Archers thread #151: A Fête worse than death or a reverse ferret? Helen’s got the Borsetshire Blues, Tom’s talking shiitake, George is a rotten apple. 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. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you think Helen and Tom would do well on Dragons' Den, 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 to @OverArmour for various title ideas! I would have liked to incorporate the suggestion from @Fleetress, which was

‘Do do one Ron, Ron, do do one Ron’

(Rob is Ron for many on this thread now)

Possibly a bit obscure for newer posters, though!

Anyway: we got through that last thread in no time at all. Combined effect of Rob and George, I suspect. I wonder if Rob will have made it to Ambridge by the time we need a new thread. I'm still waiting for Pat's shotgun to feature. That can't have been mentioned for the first time ever for no reason at all.

Over to you!

Weaver 😭😭😭 fucking Ruth. I'd have been shoving her sodding lasagne where the sun didn't shine, the negligent dog murdering twat!!

That's exactly what my vet said to me

I was shocked when I first visited my eventual H at his home when we were still both university students in our late teens. H's father mocked him at the table in front of me about his long hair. (I suspect the father of being a bit ASDish). I was totally cringing with embarrassment for them both

Eddie knows when it's time to admit defeat. That's what he did with Lynda. You heard him explain how he and Lynda have their fallings out, and that now they are in a period where they are friends It's called living in a small community.

We all know that that's the reality in RL. What we're talking about here is what will happen within the SWs' fertile imaginations.

Eddie isn't normally depicted as being malicious. He must know Brad pretty well, and therefore he must know perfectly well that he doesn't understand jokes and teasing. So why do it?

Thanks, @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime.

As always, you're so good on Ambridge knowledge.
Your specialist subject on BBC's Mastermind, were you to brave it?

I've just listened on catch up and got the whole Weaver story in one hit. I wish they'd have put a content warning on those episodes! I feel really pissed off with the scriptwriters, they've brought Ron back and made George evil, now they'll killed off a dog??

Sadly I can believe that even an experienced animal lover could have lost hold of the lead for a second. I've seen an accident which more or less mirrored that one, although happily that dog recovered fully. I thought Alastair saying that the dog would have been too strong for anybody to hold was over egging it though, Ruth could have easily held a lurcher, she was just taken by surprise. :( Still an absolutely pointlessly brutal thing to inflict on the listeners though!

Thank you! But my name is Asking, not Answering. I'd freeze, because I know things if I have time to work them out but I am hopeless at quick-fire.

I do have a soft spot for Alistair ...

@BeatriceBatchelor
So do I. A man who's kind to animals is a very attractive plus, IMO!

Michael Lumsden also has an exceptionally soothing voice. Quite often pops up on audiobooks/documentaries and voicing ads.

Before the penny drops, I automatically think:

"Hang on, why's Alistair promoting Nationwide?

"oh, um, Alistair isn't..." 😳

I also remember him getting very amorous with Joanna Lumley in a BBC drama years ago. Whatever would Shula have thought?
(Payback for her Richard Locke dalliance!)

That's fair enough. Me too.

Listeners' outrage at Weaver's demise was mentioned on R4 News this morning.

Outrage? FFS. It's a farming soap, animals die. I thought it was perfectly well handled.

I really couldn't bring myself to be outraged that a fictional animal has died in circumstances that are entirely probable, let alone to express outrage publicly.

It was very sad but I’m not outraged, animals almost always die before their owners, that is the tragedy of pet ownership. Unless you have a parrot, in which case you need arrangements for them in your will, apparently. Or a tortoise.

I have a tortoise. He will probably outlive me.

Sorry if I've missed this but has the actor playing Alistair changed recently - I keep hearing him and thinking who in earth is that?

@Ginmonkeyagain I'm a countryside woman through and through, have kept dogs and livestock all my life. Pardon me for being upset with the SW for the creative decision to throw in a dog getting hurt out of nowhere and pts for seemingly no good plot reason.

I listen to TA to relax and escape reality for 15 minutes a day. It was distressing to listen to and is on the back of several chilling and distressing scenes (e.g. pretty much all of the ones that mention Ron, and George). It's hardly an accurate portrayal of farming (or village, or family!) life, these days.

I can see other people's point that it was good for first time pet owners to have an idea of what euthanasia actually is like. That aside, I've had plenty of "positive" experiences of having a dog PTS (in that you couldn't have asked for kinder treatment, and the actual procedures went well), and it's always a very distressing thing simply because it's the death of a much loved pet who has been like a member of the family. I have felt the jolt of panic when I saw somebody lose control of a dog and their dog run in front of a car, and I have felt it myself when my dog who was previously great at recall disappeared under a gap I didn't know there was in a fence and ran towards a main road, deaf to my calls.

I've felt what it's like to be the owner in the vet surgery. I just don't see why it was necessary to be accosted with a reminder of all those feelings when I'm listening to my favourite fictional radio show, something that I listen to to relax.

Well you are entitled to your feelings but it is a soap and it covers death, illness and accidents of the human characters so why not the animals? Deaths of animals are a fact of country life.

And all dramatic event in soaps are creative decisions to push the plot forward or gain audience numbers. The Archers is no different.

And as for it not being an accurate protrayal of farming life - has it ever been? I grew up on a farm in a small village and as far as I know no one died in a barn fire, had several affairs, fell off a roof, died in tractor accident, or ran a modern slavery ring.

It is a made up soap.

But that's part of my issue with it - it doesn't seem to drive any other plots forward. It seems to be there just to be a horrible thing.

I know it's too early for me to say that really, and time will tell. I know I'm being emotional. Perhaps they're piling things on to Stella to either prove she's resilient or drive her away from Ambridge. I mean, at some point the Prodigal Son has to complete his Hero's Journey and Return To Claim The Farm, right? 😉

It being a made up soap and not particularly accurate was part of the point i was trying to make in reply to your comment that death is part of farming. Just because it's a part of farming doesn't necessitate that it is included in a soap about farming. That was a choice the SWs made.

Oh, poor Weaver. That was awfully sad.

I know myself it takes ages and ages to get over the death of an animal you’re responsible for.

I wonder if this presages years of the new machine being cursed and bringing death and destruction every season?

@Grimchmas well yes of course it was a cboice! Soaps, even The Archers, thrive on drama and the sudden death of a beloved pet is drama.

I mean we all have things that we find challening but I am not sure why a storyline about the death of a dog is causing such consernation in a soap that has covered modern slavery, rape, violent deaths, coercive control, drug addiction etc..

They quoted one person who said just that - that it's supposed to be an everyday story of country folk.