Archers thread #143: In the Bleak Midwinter, Ambridge Folk Make Moan. Best Christmas ever? Probably not! 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, 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'd love to be in Jolene's choir , 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.)

Well, we made it through Stir Up Sunday without bloodshed, but poor Ben is now in the grip of psychotic depression. Not going to be a happy Christmas at Brookfield, sadly. When will Jill swallow her pride and go and give him the abject apology he deserves? Would it be a good idea anyway for Ben to see his gran at the moment?

Will Jazzer say yes? I hope so. We could do with a Horrobin wedding to look forward to.

Will Emma and Ed end up in court if they go ahead with this idiotic scheme to nick the logs from Peggy's Folly?

Will the two choirs put on a joint concert at Christmas? I assume so, and also that the BBC will continue to fool nobody by using recordings of what is clearly a really good well-rehearsed established choir, not a scratch choir of half a dozen novices.

Over to you!

True. Although I'd argue that it is sort of his business if he's being put in an awkward position re keeping the perceived "affair" secret. Not mentioning "Fallon" to Ed annoyed me... in the real world you'd say something like "I saw you and Fallon". This storyline is going to make people cringe for a while, isn't it... 🙄

@TonightMatthewIamgoingtobecher , i meant a not real down one.
@SnowlayRoundabout , she did send him a chocolate cake.

OOh I also pictured the coat as green, but clever to think of it being quilted.

I doubt it's leopard print as even Tony and Rex aren't stupid enough to think that Ambridge has a "little man" going round in a leopard print coat and they've not noticed him.

This could be amazing! (Though poor Kirsty - she surely can’t compete with a determined Pargetter seducing a man with her acres and heritage …)

I think there might be some kind of [tedious] competition over Adil, but I think against all odds Kirsty will eventually "win" despite being elderly and decrepit, poor etc.

In 1987, shortly before Rex was born, Rex's dad Robin Fairbrother (aged 34) was having an affair with Elizabeth Archer (aged 20).

He may well not have stayed on the straight and narrow forever after either. M And we know that he and his wife got divorced, which may easily have been as a result of his infidelity at a later point.

I think real Rex would have just said "I saw you!" - it being too embarrassing and awful to spell out who he saw?

GoldenCupidon
I think there might be some kind of [tedious] competition over Adil, but I think against all odds Kirsty will eventually "win" despite being elderly and decrepit, poor etc.

The kicker might be her being prepared to convert to Adil's religion; he has been pretty clear more than once that religion matters to him, and that he is not a Christian. Would Lily be able to fake that? (I cannot believe that in her case it would be real.)

It didn't give me the bold I asked for, but I hope people can work out which bit was said by GoldenCupidon.

@GoldenCupidon , I saw it vividly at the time. It wasn't a quilted one like country folk wear, but a shaped woman's coat in the puffer style. Fallon's had some shiny green detail at the waist, but Emma's didn't.

Emma's might have been this one

Oh very nice and practical, takes you from day to night, from serving carrot cake in the afternoon to banging your ex in the woods at midnight. Wipes clean.

If the coat is distinctive enough, even in a slightly grainy, black and white night vision camera, to clearly identify as Fallon’s, I think it must be something more individual than an almost ubiquitous puffer (or variation thereon). I was imagining something more formal - of the type a member of the Royal family might wear to attend church (and therefore entirely unsuitable for logging).

Ed thinks Rex saw Ed and Emma (married couple) having sex. Rex thinks he saw Ed and Fallon having an affair. So his reaction is not unreasonable if that's what we're happening, but he's just coming over as prudish and unnecessary to a married couple.

And obviously the comedy of errors and misunderstandings is meant to be greatly amusing to all of us.

It's not.

Fallon's was posher than that. This one's more shag-yer-DH-al-fresco.
Someone is missing a marketing trick there.

Maybe it's like the yellow oilskin type coat as worn by Eve Myles in something Welsh and English.
Suitable for logging, dogging and serving carrot cake. Cold wash or surface clean only.

woipe clean cap'n bordsoye co-wut
perfect for a pirate's daughter

😂

That's the sort of thing I imagined.

😆

"We're takin' wood from Muther Earth to feed our children"

Right Emmur....

Oh dear. How much longer can this drag on? I mean, Emma's dialogue made perfect sense, because at no point has the pillock Rex made himself clear to anyone.

What they need to do is send Jawgee down to the Am to pull the plug out of Rex's barge and give it a good push off downstream.

But there is a ford downstream of where that narrowboat was said to be moored, and it is shallow enough for a child to walk through in wellies; the thing would simply ground.

I think we are in the death throes of this pointless tradition - I am quite pleased to have only received a few this year what with the strikes and climate change etc I, like many others, find Christmas cards a useful way to maintain some sort of contact at a time of life when it’s hard to recruit friends at a rate to compensate for the losses.

I thought the Rex/Ed conversation quite clever in that both were convinced that the other was talking about the same thing, and neither said anything to disabuse the other. What a pity to waste such effort on such a rubbish storyline

Agreed. I knew she'd get all sanctimonious when rumbled, but 🤮

The idea of it being a "sex-tape" was mildly amusing, though. I'm no expert in the genre, but surely they don't generally involve one half of the couple wearing a knee-length puffa jacket?

Wasn’t David involved in Jethro Larkin’s (Clarrie’s dad) accidental death too.