👑 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.

No, she isn't. Last night was one of the first times she hasn't thrown a strop when asked what she plans to do about the pregnancy. As pointed out, sitting around for several weeks first pretending it isn't happening and then saying she hasn't made up her mind isn't sensible or mature. She said weeks ago that she knew there was no way she could have the baby, there's really only one conclusion to draw from that.

She reminds me of someone I once heard on a phone-in who had spent her entire pregnancy missing counselling appointments, changing her mind etc, and how now reached 28 weeks, decided she didn't want the baby and apparently hadn't realised that she couldn't just demand an abortion and get it at that point. She was in a total panic and I felt quite sorry for the person at the other end of the phone-in - there was literally nothing she could say that could possibly calm the caller down.

Kenton falling for all that bollocks from Eddie was ridiculous too. IRL he'd have said something like "Come off it, we were 16, you've been married for 25 years and renewed your vows, don't tell me you weren't kissing other girls when you were 16" and walked off. I don't understand what Eddie and George hope to gain from it - it's not as if Kenton is likely to be either blackmailed or shamed into giving them money. Are they making up all this nonsense in the hope of a free drink or two? If I were Kenton I'd bar Eddie from the pub indefinitely.

Yup, it will be as her mother feared - making a decision by not making a decision. Or the nightmare scenario that no one wants.

But - please, please can we have ‘heathen wasteland’ in the next thread title? Applying to Ambridge of course.

Mid-20th century my father, newly arrived in England, walked out of a church service after the vicar referred to ‘our heathen brethren in Africa’. Early 21st century I (not at all religious but staying at Gladstone’s Library next to a very pretty church) almost walked out of a service when a pompous reader referred disparagingly to ‘the unchurched’.

Missionary work is exactly the right ending for Shula.

Chelsea is now at the stage where her option, if she decides on abortion, is a surgical abortion by dilatation and evacuation.

I expect Chelsea's Google skills are up to finding pictures of a 15 week foetus. I can't remember when I first felt movement but my Google skills have found that whilst it's unusual, it's not impossible to notice fluttering that early. I think it extremely likely Chelsea will be an outlier who notices it early. All in all I don't see abortion being in the running now.

15 weeks :( that’s so far on. I was showing in quite a big way by that point.

She might not realise that pregnancy is dated from the LMP and might think she is at 13 weeks. But even so, she must realise that while she is dithering, the pregnancy is progressing.

She hasn't had any contact with her GP or anyone medical yet, has she?

I think I felt movement at 18 weeks, although it was another couple of weeks after that that I was confident it wasn't just wind.

I think Clarrie would be perfectly justified in burying Eddie and George under the patio. Maybe a long prison sentence would allow the actress to retire.

Another one who's been listening for forty years and is on the point of giving up ☹️🤷‍♀️

Not only is the Kenton/Clarrie/Eddie story bilge (fine word), Eddie and Clarrie both grew up in Ambridge and are close in age (three years apart, both born into Ambridge farming families). Somebody said something about 'It was before we met'. No! You must have met when you were toddlers. At this point, I suspect the actors are just telling themselves it's a job and will go some way to paying their winter fuel bills.

At 15 weeks, the bump might be showing. It might not.
I know women who haven't found out they were pregnant until later than that
It might just be wind.

That would be a good outcome - off air of course.
The SL would have stuck a rocket into Russ&Lily and Ben&Beth

It's really annoying that the pregnancy storyline is overshadowed by the elephant in the room about Chelsea being so far gone. It would have worked quite well if all this had been happening at 5-6 weeks.

I disliked how conciliatory Chelsea was towards Beth. It was a drunken bonk and none of Beth's business - she's just Ben's on/off girlfriend. Chelsea didn't need to explain herself to Beth, and certainly not the details of how they came to have sex (cringe) - she has much more important things to worry about.

At 5-6 weeks, she'd have more choices. It could have been dealt with discreetly, but where's the drama in that?

Quite!

My money is on Beth having slept with someone on the hen weekend.

Where's the crystal ball?
Is it: a bad case of anaemia and wind
Going to result in a miscarriage
Be a little Archer Horrobin?

I don't think we'll be rid of the Bethly Bore

I don't think she'd do that,@Chemenger .

It really depends on what the scriptwriters’ magic 8 ball told them to do, doesn’t it.

Beth’s grabby assumption of a free haircut sat extremely badly with her moaning about ‘yet another Tiffany pendant’ or whatever just a couple of days earlier. To borrow a phrase from here (which I detest), Princess Beth should give her head a wobble.

Does anyone think the scriptwriters are so dim that they think nobody will notice just how pregnant Chelsea actually is?

But right now she really has no option. Where's the drama in that?

Another theory is that TASWAMA and haven't considered that there'd be any difference between an abortion pill and a surgical abortion, from the woman's POV, because they've never really considered anything from the woman's POV. Always a possibilty.

Although, on the opposite side, it could also turn into a public service announcement that it doesn't matter who and how many people know you're pregnant, you have the right to an abortion if that's what you want (under the usual conditions). I really doubt it, but it's possible. In order of likelihood I think:

1. she's going to keep the baby (most likely),
2. abort and the SWs will act as though only a few people ever knew rather than half the village,
3. go through with the pregnancy and give the baby up (please please please not to Ben and Beth)
4. abort and it be publicly acknowledged by all the people who know about the pregnancy

And I suppose there's always a miscarriage as a 5th option, but that seems even less likely than the other choices.

@HaveringWavering , quite a few people know now, or enough know for it not to be a secret.
The drama will be in the - it turning out to be a false alarm/miscarriage/stillbirth or the baby brought up by both parents co-parenting/Chelsea/Tracey

I don't think that Chelsea (with other SWs) would have let it get this far

I hope they wouldn't do the false alarm storyline, it would just play into the idea that the working class poor are so helplessly ignorant and hopeless at everything that they can't even get a pregnancy test right. If they were going to do that SL, it should have been with someone other than Chelsea.

I thought last night’s episode was really nasty. Eddie was always a scallywag but not spiteful like this. I hope he will come to his senses. I hope George gets run over by a tractor, really soon. He is a nasty bit of work like his Uncle Clive.
Currently bored by dithering on Chelsea’s part.