Archers thread #150: For whom the sausage rolls: George over a Berrow, Fallon & Harrison seek new lease on life, is it all a Fête Accompli? Discuss The Snivelling Simpletons, sorry, 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. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you think people frequently miss their own weddings because of a morning quickie while in a plaster cast, 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.)

Thanks for title suggestions. I basically took @OverArmour's excellent suggestion and managed to shoehorn in snivelling simpleton, gloriously coined by @Eastie77Returns to refer to Lee in the first instance.

@WitcheryDivine suggested Recharging, Red Kites and The Man They Call Ron, is Ambridge becoming an earthly paradise or a hell on earth? which seems as good a place as any to kick off our discussions! Ron = Rob, a fortuitous typo on a previous thread. It does feel a bit as if we're marking time before he turns up again. Odd to do what could be a high profile storyline over the summer holidays when a lot of people will be away, but depending on your point of view, maybe that's a blessing!

Whither George? Is he shaping up to be Andrew Tate mark 2?

Everybody looking forward to Ferret Fun at the Fête? Me neither.

Over to you!

I've never forgotten how vicious and unkind Helen and Tom were when Pat and Tony first found out about Johnny. They were convinced he was going to try and lay claim to the farm and did everything in their power to bully their parents into cutting all contact with him.

It was utterly selfish and motivated by greed. I've disliked them both since.

"Helen's nicknames on the BBC board was "The Thin Controller""

Well, she was anorexic......

Yes, the thin part related to that, and was obviously a joke referring to the Fat Controller in Thomas and the Tank Engine. The key descriptor was Controller, as that's what she's always tried to be, in relation to her own food intake/body size/shape, but also to the world around her. I think they've done a good job creating Helen, actually. Louiza Patzikas's voice is one I enjoy listening to and Helen is so predictably spiky, often wrong-headed, self-absorbed and also so very, very vulnerable, that storylines involving her are rarely dull.

I seem to remember that Helen was particularly unpleasant/odd when she was living with Greg and running the shop. She is a complete control freak, prone to erratic outbursts.

I didn't really catch how/why Johnny has landed a job crewing a round the world yacht. Wouldn't he need a bit of experience? I wonder if they are planning to dead him or banish him to South Africa.

No, no, the infant Helen was at home with a cast not kept in hospital away from her family. Pat found bathing her so difficult that she took the cast off before she'd been told it would be ok to, and it had to be renewed and was on for longer than it would have been in the first place, so Pat felt so guilty about the wrong she had done to her month-old baby that she spoiled her rotten for ever after.

Like Elizabeth, Helen has a good line in blaming her parents. I always found that really annoying in Elizabeth's bouts with the shrink, that she blamed her parents for having loved her and cared about her too much! She claimed that this made her feel that they didn't love and care for her, by some reasoning that I quite failed to follow.

Oh @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g you've reminded me of when Matt left Lillian: "sorry puss cat". Lillian actress was SUPERB. She's one of my absolute favourites 😍

Brenda and Tom were engaged. The proposal scenes is a sweet memory of mine from back in the BBC Mustardland days.

IIRC, they split up because Tom had their future all mapped out and it didn't match what Brenda had in mind.

I like most of the characters. Helen is particularly well acted, as is Kirsty.

They had previous on that score, with Hayley and John's pigs.

Yes didn’t he take her for a walk ancr the fields and pronounced ‘this is where we’ll build a house’ and she went errrrmmmm no thanks and skidaddled off to parts unknown. She featured heavily in Ambridge Extra, most of which I’ve blanked from my mind.

I always seem to be alone in thinking Lilian is insufferable and poorly acted. I never got the Matt love either.

And after Brenda left, Tom rebounded onto Kirsty whose heart he had already broken. That was always doomed to failure. Poor Kirsty.

Yes I like all the characters too. It's a spectrum all of them have their flaws to some degree, even the nice ones. Pip is quite annoying though 😆

Helen and Tom are both deeply entitled, indulged by Pat and Tony and used to always having their own way. But I cut Helen some slack when it comes to her children. Yes the way she is treating Henry is probably only going to push him more towards the likes of George but she won't be able to see it from that perspective. Incidentally does Henry not have friends his own age? Trying to think if there's ever much mention of Henry being off doing something with his friends or having a friend round to their house 🤔

Lilian's cackling is irritating. I'll admit to having had a soft spot for Tiger Matt Crawford. I think she's quite well-rounded as a character, but not as a person.

I didn't listen to Ambridge Extra at all.

I can remember the ‘this is where we’ll build a house’ scene.

There seem to be quite a few characters we have not heard recently. I don't think there will be a Johnny-dedding. He's an Archer. I suspect he'll end up staying in some faraway land for a few years, a bit like Kenton.

Kirsty needs a women’s group

TheUsualChaos
Incidentally does Henry not have friends his own age? Trying to think if there's ever much mention of Henry being off doing something with his friends or having a friend round to their house

He was said earlier this year to be at the skate park with his friends and coming home on his own. It was three days before Rob was known to be in the country.

From the synopses: Thursday 6th April, 2023
"Henry is not yet home, but Lee will message him. ... Henry replies to Lee's message and Helen says ruefully that he replies to Lee, whereas she has to practically declare him missing before he answers anything from her. He is at the skate-park and will be catching the next bus home, apparently."

So likely the return of Rob has resulted in Helen giving Henry less free rein. And possibly already starting to rebel against his Mum's helicoptering before Rob came back as well. Don't think George is going to have much trouble persuading Henry to ignore her.

Eddie and Will. Two peas in a particularly loathsome pod. God, I hate the Grundies, with the honourable exception of Clarrie.

George in all his nasty, nasty glory.

Wish Will had picked up him saying what wasn't his motive for taking George to the skate park....

Well, that confirms it.
He's a psychopath.

Apologies, Helen. Wrong name, right sentiment! In fact, given how emotional he gets over rob I reckon it’ll be Tony with Pats gun in the orchard… (then pleading dementia)

Eh? They were feeling very bad about evicting Hannah, both of them, each in a different way. The person glorying in it, and producing a good thing for them to think of it as being, was the slimy George.

I quite seriously feel that George is more Horrobin than Grundy in the matter of nursing a grudge. Joe was a horrid old schemer but not particularly vindictive, Alf is criminal but somehow rather childlike and I can't see him plotting, Eddie is a cheat but not inclined to own-back behaviour, and apart from their feud over the one woman Ed and Will are fairly straightforward, more so in Will's case than in Ed's because Will has not tended to criminality; whereas Clive Horrobin is a nasty bit of work who holds grudges and commits attempted murder, Keith is similarly uncaring about who might get killed in the course of his criminality, and Emma could hold a grudge for the Solar System. Stewart and Gary are negligible, one a hopeless drunk and the other said to be a bit lacking, and we don't know about their other behaviour. (Susan may be the white sheep of the family, but she's a vicious gossip and often a back-stabber.)

"That's very mature of you, son"...

Oh, Will, you deluded fool.

Eh? They were feeling very bad about evicting Hannah, both of them, each in a different way. The person glorying in it, and producing a good thing for them to think of it as being, was the slimy George

No, I mean the two of them sitting on their behinds happily waiting for Clarrieluv to come home from work before starting on more work, ie preparing food for them to fill their faces. And not lifting a finger.

Thank god for Brad offering to help. Although I honestly thought Will had started to develop a bit more consciousness. Hilarious 'lovable rogue' Eddie is a lost cause.

I agree that not starting the supper was poor behaviour, but I feel that Clarrie is probably scathing if they do, because she will want the help she wants and not the help anyone else thinks they are giving her, as it were. If they peeled the spuds she would have been planning to bake them, sort of thing. And I think Eddie did say they'd help once she told them what to do, unless it was Will who said that. (For all Brad offered to help, I don't think he actually did anything, did he, because he wouldn't have known what to do any more than they did.)

Wow George really is vile isn't he. Twisting the knife for Hannah and then straight away lying to his Dad.

How old is Poppy now?

The fact remains that they’re more than happy to watch Clarrie come home from work and start slaving away. I’m inclined to feel that Eddie, and probably Will, are quite contented with their strategic incompetence. That’s a whole other MN thread, however….