Archers thread #140: Changing rooms at Brookfield with Leonard Llewellyn-Bowen, or saving souls with St Smugula in the heathen wastelands of the North? 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 think a stained glass window marking the birth of newborn twins is just what Ambridge needs, 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/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-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.)

Title composed in haste, making use of @Octothorpe's lovely coinage of Leonard Llewellyn-Bowen and @TheLassWiADelicateAir's terrific description of St. Smugula's mission to the heathen wasteland of far flung Sunderland, both from the last thread

I've abandoned the use of an emoji in the title, having been alerted by another thread recently to the fact that it makes it difficult for people with visual problems to use assistive software.

I won't say much more about The Archers, as I'm still feeling extremely jaundiced about the programme at the moment. Fingers crossed it takes a turn for the better over the next few days. It was good to hear Helen, Lee and Joy again tonight. Less delighted to hear the loathsome George. What a numpty not to recognise pheasant chicks! His Dad would be far from impressed.

Over to you!

I do wish Chelsea would stop with the snortling and snuffling she does all the time. I’m sure she never used to do that, or not to this extent anyway. I’m afraid I have a horrid mental picture of her dragging her sleeve over her snotty nose every 5 minutes.

The snort sound she makes at the end of most sentences can be really grating. I would have thought someone her age might have grown out of that by now.

It's not as if there weren't enough reasons already to dislike Gnasher.

It wasn’t so much her not knowing how to date a pregnancy, but the whole “what do I need to see a midwife for? I already know everything there is to know about pregnancy because I googled it” nonsense, and running off every time Tracey tried to broach the subject. Only to discover, funnily enough, that she knows bugger all.

And that was disgraceful of Natasha - everyone knows in that situation you pretend not to have seen the other woman, and to never mention it to anyone.

Yes, it's when a woman says "oh , I'm not drinking tonight, bit of a headache/ upset tummy/ early start tomorrow". You take it as stated and don't do a full on Ellen de Genderes interrogating Mariah Carey.

I don’t think badly of Natasha for the gossiping. She wasn’t actually behaving like Mrs Honeyman from Camberwick Green and spreading speculation around the village, she was instead just chatting with her in-laws which I think is perfectly fine.

Natasha’s life is quite boring at the moment with the endless feeding and trips to see the nurse, so anything that seems like News must be a very welcome diversion.

Annoyed at SWs making Eddie pronounce "tiramasu" as "tiraMAsu."
Also annoyed at (nearly) everything else.

Hearing Natasha again reminded me that she has an unresolved (unless I missed something while on holiday or something) issue with running up debt on credit cards and shopping addiction that has just not been mentioned for months. Are we to suppose it's magically gone away now she has the babies to focus on?

@TheSilveryPussycat I think it's fair enough that Eddie would pronounce tiramisù badly, he's not going to go all Nigella on it. It reminds me of Mel Giedroyc on Room 101 - she chose people who overpronounce Italian words, and I think tiramisù was one of her examples.

Nah, I don't buy that excuse for Gnasher.

It was obvious Tracey was lying- "meeting a friend" was so obviously a lie and the sort of lie any decent person would take at face value. It's like "oh, no I'm not drinking tonight, I've got a big day/ early start tomorrow".

And they were all speculating.

Just to revert to Love Actually, it’s a film I hate with a passion. Many thanks, Fink , for posting that brilliant review which explains exactly why!

Chelsea is so obviously going to go ahead with the pregnancy. Especially when she hears what a 17 week abortion entails.

I also thought Gnat was a complete
cow for gossiping like that.

And I couldn’t swear with 100% certainty that I knew how pregnancies were dated until I was actually pregnant, a lot older than Chels.

There were lots of red flags waving at the midwife. Teenage mother who got pregnant at an "illegal rave" and doesn't understand the basics of dating a pregnancy. Still talking about being undecided. If she does go ahead its because she was too daft to decide earlier and now feels she's left it too late to terminate. It doesn't suggest any commitment to the pregnancy and she hasn't bothered with any ante natal care.

Surely the midwife would have to flag it with social services, who will then find out about Chelsea going missing and the police looking for her. Plus the other recent brush with the law when she scratched the car.

Tracey can't afford to give up work to help care for baby, having recently had to use a food bank.

This is heading for a social services story.

Chelsea is going to feel the baby moving soon.

Chelsea couldn't have sounded more clueless if she'd tried.

If the midwife had been a volunteer at The Cat's Protection League Chelsea wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of getting a kitten.

How would Brookfield intersect with Social Services? I’m wondering if the SWs would find more drama in revelation or attempted secrecy regarding Ben.

It's also, in my opinion, the naïveté and candidness with which she volunteered the information about the illegal rave, etc.

Tracy is also clueless, albeit inconsistently, so I'd imagine there might be some concerns.

Sorry, my French keyboard hijacked my post there.

Though we've not long since had a social service investigation story, I had been going to add.

Did Russ call the painting Prodosia at the time he painted it? Do we know why?

I don't think so. Didn't he name the portrait Prodosia when he dramatically put it up for sale after discovering Lily's infidelity?

The story Lily told the buyer was made up by her - hence me saying she was a scammer like Eddie.

To be fair, I didn’t know how pregnancies were dated until I went to the doctor with my pregnancy….

I think I’m so annoyed with Chelsea because this particular bit of know-it-all teenage behaviour is all too familiar in real life.

Not to know something is perfectly normal - but to loudly proclaim that you don’t need any advice because you’ve done all the research and know what you’re doing …

Chels claims to be evidence-based and in constant pursuit of ‘the facts’ but doesn’t appear to have furthered her knowledge at all during the last three months. Her best source appears to have been Alistair! Her subtle cross-questioning of Pip didn’t really glean much. It’s a pity the worldwide web doesn’t appear to cover Ambridge.

Somebody posted upthread that Chelsea will still be wailing "I haven't made a decision, I need more time" while being wheeled into the delivery room and I think that's becoming a very real possibility.

Tracy should have been much firmer with her weeks ago instead of pandering to these ridiculous hysterics.

I used to love Chelsea but this storyline has really put me off her.

But did you claim to know everything you needed to because you'd looked it all up on Google?