then didn't use them. Sorry. Lillian Gish's was very witty - Will Chelsea stay mum about dad? Muddler made a more controversial one - Horrobins thread #139. As a new Great House of Ambridge emerges, come swear your allegiance here.

That's about all I can face saying about TA at the moment. I am expecting to have to travel north soon as my Dad is in hospital and I have to be with my Mum. (They're the same sort of age as Jill Archer, and up to now have been like her and Peggy, very active, managing very well with no help, but this may all be about to change ). So apologies if I'm more absent than present for a while. Will pop in when I can.

So do I. Why does he speak with that OTT accent when he grew up in Ambridge?

Josh is the baby daddy.
I'm calling it.

Sired by Josh, brought up by Dan?

Toby / Dan would have some nice resonances.

Either would do for Jill.

@EBearhug , Josh's girlfriend was called Liberty. Thanks for the link.

I don't think that Chelsea and George would have been ripping each other's clothes off, given that George is immature and unpleasant, and they are related.

Well, maybe if it primarily consisted of various Geordies telling Shula to stop being so effing sanctimonious.

I don't find Shula sanctimonious. I think she's nice and normal, apart from the occasional out-of-character behaviour, but that's the scriptwriters.
She's a brilliant mother to Daniel. As much as I like Frilly, the dopey kids are odious, boring and dull, respectively.

Not yet, the autumn equinox is today.

Dan and Chelsea would have absolutely nothing in common. Both can do better, if they want a committed relationship. My money's on the last minute or so of tonight's episode having Chelsea storming out yet again but once alone she makes a call and the last we hear is her saying 'I need to talk to you...' with or without the name of the man she's calling.

Plus she'll strop out of the house every time the baby won't sleep.

@Novum , aoplogies, must have misheard. Not that it matters really. The nights are drawing in and it's getting chilly.

Surely if your pregnant, miserable daughter tells you there's no way she's ready to be a mother and she wishes she could have a miscarriage, it's time to suggest ever so gently that she's made her decision?

Maybe Chelsea will go ahead with a late termination, and Ben will be at the hospital, and realises that he's her impregnator...

Just an aside, regarding Shula’s conversation with Neil earlier this week. Why on earth did she want to bring up her EMBARRASSING crush on him and her behaviour over the lasagne. Sooner that is forgotten, the better…

Dan and Chelsea would have absolutely nothing in common. Both can do better, if they want a committed relationship.

Oh … I don’t know, Gasp0de - each would enable the other to see Ambridge through new and very different eyes. And he definitely ‘liked’ her! But the SWs deprived me of TrOllie, so I’m not optimistic.

Agree on your ending for tonight - I was imagining the same!

Of course, @Novum, but we're talking about Tracey and she doesn't know about things like the benefit system.

So far I’ve taken Ben’s new career as a peculiar form of Long Covid … It’s good that the SWs have written a new and potentially strong connection between Ambridge and the wider world - but so far they haven’t actually done anything with it.

Maybe the short term plan is ILoveShula’s scenario but I sincerely hope they’re actually intending a more fundamental restructuring of the whole story. It isn’t really good enough for Ben’s hospital to just be something he mentions when he returns to the farm.

Perhaps once he’s qualified he’ll become a district nurse. (Don’t know if they exist or what they’re called now!) Someone whose profession takes him into every house in Ambridge so he becomes the repository of secrets and the wise voice who propels huge life changes.

No you suggest it would be a good idea to speak to the father (the one night stand your pregnant, miserable daughter doesn't much like) in case he has any ideas about what to do next (absent you and your pregnant, miserable daughter having any)

The Chelsea Upduffed SL has brought back memories of the Vickoi pregnancy SL of yesteryear. Older mother, DS baby, depressed much older father not wishing to have the child etc. but they persisted and moved the family to Brum.
I wanted them to terminate then, as I do now.

This has nothing to do with my thoughts on abortion IRL, but about using pregnancy for dramatic purposes. In the Chelsea SL, ONS presumably, with no affection for the father, not particularly wishing to be a mother, and with about 25 yrs of fertiity ahead of her, is quite straightforward. The Vicky one was more complicated due to the mother's age, the father's age, the additional needs of a DS child, who would one day be a (dependent) adult etc.

I hope the father isn't Chelsea's odious first-cousin-once-removed George, but if it is there will be scope for the scriptwriters to create various plots.

Firstly, Emma would become a grandmother, and Susan a great grandmother. I can't see either of them being delighted about that.

There would simultaneously be pressure for money to support the child on the skint Horrobins and the skint Grundies. It would be harder for George to refuse to contribute when his grandmother is the aunt of the baby's mother.

Clarrie might be delighted to be a hands-on great granny, but again, it will be yet another drain on the Grundy resources.

Susan and Tracey are close as sisters, but Susan is well aware that she has been the most successful Horrobin. She has resisted being pulled down by her family, but this will be one more incident in a theme.

Thank you, @ILoveShula. Liberty. I knew Jezebel wasn't quite right. 😁

I really hope Chelsea goes ahead and has an abortion.

the advice she’s had is awful, no one has told her to call/use an online chat service with pregnancy options.

She had a good chat with Alistair and that was all ridiculous drama. The response to finding out the rights of the father should have been “well done glad you’re taking this seriously” not flying off the handle.

ALSO it annoys me that bullying Jazza who pushed her into having sex at work has gone on and found further employment, but Tracey’s black mark for the incident has blocked her from being reemployed by GG.

I really like Tracey. She’s capable, practical - yes a bit bullish but not without cause. And I find this writing of her reaction to pregnancy to be entirely unrealistic. I bet she herself would have had accidents/near misses (like the majority of women her age) and she could have been sharing those stories with Chelsea.

I absolutely despair. I don’t even care who the dad is - stop torturing her and let her get to a doctor to see if she can still have the abortion pill rather than the more intrusive option.

Ben being at the hospital and finding out would be quite feasible whether or not he is the father.

Feasible in a soap way rather than in a real hospital with thousands of staff.

Actually my husband found out a friend had had a stroke while working at the local hospital. Obviously he asked her permission before telling me. And I found out my friend's daughter was (happily) pregnant while visiting my Dad in hospital and I saw them heading for that department. So it's entirely feasible.

Could the father be Jazzer? Bombshell storyline if so.