Archers thread #145: The glue that held the Aldridges together is gone. Will they fall apart? 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, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it.

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.)

Lillian and I both made the glue observation, so I thought that would be as good a way as any to kick off this new thread. We raced through the last one, for obvious reasons. This one may last until the funeral. Will Tamsin Greig find time to attend? I do hope so.

The poem Jennifer quoted in her journal is here: www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43775/rabbi-ben-ezra It's doubtful whether the last of Jennifer's life was the best, but she had plenty to contend with all the way through.

Over to you!

I think I got into listening to TA regularly around the time Lillian had that fling with Matt's brother Paul and he kicked the bucket. That was definitely another occasion when gin and grief didn't mix for her. The constant noise of her wailing, sniffing and snorting was enough to induce raging misophonia, I don't understand really how I managed to get past that and persist.

You must have missed the odd episode, @Madcats ! Freddie is distinctly unusual in his celibate state.

We know Josh has girlfriends - one or two have passed through Brookfield relatively recently. (Last couple of years.)

Rex had a proper relationship with Anisha (Alistsair’s former practice partner) until she left. We don’t know what’s happened since then, but he’s definitely not contemplating a lifetime of abstinence.

Toby … Was busy being a responsible father (after trying out being irresponsible). Now he’s left Ambridge, I’m sure it won’t be long before Rosie has a step-mother.

Will - Understandable. (And anyway he’s middle aged, with children.)

Alan - are you sure you meant Alan? He’s married to Usha!

Roy - Tinder! That’s why Kirsty has the house to herself so often.

Honestly - it’s just Freddie. That’s why it’s so noticeable.

If one of them ventures further than Felpersham, they will meet a potential partner.

You'd think Felpersham should be full of potentials what with being university central.

If I did end up with Freddie Pargetter - as if, sniff - I'd open a luxury spa, wouldn't I.

well, that would be an excellent story line - Freddie and Chelsea come up with an idea about starting spa services? and then when GG reopens there's some conflict. Or GG reopens and Chelsea gets a job there and Freddie realises he is pining for her and wants to set one up at LL.

I too am shocked that Helen seems to be swanning around with nary an after effect

Julieanne is going to dump Raouri, isn’t she?

I'm hoping him turning up early will reveal Julianne already getting on with his replacement and her drawing up an agreement about what he gets to keep, and severance pay etc.

A spiral, because let's face it his MH is shot to bits, will follow, and he and Alice will end up in rehab together... maybe not. But he will come back to Ambridge i think

I got a bit irritated with Ruari claiming that he has always been the family dirty secret. His origins have never been remotely a secret. It's like he's trying to manufacture a backstory for himself where everyone has always been ashamed of him and he's been persecuted all his life, whereas the reality is that he's been loved and cherished ever since he came to live with Brian and Jenny. So far as I remember, all of this comes out of one drunken conversation with Alice plus Jenny having the honesty to admit that she had mixed feelings about taking him on, which surely can't be much of a surprise.

It was Alice rather than Ruairi who manufactured the backstory for Ruairi that everyone in the family, including Jennifer, had hated and resented him from the moment he arrived. His problem is that he appears to think that a nasty drunk will say while they are drunk what they really think when sober, rather than spewing random lies and bile as Alice did. What she actually meant was "I hated and resented you for existing"; projecting that onto all the rest of the family was just her nastiness, because the rest of them didn't.

It hurt him very badly, kicking the foundations out from under him, and he was only eighteen when Alice went for him out of the blue in that vicious and completely uncalled for way and called out every insecurity that someone in his position might have had. I don't think he has claimed or is claiming to have been persecuted all his life; what he is claiming is that he has been lied to all his life, that the facade of pleasantness to and about him was false. And I fear there is no way for anyone to prove otherwise to him, particularly not Alice.

the one type of person the SWs can't write is someone cool (which may be accompanied by attractive, funny, popular with the opposite sex etc)

This is horribly biased but I'm assuming that it's because no-one who goes on to be a scriptwriter on the Archers can ever have felt like that as a teenager/younger person.

I think they tried with Toby, they tried with Josh. They both ended up being really really similar characters who are essentially quite raffish and occasionally mention someone staying over/going to see a girl, but there wasn't anything more than that.

I think maybe the newer side of Ruari and the advent of Jakob's brother (will he come back) might have been an attempt at that?

They've clearly not clocked that these people also come in female form.

I'm not entirely serious about the SW btw, no doubt they had a wide variety of youthful experiences...

Do ‘readings of the will’ ever actually happen like they do in films?
Spouses tend to leave assets to the surviving spouse, with perhaps jewellery going to daughters.

I suppose Jenny might have left something for Adam and Debbie specifically if she was worried they’d be excluded from Brian’s will.

But she didn’t have many big assets personally, did she?

Didn't Freddie have a one night stand at a festival? Or am I confusing myself?

I think he did.

His mother did, at least.

(I still miss Hailey. Stupid Roy)

"Do ‘readings of the will’ ever actually happen like they do in films?"

Nope, thank goodness. Just imagine the ructions!

I also vaguely remember Freddie getting up to shenanigans at a festival. I think drugs were involved too, which led to the dealing and his prison sentence.

But for someone who's just turned 23 I find that quite surprising. He doesn't sound that bad! People drink a lot in the Archers. There are events.

He did!

Seems to have put him off for life …

He did, missing his maths GCSE to go to Bestival, and the woman in question later turned out to have been a friend of Steph Casey's.

The drug dealing was not to do with her or with the festival; it was caused by Noluthando encouraging him to sell magic mushrooms at college so he could get together the money to visit her in RSA, and then by his being trapped into selling for Evil Ellis the Demon Drug Dealer as a result of that.

I think I got into listening to TA regularly around the time Lillian had that fling with Matt's brother Paul and he kicked the bucket. That was definitely another occasion when gin and grief didn't mix for her. The constant noise of her wailing, sniffing and snorting was enough to induce raging misophonia, I don't understand really how I managed to get past that and persist

😀

You have perfectly articulated my thoughts @Patineur ! That's when I first listened to The Archers and Lilian drove me mad!

I expect I'm not the only former regular on the old BBC Archers messageboard (aka Mustardland) who is thinking of Keri Davies here! I believe he served in the RAF as a young man and then joined the BBC as a producer, becoming senior producer on TA, and looking after the website* and the messageboard (until it closed), which he continued to do after he gave up producing to move across to join the writing team, but with an additional career as a DJ. Any time you hear apposite modern music on TA I always assume he suggested it. He was certainly a keen muso (if that word means what I think it does) during his Mustardland host years, contributing regularly to a 'What we're listening to' thread. I always had the impression he was very keen to be seen as one of the cool kids ...

*Horribly out of date now. Probably not a priority in these cash-strapped times.

Ah yes, Gasp0de. The music thread was only for the uber-cool Mustardlanders. Anyone else got frozen out if they dared to post there.

I also got the impression that Keri was hopelessly besotted with one particular poster.

There seemed to be several besotted with him!

Oh dear, Natasha and Tom are heading for a beware dubious child modelling agency scamming flattered parents storyline!

Legit ones never require shelling out £££s for 'professional' portfolios of babies, as they change and develop so rapidly at that age.

Glad the ever silent Gills showed some compassion about letting Brian linger outside Home Farm for as long as he needed.

The last we heard about Home Farm was Jennifer being miserable and angry because the Gills had completely changed her beloved garden so that it was unrecognisable.

Lowfield, Sunday 24th February, 2019:
"Then, horror!Jennifer can’t believe her eyes. Her decking has been removed, her lawn has been ruined and to make matters worse, she stumbles over something in the long grass. “No,” she cries; “It’s...desecration!”"
and
"Jennifer is in a “state.” It was horrific, she had found the head of her dog statue, casually tossed to one side. Decapitated. Who would do such a thing? Her finger points at the horrible Gills. They’ve wrecked her garden; who knows what they’ve done to the house interior. It’s all too much, it really is."

Oh, no, how sad.