Archers thread #154: Cider with Fat Rosie, Meadow Rise to Candleford or The Darling Horrobins of September? Get your rural saga fix – 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 be euphoric about getting a job in an abattoir, 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 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4888492-the-archers-spoilers-thread-8-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 the thread title suggestions. @HumanWetWipe came up with Cider with Fat Rosie and @BeardieWeirdie thought up Meadow Rise to Candleford. I wish I could have put in the Line of Duty mashups from the end of the last thread. Another time.

Heading for a ferry shortly, so nothing more from me for now. Over to you!

For some reason this post has made me ridiculously happy.

Welcome @Trivium4all.

Except you seem to have lost an “s”.

Glad to see the real @harriethoyles back

So am I. I'm sorry if I misjudged things. My fun-ometer is clearly off at the moment. Struggling a bit today for some reason.

T'other Harriethoyles has been rather unfairly branded a pbp @MereDintofPandiculation when she was my innocent second account ! 🤣🙈 it's all VERY confusing 😬 That's what comes of being mischievous 🤭

It was worth every second in clinky! 🤣

das leben ist ein Ponykonzert! ( neid )

so is Friday's ep worth listening to?

A spectacular delurking! Welcome aboard.

I want to complain to the BBC for cheating me out of hearing Susan Carter say 'Billie Jean is not my lover' 😐

Not to mention the 'oh, pity we don't know anyone who can play the piano' when they would both know full well that Jakob can: Josh lived, until quite recently, with Jill, a regular churchgoer, and Jim lives with Alistair, his business partner.

Oh, and why is Lilian giving riding lessons in her mid-70s?! She was supposed to be keeping an eye on Alice, not doing the day to day work. They have a (unspecified) number of staff at the Stables, they surely don't need Lilian to pitch in. It's not as though she and Susan are particularly close that she would do it for a friend.

I started riding again at beginner level in 1999. Susan's lesson from Lilian seemed all wrong to me. (Don't get me wrong, I was happy with the idea, and pleased with the Emma and Susan interaction.)

1. beginners start out on reliable plods, experienced, often slightly lazy, ponies, who are calm and will do their best not to let their rider fall off, so that the rider can learn how to keep balanced in the saddle
2. it's perfectly allowable to hold onto the mane till you get your balance
3. trot on the first lesson? I think not
4. Lilian sounded like she had never taught anyone in her life before, and put no effort into getting Susan in a good state before mounting for the first time

The thing they did get right was the falling in love with the horse you learn to ride on, although it doesn't usually happen on the first lesson. For me, Babo when I was 13, and Douglas when I was 46.

[I was going to put a horse emoji but MN doesn't seem to offer one.]

Haven't posted much recently because I am just enjoying TA, which seems to me to have improved hugely in leaps and bounds

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , hope you and Gaspmother are ok. Thinking of you.

Well I too am disappointed that the billie Jean joke was so lamely done. Poor writing! It did seem a little advanced but it was a nice scene after what we’ve been put through lately. Nice to hear from lillian.

Also disappointed that they didn’t find Kiki murdered on her living room floor. Maybe after Jim said ‘she’ll thaw, eventually’ is leading to her body being found in her deep freeze in a few weeks. (I may have been reading a bit too much crime fiction lately…)

Episode spoilt by the candle lit lark rise read along - painfully planted. Sounds like it’s going to be the shittest harvest supper in history. And that was effectively the longest and worst trailer for a Sunday afternoon drama I’ve had the misfortune to suffer

The lesson was rather chaotic... Lillian sounded rather amateur as an instructor to be honest (I'm not sure whether she's qualified (?) but she certainly didn't sound it)!

I thought it sounded reasonably realistic in terms of end goal, though... I trotted during my first lesson as an adult beginner (on a very safe old horse named Fred, part shire (and far too big for me!) but very handsome and safe! Mind you, Lillian did mention a canter, which I thought rather ambitious for a nervous riders first lesson!

Wow, I can't believe I've read this. I thought everyone wanted a proper everyday story of country folk, not Corrie.

Thought the Billy Jean joke was nicely throw-away. I'm sure David and Ruth will make sure that the candle-lit reading meets H&S standards, I seem to remember them taking H&S seriously when they first started renting out the barn for events.

I was being tongue in cheek about the murder! Would prefer that to a pip pregnancy mind you!!

This episode tipped DH into full scale rant. Two main themes, that the main characters always get away lightly, that Josh should have found himself apologising to the audience for total lack of entertainment, not being bailed out by Jim; and if it’s music they’re after, what about Jolene?

Well, I kind of thought that
But to me someone at the Beeb has got their thinking cap on, and is very effectively weaving a number of plot threads together in a plausible and entertaining way.

I'm puzzled as to why the older residents of Ambridge don't remember Larkrise to Candleford being on the telly (2008-2011). I'm 100% sure none of them listen to R4 at 2pm and 7pm, though

ooh, Pip glowing in the pub - I assumed this was down to lots of lesbian sex she wasn’t ready to admit to….

and brefugee, thank you - I love the pony concert and will enjoy using this with my children. They couldn’t be less interested in ponies (My fault for getting two pocket sized lawn mowers in the hope….) so this will be even more perfect for going totally over their bemused heads. For those to whom this may raise concern, they don’t seem to listen to a word I say anyway.

I think someone did mention the TV series a while back. I can't remember who, but one of the women said they had watched it but never read the book. It was jarring/ noticeable as there are so few references to tv/ music/ films etc on TA.

It was a different conversation from when Lynda and Emma (?)were discussing a book that Lynda eventually admitted to only having seen the film of, so I'm not confusing it with that.

SequentialAnalyst
I'm sure David and Ruth will make sure that the candle-lit reading meets H&S standards, I seem to remember them taking H&S seriously when they first started renting out the barn for events.

That was when it actually was a barn, though, and had not yet been re-purposed and rebuilt for use as a wedding venue – something which if it really were twelfth century, ie a lot older than the farm itself, they might have found it difficult to get planning permission to do, but since that 12th century barn was burnt down first by Polly Mead's father Frank in the early seventies, and most recently by Keith Horrobin in 2012 (after which it had to be completely reconstructed on the insurance), I don't suppose anyone in the planning department cared a single hoot let alone two.

I actually do want an everyday story of country folk, not a soap. Nice gentle bit of escapism à la Sunday evening tv drama. But I find it way beyond my willing suspension of disbelief to imagine that a teenage trainee hairdresser with poor literacy skills would organise a mass read along of an old, not particularly classic, novel, on behalf of a retired university lecturer neighbour, and that a large swathe of the village has suddenly gone mad for said book. That's why I don't like it, it breaks any pretence of this being somehow listening in on ordinary people's lives.

First lessons would almost certainly be no more than half an hour. And to even mention trotting - let alone a canter - was extraordinary and assumes listeners have zero riding knowledge.

I always enjoy listening to Susan but this ‘six things to do at 60’ is going to wear thin very quickly.

The whole village spellbound while LtC is read aloud?!? Twice?!? As my recently-deceased father would say ‘I should cocoa’…

Not just cantering, galloping too. I'm sure Susan told Jim later that she'd galloped.

Thank goodness it’s not 60 at 60!

the suspension of disbelief is the problem at the moment and Fink, you are absolutely right about the lark rise. Totally ridiculous and a pathetic way to lead up to the Sunday afternoon drama. The listening figures will be interesting

whenever I’ve switched off in the past it’s because the stories have been too soap like.

I might be misremembering, but wasn't there some kind of reading or storytelling event at Lower Loxley, and Jim was a hit? If so then I can sort of see why Chelsea might organise a readalong to cheer Jim up. Absolutely no idea why they have picked this book though!

Hope you're OK @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g, I was very up and down when my mum died.

I think it was reading ghost stories at LL for Halloween.

That's why I don't like it, it breaks any pretence of this being somehow listening in on ordinary people's lives. This is absolutely it in a nutshell @fink. It’s just so contrived. I found it completely excruciating this evening.