👑 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.

Beth can literally fuck off, the way she’s behaving towards Chelsea.

So frustrating they’ve ruined such a great character (Chelsea that is, not Beth).

“I assume the cut’s on the house” why would you assume that you greedy presumptuous mare?

Chelsea is coming out of it all very well, I think. She is mature, kind and generous.

Yes I was incredibly confused by this

Aha! Thanks, had completely forgotten that.

But I’m not sure Clarrie and Kenton would have worked out! He left to be a cadet in the merchant navy at 16 and didn’t return for nearly 15 years, in 1988 - by which time she’d been married to Eddie for 5 or 6 years.

Well done Chelsea in an entirely implausible situation.
Nul points Beth. No right to quiz Chelsea, and the free haircut!!!!

Eddie is coming across even worse than he usually does. I do sometimes wonder if Clarrie and Susan would do better with their husbands reversed. Personality wise.

Chelsea can add the haircut to the child support bill.

And another week passes....

What inexcusable bilge this Kenton/Clarrie storyline is. There is no way Kenton would believe Eddie. Ffs

Re George going on about Kenton being "his mum's boss" on Wednesday tonight he was going on about his mum getting extra shifts.

I don't recall Emma ever working at the The Bull although Ebearhug upthread thought she might be / was the cleaner. But even if she were, how do "extra shifts" apply for cleaners?

It's woeful. It's like they've had a whole new team of scriptwriters

George & Eddie are vile; as are Jolene & Lillian, cackling over his diary & then Jolene deliberately bringing it up in front of Clarrie.

I too am confused by the ‘George’s mum’ lines.

As for Eddie and Kenton ...

Where does Emma work at the moment, I can't remember? Is she full-time at the tea rooms?

And as for 'I assume that because boyfriend knocked you up while he was single you're going to give me a free haircut even though your family live so precariously that they recently had recourse to a food bank and my dad's a multimillionaire', she can bore right off. I get that she wouldn't know about the food bank, but she would know the general situation of their two families.

TBF, Chelsea offered the haircut, Beth did not request it.

Although it would have been nicer if she had said, How much do I owe you for the Cut & Chelsea had replied, It's on the house, and Beth had then insisted on paying.

I was trying to scratch my brain for a memory of Emma working behind the bar but I couldn't find a memory. I did dig up a memory of her giving Rob what for in the Bull which I recall was a joyous episode. I think it was after the stabbing when he was trying to play the victim.

Actually not sure about Emma’s current employment! I remember a period when she was a cleaner at Brookfield - that worked really well as a way of communicating what was going on there. (Didn’t she and Ed live in the bungalow and have to move out when R&D put the rent up?) I think I remember her giving it up - but not the reason why.

Regarding the price of a haircut - absolutely a mis-step on the SW’s part. Beth as a character is far more likely to have taken out her phone to pay. And Chelsea would have politely declined. Perhaps it was a toss of the dice?

Abysmal. There was nothing to like in that episode at all. If I were a new listener, I would have switched off and never switched back on again.

IIRC, she gave it up partly because D&R couldn't afford it anymore and partly because Jill was getting upset about being sidelined. There had been some tension when Emma basically had nothing to do because Jill had already done it all. She also cleaned for Peggy, I think, which got on Kate's nerves.

88% of abortions in the UK happen within the first 9 weeks. 93.5% happen within the first twelve weeks.

One of the main reasons for abortions happening nearer twelve weeks is because the woman didn't realise immediately that was pregnant.

Chelsea knew she'd risked pregnancy straight away because she took the morning after pill. She must have been quite clear in her own mind at that point that she didn't want to be pregnant.

There's nothing to suggest that when her period didn't arrive that she delayed taking a pregnancy test.

And yet here we are, Chelsea into the second trimester still saying she "hasn't decided yet" and faffing about.

If she is going to keep the baby she needs to go to her GP and register for ante-natal care. She's already late for the 12 week scan. Surely if she rocks up now, saying that she's known for weeks that she was pregnant, but had done nothing one way or the other, her GP / midwife will be concerned?

Didn’t she and Ed live in the bungalow and have to move out when R&D put the rent up?
No. Mianed lived in Rickyard Cottage. Bert and the Fairbrethren were in the bungalow.

It's inexcusable bilge. We've had the pregnancy story dragged out far longer than it should have been and almost every other character is hanging around being ignored.

They could have inserted updates on how Roy/ Ardil , Kirsty/ Ardil are getting on; an update on Joy and her new man;
Denise phoning Alastair or Jakob to say how much she hates her secondment; Johnny, Hannah and Rex have turned into silent characters; Stella has gone from being someone Brian saw as a confidant and an equal to an idiot who needs swimming lessons from Pip.

We wasted time on St. Smugula's mission to the heathen wasteland of far flung Sunderland

I've a vague recollection of Peggy sacking Emma because Emma was no longer needed because Kate would do the cleaning to earn her keep?

The rave was on 1 July. Therefore Chelsea's LMP will have been mid-June. Let's say 16 June. That makes her 15 weeks pregnant, with a due date around 23 March.

If she's keeping the baby, she should have had her booking appointment more than 5 weeks ago, and her first scan 3 weeks ago. She should have been taking folic acid etc.

If she's not keeping the baby, she is going to have an usually late termination - by the time she decides, sees a GP, gets a date etc she'll be 16 weeks at least.

Are we drifting into quite a different storyline about a pregnancy which goes badly wrong through lack of ante-natal care?

It is quite stressful listening to Chelsea's dithering with one eye on the calendar (mine not hers). She will end up having this poor baby by sheer inertia on her part. I'm sympathetic honestly but one thing about being pregnant is that there is incessant talk about weeks!

I thought the Beth convo would be along the lines of what are you going to do about this baby? Instead it was Chelsea asking Beth that question.

@TheLassWiADelicateAir I very much enjoyed your st smugla description.

It is really, really, really bad - worse than ever. One more month of listening and then I give in after around 50 years of faithful Archers listening.