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!

True. I think that Peggy is 90 something though, a bit younger than June Spencer.

I see no reason for Stella to stay … The SWs haven’t gone out of their way to embed her in the community - she has a rented roof, but no relationship, Ambridge bred child, position in the community, intrigue or particular reason to make us interested in her. She’s dispensable.

Crossed you, @Catnary !

Seems like a bloody waste of airtime and scriptwriting effort though, since most of what she has done so far has felt like a build up to her becoming more important, IYSWIM. If buying a spider costume for Rosie was the pinnacle of her storylines, the actress is probably bored to tears anyway.

Stella is acted as an intelligent and confident woman, but given nothing interesting to do or say - her only really useful quality at the moment is being part of the younger generation that will have to step up. Though at least her voice is distinctive, not like all those young men who are only identifiable when addressed by name.

Ruairi has also lost his grandmother Bridget in the last few years, and she was very supportive after Siobhán's death, so he isn't unfamiliar with bereavement.

Think i'm in disagreement with some of you

Surely the point if there is one (sob) of Jenny not being around is that Brian can choose if he wants to to prioritise HIS children and sideline Adam and Debbie (HER children). If Ruairi ends up booted from Julianne's and rootless/studyless in London he may well come back and cling to his dad who also needs a friend. Then if Brian sees his own mortality looming it would be the perfect time to bring on My Son Ruairi as the heir, mentored by Stella?

Maybe he and Stella will get together even as he seems to have a penchant for the older woman. (I know there's Paul but the boy is allowed more than one relationship in his life.)

Oh and on a practical note I bet it's a serviced apartment he's in, so housekeeping is included.

I sometimes wonder if I am listening to the same programme as some of you.

I'm confused about whose apartment it was in London. Presumably Ruairi's (even if funded by Julianne), as that's the address Jenny has, but why was Julianne there? (Apart from for dramatic effect?). Surely sure has her own place in London. I can imagine them staying together when away at conferences etc but are they basically living together now??? Seems like he's in way over his head and if escorting during the week may well be not far from being kicked out of uni. I feel very sad for him if he's not doing all the things he 'should' be doing as a young adult student in London and instead is being carted around as Julianne's plus one.

Maybe this does indicate that he'll be home in Ambridge doing a Felpersham uni apprenticeship in farm management before the year is out...

Re: Julianne and Justin knowing each other - Justin bumped into Ruairi at whatever meeting we heard, and Ruairi was trying to get rid of him iirc but then Julianne came back and Justin made some 'wink wink nudge nudge' comment about how he'd done similar in his youth. I didn't have the impression that they actually knew each other previously?

Keep it up folks! - I am sure the SWs read this thread and without it would be lost! 😀

Read it, and immediately decide to do the opposite of whatever sensible advice we're giving them!

I remember that Justin/Julianne encounter the same way as Prestissimo.

Is Ruairi being introduced at these functions as Julianne's intern, perhaps? I can't see otherwise how she doesn't lose all credibility with her business contacts. We don't live in a perfect world and a middle-aged woman with a very young man in tow is still treated very differently to her male counterpart. It was notable that Justin immediately saw the whole thing as a feather in Ruairi's cap, from a sexual point of view.

I know Adam’s had a shock, but I thought he was quite rude to Stella when she tried to empathise by saying that exactly the same thing had happened to her father (which we knew, of course, from previous episodes).

On this occasion, I actually don’t think Adam was rude to Stella. Having been very recently bereaved - my father sadly died just before Christmas - I am astonished by the number of people who immediately respond to news of my bereavement with a reference to their own which happened several years ago. I often get a faint acknowledgment- and a trite ‘sorry for your loss’ - before several minutes of monologue on what happened when their own parent died. It’s not that my grief is worse than or more important than their’s - but it’s a very odd response given the timings and that I might not be in a position to offer them the sympathy they are looking for.

Anyway, in that context, Adam really didn’t need to hear Stella going down Memory Lane when his mother was barely 24 hours dead.

Surely the point if there is one (sob) of Jenny not being around is that Brian can choose if he wants to to prioritise HIS children and sideline Adam and Debbie (HER children) I'm not sure about this because Brian has always seemed to massively favour Debbie, but I definitely think Jenny's death subtly changes the balance of the family. Previously Ruairi felt like like the interloper, the cuckoo in the net, because he was the only one who was not Jenny's child. With Brian as the surviving parent, Ruairi is now very much in the gang - along with Kate and Alice.

i think it's a form of solidarity And of course, it takes people different ways. So sorry to hear about your dad @FallonsNewCoat
My own dad died suddenly 11 years ago next week, but it still creeps up on me.

I'm sorry for your loss @FallonsNewCoat. I am no stranger to bereavement myself, having lost both parents, one when I was a young adult and the other in my early middle age. Personally, I preferred speaking to people who had experienced similar losses more helpful than comments from people who could have no idea what I was going through. Stella wasn't just saying "I have lost a parent" she was saying that she had lost a parent very suddenly due to heart failure, so Adam did not need to give her any more details as she already understood. She was trying to spare him. He spat back "well in that case you'll know that people need space at a time like this". It was understandable, but it was still rude.

Kate also conveniently edited out the time when she went missing for an extended period and Jenny and Brian were faced with the horrific experience of going to identify the body of a teenage girl, who of course turned out not to be Kate. I remember that really clearly because it was when I first started listening properly to the Archers with my parents at home and I remember how much it upset my Mum.

@Catnary I thought of exactly that incident, too. Never forgotten Brian having to do that.

Yes I quite enjoyed Kate's reminiscences and in some places they were very touching but they were also very Kate! The editing of her parents' trauma and distress caused by her. I quietly snorted to myself when she reflected that maybe she and Jenny were more similar than she thought because they always prioritised and supported their children . I don't doubt that that's how Kate sees herself but obviously to an independent observer... reassuringly consistent writing from the SWs.

Listening again - Ruairi exclaims “This is my place!” - seems conclusive?

@Prestissimo that made me laugh! Always there for her children? Kate just abandoned them on another continent both times.

I noticed that at the time @TottersBlankly - still wasn't sure if he meant 'my place' as opposed to anything to do with Alice and Chris. Anyway I think it's all very weird. I still don't really see what Julianne is getting out of it. He can't be that good in bed or that interesting to talk to, and he must be costing her a fortune if she's actually renting him a posh flat for him alone. And as others have said people must think she's odd turning up to events with him. Power games I guess. A world I've never inhabited and don't pretend to understand.

I can't fathom the Ruari set up, but what's the betting that Justin has mentioned it to Lillian who will blurt something out at the funeral reception?*

That said, I do hope Jenny gets a lovely send off, rather than an Eastenders style funeral brawl. I like to think that the actress is still well enough to listen in with us.

*I wish we'd been given more of a clue about how old Julianne is supposed to be. I am guessing that Justin is mid-late 70's and really hasn't left Ambridge very often in the last 6 or 7 years (I'll overlook the Channel Island vs racehorse farce).

How so? We all have varying opinions and then most of us are wrong anyway due to the unpredictability. Why it’s interesting to talk about it, I suppose.

I didn’t think Adam sounded rude. Stella did what people always do, relate current events back to their own past events - but Adam’s point was fine.

It seems as if Brian will take a while to recover. The shock will be enormous - particularly after his own health scare early this year.

Possible next storylines:

Brian stops living more healthily now he’s lost Jenny and his own health deteriorates before R returns and is the inspiration he needs to eat kale again.

Kate’s ticket to SA is used to bring her children to Ambridge and they stay for a while. Nolly and Freddie reunion could be fun.

R and J comes out via Justin but R thinks it’s Alice. Big bust up and he has to apologise to Alice. Alice will come how save him from J.

@Scarydinosaurs I didn’t think Adam sounded rude.

I think Adam always speaks in what Stephen Potter, in one of the Upmanship books, described as a "plonking" manner:

"If you have nothing to say, or, rather, something extremely stupid or obvious, say it, but in a "plonking" tone of voice - i.e. roundly, but hollowly and dogmatically."