Archers thread #141: The nights are drawing in. Can we turn the clocks back to a time when The Archers was fun? Cackle or carp about 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, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you're hoping Ambridge has a pantomime again this year, 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.)

Many thanks to @TottersBlankly and @GoldenCupidon for the title suggestions.

Too much to hope, I suppose, that by the time we get to the end of this thread Chelsea's pregnancy is a distant memory and the Horrobins can gear up for a cheap and cheerful Christmas. I really, really hope she doesn't change her mind about the termination. It's a horrible and unrealistic storyline, as most of us have agreed over the past few weeks, but now I just want it to end and be forgotten about.

I do like the idea of Lilian taking on the role of witch in the woods. Much more fun to listen to than Mia sabotaging the Hunt Ball, which is surely bound to go horribly wrong, or the odd wrangling over the stained glass window which we know Peggy won't be contributing to on air , given June Spencer's retirement.

Not a peep out of anybody in Ambridge about all the recent political shenanigans, but that's hardly surprising. Nobody fretting about fuel bills or rampant inflation either.

Also, where's Jenny? I hope Angela Piper's OK.

Over to you!

I thought David's anger at the stupidity of Chelsea and Ben was justified and realistic. I would have been furious if I were the parent of either of them.

I would not have come out with all that "you'll be a brilliant mum" rubbish we heard from Tracey. And "I'll support you whatever you want" would certainly not mean "I'll take on the responsibility for this baby you neither want nor are capable financially or emotionally of looking after"

I wasn't listening closely but David's concern seemed to be at losing a grandchild rather than being angry at the witless pair for getting into this mess in the first place.

And am I the only person who's bothered by Tracey's idiotic lie about being pregnant? How is that going to be unravelled? A pretend miscarriage?

Please do stay, @RandomCatGenerator - I only came out of lurkdom recently too. It's good to have a fellow newbie around!

I would have been happy to have left it alone had Lillian not brought it up again. I disagree about Whopping's tone (I've been on these threads for years under another name, I'm a regular poster and have had no personal trouble with her before).
I posted one line, requiring no response, and subsequent posts show Whopping bizarrely managed to extrapolate, incorrectly, a couple of paragraphs, and two posts, about that. I've already explained this, however.

Lillian also brought up Asking, seemingly unaware that she left for spoilers [thread] after apologising for something she did here (a long time ago now).

These Archers threads won't change, and become more accessible and friendly to newcomers, which currently they're not, if people don't address the causes and just ignore it or minimise.

And 'booping' to counter the negativity in the Archers itself won't help with that. We've never had trouble finding positives in TA. It's just a lightweight radio soap and the over invested need to tone it down, especially where newcomers are concerned.

I'll be going back to my usual name shortly anyway. I hope these threads can be turned around as it's gone on too long. The last was an embarrassment, frankly.

Although his child being the mother is, in all likelihood, a different scenario from the potential one currently in the balance.
There's a difference in that Pip was in her 20s, had completed her education, had a home and income, free childcare, and was in a position to raise a child, and had had a relationship with the father. The Horrobairn is the result of a ONS with a teenager from the village.

On a more seasonal note, I wonder how the apple crop in the Grange Farm orchard was this year. Apparently, someone in a nearby village has the only remaining tree of a local variety. Something like 'Ambridge Beauty' but the village name not Ambridge.

Whopping also posted this yesterday (on this thread) and didn't respond or explain. I hope the tone, etc, is reined in there at least as it is part of the problem. Probably stick to Archers discussion.

WhoppingBigBackside
It reminded me of when I was at friends' and we all got a takeaway, and the baby's mother wanted an indian takeaway. 

Would an Indian takeaway have an adverse effect that Indian home cooking wouldn’t?

I thought last night's episode was very good. Lynda and Lilian were on form, Chelsea sounded like a teenager faced with an ordeal. Hotdogs and sweetcorn sounds good, but I would have thought a teenager would have preferred ketchup to mustard (personally, I'd prefer absolutely anything to mustard - yellow slime of the devil). David was a twit, as we might expect and Rooth has remembered she's a feminist, of sorts, despite the extremely unlikely scenario of her making lasagne earlier in the week, which seemed a clumsy contrivance for her to go and see Ben.

The comment about her friend having an Indian takeaway was very odd. If you think about it- it does rather ignore all other cultures.

It's also wrong- there's no reason to avoid spicy food or garlic.

It's just a lightweight radio soap and the over invested need to tone it down - steady on. I think you've overstepped the mark there - being overinfested is practically a requirement for this thread

... and curly fries, I think. Is there a very sweet kind of squeezy brownish-yellow mustard which is more like ketchup, or have I made that up (entirely possible)? I go for the stuff that makes your eyes water, but I don't recall having that until I was an adult.

Mostly BOOPs for last night. I liked Lynda taking over from Lilian at the last minute out of friendship and community spirit, but still managing to make a great fuss about it - in other words, being the Lynda we all know and love (or loathe).

I think Chelsea will go ahead with it now. She's been scripted to be not very sensible over this, but I do feel very sorry for her now. A grim business.

The comment about her friend having an Indian takeaway was very odd. If you think about it- it does rather ignore all other cultures.

It's also wrong- there's no reason to avoid spicy food or garlic.

Please @thelass, just drop it. We are all trying to move on and enjoy things a bit. No point hammering on and on…

You have to have american style mustard with hotdogs! Pretty sure that's the law.

Question from a veggie - can you keep meat hotdogs in the freezer? Or in a ...jar? How do they come? Just cos I'm envisaging Sunday night dinner at Tracey's being storecupboard stuff.

I really liked that scene with Tracey and C, they seem to really understand each other. And it mirrored Rooth and Ben the other day.

David does occasionally clamber up onto his high horse so I wasn't massively surprised to find him there. He's a kind but erratic/grumpy dad.

I don't think it would have been a lasagne an Italian would have recognised. I'd put money on Ruth using a jar of bechamel, a jar of bolognese sauce poured over greyish barely fried mince and ready-grated Cheddar on top. Kind thought, though.

That's what I was thinking of! Yes, probably American mustard. Hot dogs do come in a jar, or in a vacuum pack, or a tin. Ideal food cupboard staple. The food bank where I volunteer has a lot of the ones in jars.

True enough!

Wouldn't it be good if they all behaved like normal people?

Chelsea talking to Natasha in a little while, saying
"it was horrible but I am glad it's over and I'm sure I made the right decision, but I really should have decided sooner."

and Ben saying, "well I'm not ready to be a father yet, maybe one day"

and Tracey could brush off the pretend pregnancy, "Turned out to be a false alarm, all for the best really, I'm too old to start babies again" - which the nosy neighbours could interpret as they wish.
And Jazza could look forward to being a step grandad one day, or act more like a godfather to Martha.

Agreed. When I said I was happy to be the threadstarter, I hadn't expected there might be a role for Thread Tone Police too, but it seems there may, so here goes.

I don't know whether it's the time of year, the weather, the clocks changing, the endless political turmoil, or unknown personal factors being vented here, but I have to agree with others, the tone on these threads is getting very snippy. It's a great shame, and particularly offputting to lurkers and new listeners.

Moaning about The Archers is fine, we all do that at times. Sometimes someone says something that causes offence, inadvertently or otherwise. Sometimes someone phrases something in a way that's then misunderstood. These things happen. What doesn't need to happen is post after post carrying on an argument. That starts to look like a personal attack or an attempt to goad someone else into saying something ill-considered in response.

At the risk of sounding like a school prefect, personal attacks and goady posts are against the Mumsnet Talk Guidelines. These threads very rarely trouble the moderators. Can we try and keep it that way?

"in normal life Ben would have been considerably out of Chelsea’s league"

have to disagree with this though (sorry can't remember who posted it) - Ben is depicted as a probably floppy haired cute country boy/student. Chelsea is presented as a fashion/beauty/hair immaculate girl with a large group of friends (albeit not terribly in evidence at the moment). I think she'd be seen as out of his league if anything - more likely they'd just be seen as a weird match.

Stop it yourself. I added one post and was replying to Pezzn.

So far as the Archers, the Horrobin clan , including Jazzer will be on fast forward whenever they appear. I'm sick of all of them. They're so awful that hearing David, Ruth, Natasha and even Pip is a relief. I'm particularly fed up of Tracey's caring voice. Brad started off ok but he sounded half-witted in the last conversation with Mia.

Bye bye.

ah crap sorry cross post! I hope I haven't broken the thread police code!

Just joking, thanks for your words there @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g - when posters quarrel amongst themselves the rest of us usually try not to get involved, and just leave it there. No point trying to rally the rest of us to side with one person or another as, honestly, it's usually a misunderstanding and if there is malice there on either side as Strangers on the Internet we can hardly tell for sure.

And I do get put off posting by the tendency of one or two posters to crap all over everything, often wishing horrible deaths on the characters (I mean repeatedly! I think we can all relate to the occasional wish to push George Grundy down the well for example. More repetitive/ghastly than that) or posting the same long critiques again and again. Those posters have every right to do that of course, but it does squish the joy out of things a bit for me.

I'm still studiously ignoring the unlikely Horrobin SLs for the present. Difficult when they're likely to feature prominently for a while.

Hoping we can get back to discussing/critiquing TA civilly now and no leavers please, newcomers and old.

P.S. it was my fault, not @TheLassWiADelicateAir for quoting the offensive post about Indian takeaway. She was just replying to me.

I've got my fingers crossed for Chelsea today and I hope she is OK with whatever final choice she makes.

What youngsters have we got coming through?
Archers/Aldridges: Jack&Henry, Star & Star, Martha, Xander, Rosie.
Grundys: Keira (how old is she now?)
Is that it? (Apart from the older ones George, Brad, Mia & Chelsea, Ben)

That's it at the moment isn't it?

I am assuming that in a few years Henry will go through a bad patch as his years of trauma catch up on him. Around y11/y12 massive MH crisis.

I'm hoping we get a nice bonfire day, and a stir up Sunday like in the old days. Some nice calm stuff after all this stressy stuff.

Keira is about the same age as Henry. Emmur and Hellin were pregnant at the same time, with first time mum Hellin giving Emmur her expert advice.

Don’t forget Poppy! I think she’s about 7?!

(Delurking now it’s hopefully nice again and new name)

Poppy. I thought there must be another Grundy out there somewhere.

Do you think TA are 'signalling' things more than they used to? Like Mia & the Hunt ball. Or am I now just more aware as I have you all to point things out?