Archers thread #144: Window pains again! Light relief or dark times ahead for Ambridge in 2023? 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 volunteer in the shop with Susan, 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.)

New year, new thread. Many thanks to @LillianGish for the window pains pun! Hoping to hear a lot less from the Caseys this year and a good deal more about farming and how Ambridge is coping with Brexit, cost of living crisis, ageing population and all sorts of credible character-based storylines. Yes, I know, but one can only hope.

Over to you!

Thanks @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , as always.

Re. Erik having brought his togs with him, or not, I assume he's giving himself free rein of Jakob's wardrobe, especially given all the comments about how similar they look (so I would guess that includes being a similar size). I certainly would help myself to any of my sisters' clothes in like circumstances.

I always bring a cozzie with me when I travel anyway, just in case.

By the way, my rant about Susan distracted me from saying that I thought (the equally lacking in self-awareness) Kate was brilliant in her outrage at being compared to feckless Erik by Lilian. Completely true to character.

Is Feckless Erik a relative of famous one hit wonder Wreckless Eric?

enjoyed tonight! Nice to hear Kirsty full of gumption. I had of course forgotten her mini flirt with Adil which seems to have come to nothing for no good reason whatever.

I really want Kirsty to have a child, Thorlet or otherwise. I want her to be the anti Kate - lots of hempen garb and whole meal things but actually giving a shit about her child as well.

I'm a bit surprised Kirsty is swimming in the Am, given the dead fish situation last time she did. Or at least, last time we heard her doing it.

I'd like Kirsty to have a child, too. 🤞

If she’s having outdoor sex then she needs to borrow Emma or Fallon’s coat.

Thanks @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Thanks for starting new thread. Hope there isnt any dead fish as Kirsty has trouble even with goldfish.

Aargh you've all moved. Thanks for the new thread @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I'll repeat myself here:

Oh no I don't want more romantic doom and gloom for Kirsty! Came on to give them a BOOP for last night. I think they're bonkers going swimming but great that Kirsty found someone who would do that with her. At our local open water swimming lake you can swim for as many minutes as the water is degrees C (if that makes sense). Can't think they'll be in the river Am for long!

And Kate even remembered she had children in SA - although why she was moaning about being 'so far away' when it was a decision entirely of her own making I've no idea.

😂

Well, she remembered that she had a child. No mention of the other one. Or the one who's probably considered too far away within the UK. She moved back to Ambridge partly to do a universiy course and partly to be nearer to Phoebe, didn't she? So now that both of those reasons have gone, she could toddle off back to SA, I'm sure the Ambridge economy would survive the loss of Spiritual Home. But she won't.

Thank you, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g.

I imagine all the fish-killing pollution has been cleared from the river?

BOOP for Kirstie’s bold move! Certainly if a cold water swimmer is what she wants, it’s best to make sure a man possesses the necessary qualities from the start.

Yes @Fink I wondered if Sipo would get an honorary mention but apparently Kate's maternal regrets only stretch so far.

@Fink Yes, but I’d imagine South Africa is wide open to Spiritual Home possibilities. It’s really unforgivable of tte SWs to have brushed her SA responsibilities under the carpet for so long.

The university 'course' was a long time before she moved back permanently, wasn't it? I may well have got this confused, but I thought she'd been working as a volunteer with a charity in SA while the children were school age and Lucas (or is it Lukas?) was breadwinner through his journalist job. She then decided she needed some formal training in what she was doing and instead of looking for something appropriate near home or a distance learning course, she left the family for many months so she could study at the world-renowned University of Felpersham, who were happy to accept her for a postgrad level course on the strength of the handful of GCSEs she passed decades before (can't remember if she managed to stay at Borchester FE College long enough to take and pass her A levels, my hunch is no) and a manual she'd cobbled together for the volunteers, no doubt copying and pasting from all over the internet. I was working in a university at the time and very aware of the massive difference to tuition fees it makes to be an international student but nobody ever mentioned that on air. I can't even remember now if she completed the course, but I think she went back to SA for a bit. Asking will have chapter and verse!

When she re-appeared in Ambridge for good, it turned out that she'd been having an affair and Lucas had thrown her out. Very odd indeed that she didn't look for a flat near the family home so she could see her children regularly.

I just cannot stand Kate. At least there’s some consolation in the knowledge that if Kirsty and Erik the Viking get it on, she will seethe in murderous rage because it isn’t HER he’s flirting with, and she can’t really be too obvious about it because he’s her boyfriend's brother and therefore officially off-limits. But her monstrous ego will demand that he worship at the Shrine of Kate like everybody else.

Re Justin and the shop. It seems a long time since the initial efforts of the SWs to portray him as a master of the business universe, doesn’t it? Defrosting the freezers and delivering the papers? O how the mighty are fallen! 😂

That's my ongoing complaint against Justin, which I've aired on several of these threads over the years: he was initially portrayed as Mr Megabucks, someone the Davos crowd would have on speed dial. And then he gradually got smaller scale until he appears now to be on a level with pre-lapsarian Brian. Surely all his billions can't have gone in the divorce settlement?!

Also I completely agree with @Octothorpe 's depiction of Kate's jealously that dare not speak its name when she finds out Erik is interested in someone other than her.

I was working in a university at the time and very aware of the massive difference to tuition fees it makes to be an international student but nobody ever mentioned that on air.

I expect she just got the invoices sent to Brine.

Thank you @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. Justin’s shape-shifting according to the requirements of the plot is nothing new and is the reason I can’t stand him as a character. Whether he’ll be amiable country gent in the manner of Oliver Sterling or insufferably pompous ass or business giant or wheeler-dealer in the manner of Matt Crawford is anyone’s guess. I don’t like the inconsistency - I simply don’t believe in him. And what about Kate’s phone call? Are we gearing up for the return of Nolitando?

Thanks Gasp. I like Kate. She's consistently selfish.

How loving and caring of Kate to have a two minute phone call with her heartbroken daughter.

Kursedy will have one of them dry robes. And it will be where little Thor will be conceived.

If you are wondering, it's olive in colour with a neon orange fleecy lining - recycled polyester -, so nothing like the Fallon/Emma missguided/asos logging coat. it's big enough for two but unsexy Rexy will get another eyeful.

Sorry, going back a week or so but I've only just come across this thread and as an avid Archers fan for over half a century just wanted to throw my two penneth in. I was baffled to understand how David and Ruth ever accepted Vince Casey's invitation to an "olive branch meal" at a posh restaurant. And how was that ever going to work anyway? They'd surely have seen straight through his attempts to throw money at everything to make things happen.

And if he was going to apologise to anyone surely it should have been to Ben first and foremost? Why didn't Ruth or David (or Elizabeth even) point this obvious fact out to Vince? Maybe it was for Elizabeth's sake who's caught up in the middle but I was left scratching my head more than a little.

Hello, @Iloveabaconbutty, yes, all very odd. I can't understand why Elizabeth and Vince are still together.