Archers thread #152: The Dog Days of Summer in Ambridge! Rabid rants, tearoom dogfight, Bully Dog George gets it all on camera. Is Lone wolf Rob waiting in the woods? 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'd love a son like George, 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.)

Starting this new thread a bit early, as we're near the end of the last thread and I'm out all day today. As last night's episode was a banger, I thought I'd better ensure discussion can continue seamlessly!

The original idea for a dog theme for this thread came from the death of poor Weaver. RIP. The Dog Days of summer are associated with storms and the silly season, so quite appropriate for The Archers at the moment! They may technically be over now, as it's all to do with the heliacal rising of the Dog Star, Sirius (no, me neither), but apparently the Anglo-Saxons considered they lasted into September (thank you, Wikipedia), so that will do for me.

So - what next for Helen, Henry and Jack? Surely even the Bridge Farm Archers will see that she needs professional help? After her outburst the other night they might finally grasp that Henry could do with some too. All very grim.

On the lighter side (perhaps), whither Pip and Stella?

Over to you!

I don’t get English lit either. Marketing, accounting, business studies.

If she doesn't have English GCSE it will be a barrier to a lot of jobs and many further qualifications.

Although I think it is just being used as a demonstration of Emma's ambitions to "better herself".

I have worked with people who did Access courses to enter Higher or Further Education without GCSEs/O Levels. Are these still available?

I do think it would have been better to hear that Emma was going to get some careers advice. And then to hear what advice she received.

And I’m not surprised Chelsea and Brad’s wrestlings with the register office officials were off-screen. Completely ridiculous.

If Emma wants a job like the Head Housekeeper one at the hotel, surely she should be doing Maths? The likes of Adil wouldn't be in the least impressed by an extra Eng Lit qualification.

I’m afraid she will struggle writing essays. She would be better off joining a book club and doing some sort of business course - may be an online module via the Open University which would fit in around her other jobs.

I only started watching Strictly two years ago. However, Craig the Judge has seeped into my consciousness and I find myself intoning many three syllable words the way he does it. In the case of most of what's happening this week, it's Ba-lo-ney, darling!

If we give the SWs credit for realism (I know, I know) they might be attempting to show that one of the things that holds back people like Emma is not knowing what's worth studying and what isn't, in terms of opening doors to better paid and more responsible jobs. One solitary GCSE in English Language is not enough. Getting a second GCSE in English Literature is not going to improve things. She needs Maths, and if she's serious about getting a management job, she should probably do a course on Business Administration or similar.

If she just wants to rekindle her love of reading, she'd be much better off joining a book club or simply going to the library. I bet the village has a book exchange somewhere. All the former phone boxes in our area are now stuffed full of books, and I often see them at stations.

Yes that would be the only way it makes sense! She needs career advice

Was there not an Ambridge Book Club until quite recently? I’m sure I recall Lynda being a guiding light. And maybe Caroline and … Jennifer? And at least one hilarious misunderstanding over a book? 🤷‍♀️

I’m wondering who in the village might have been capable of giving Emma good advice. Can’t immediately think of any mature adults there who have returned to education. Ed did something, I think, but it was vocational not academic.

Kathy was a school teacher back in the '80s, and Jim was a professor. They're probably the only ones who have been near careers advisors, albeit only as colleagues. And Russ, of course.

Adil would actually be a good person to talk to, as he understands the corporate world and what works on paper to get you through the door.

Yes … Only I imagine Jim’s knowledge of what’s available for adults without degrees might be a bit limited and out of date.

Adding my name to the list of those puzzled by Adil’s Martian demeanour. Can’t imagine anyone willingly seeking him out for advice.

Emma needs the Mature Study and Retraining Board.

Maybe Natasha could give some practical advice?

Maybe they’ve been given a remit to show maths can be useful in real life.

Well they should have chosen a more realistic scenario. No way would a bunch of public sector workers been influenced by a kid like that.

Do you think it will next be Tony and Henry counting carrots? We need 60 in a box and we currently have 10 - how many do we still need to pick?

The Mistress of the Paddocks!

Some sort of Jilly Cooperesque bonkbuster that was a thinly-veiled account of Mandy Beesborough’s affair with Brian. What I can’t remember is how it got on to the book club reading list (I am wondering if maybe Vickoi was involved?), whether it was actually written by Mandy herself or whether we had ever heard of Brian and Mandy’s dalliance before the book was mentioned.

Ré Adil's strange tone recently, I just assumed he was fed up with Oliver's lack of professionalism with recruiting. Can't say I blame him.

@ElthamLemur Did Brian have an affair with Mandy Beesborough?? How could I have missed that? When was this? I was out of the country pre internet in the mid nineties so was it then? Huge Archers black hole for me!

Mistress of the Paddocks was written by one of Mandy Beesborough's friends, Carinthia Hart.

Jennifer chose it for the Book Club to read because it was by a local author; she had not read it herself at the time. (I think we were supposed to laugh at the irony. Ho, ho, ho.)

We had heard that Brian was at the races with a corporate group and ran into Mandy Beesborough there while Jennifer was in labour with Alice. They had met before when she was in charge of a Pony Club rally at Home Farm in 1987. The dalliance was not actually on air, if indeed it ever actually happened; Jennifer assumed it, and forbade Brian ever to see her again. Well, it couldn't have been on air: Mandy Beesborough did not have a speaking part.

I loved Lynda's Silmarillion rant.
it was so from the bottom of her and my tbh heart.

the bbc sounds snippet is geoblocked hrmphf

Be much more use if they talked about probability. "If I do this, I decrease by 10% my risk of a common disease but I double the chance of an incredibly rare disease" - many people will say "can't risk doubling the risk of this vanishingly rare disease". Public understanding of probability and risk is dreadful, and yet it is fundamentally important to our decision making.

DH is fond of quoting when he was on a beach suddenly closed because a shark had been sighted. Everyone leapt into their cars and drove up the coast to another beach - and the number of people killed in accidents in that drive exceeded the annual no killed by sharks. Not that I'm advocating swimming with sharks.

Not sure I would trust the sw to do more than basic maths tbh

I don’t get what they’re trying to do with Brad

pip and Stella don’t sound right together to me. Maybe it’s just pip doesn’t sound right.

I just listened for the first time in a while, and I have absolutely no idea who any of these people are, except for Pip, who appears to have had a personality and voice transplant and suddenly decided she’s gay, completely out of the blue.

WTF is going on in Ambridge? Where’s Eddie? Or Ruth? Or Helen?

I hate it when the continuity announcer says something like "And now we're off to Ambridge, where Pip is considering her future." I have carefully avoided spoilers, and I DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING before the episode, not even a second before...

But tonight I was slightly taken aback to hear that "Rex has worms on the brain" as I was immediately put in mind of the poor Australian woman in the news recently

Eddie last spoke on 17th August, Ruth on 27th August, Helen on 25th August.

They are not all that altered: Eddie is still on the scam, Ruth still has her unhealthy interest in her 30-year-old daughter's love-life, and Helen is still living on her nerves (and everyone else's), though in her case Rob having reappeared from the States now makes that reasonable.