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!

@Fink, the cross-posts are a bit confusing.
I meant Lancaster has no Hogwarts connection. Durham Cathedral is very recognisable in the first film by those who know Durham

@WombatCowgirl Aidan's Maiden here.

Mildertian here😊

UIUI, Alan couldn't baptise Rob because he didn't believe him?
And when Alan asked about whether he'd been christened (I think), and to quote the Bible, Rob seemed a bit thrown to me. And somehow sounded manipulative...

Ooo @Voltefarce DD is a recent Mildertian. Fabulous adjective!

Raising a glass from the Bailey to other Durham lasses and lads 🍷

@WombatCowgirl is the song "If I could plant one tiny seed of love" still a thing?
In my 3rd year I lived in Castle Keep, at least in my 3rd term. True story

Oh, OK. I've never been to Lancaster. Does any of it look at all Hogwarts-y?

I'm currently a Johnian, though not my undergraduate university and I'm a non-resident student so less strong ties. Anyway, I'll take a Durham drink if they're going round!

Also on the subject of Rob.
Didn't he lose it slightly, and went "I thought you said you wanted to save me! Get on with it then, just tell me what to do!" (I paraphrase, obvs)

Rob doesn’t live in the parish. I’m glad Alan had him pegged.

I am afraid Lancaster is an out of town campus university and not at all Hogwarty. I did a year of educational studies there which included the 'new' universities, and the architecture of Lancaster was described as intended to recall a mediterranean hill top village, which it most certainly did not, and even less so now.
The city does have a very nice castle though.

This turn of the conversation was surprising but pleasing. Rob is a known liar so Alan would have grounds not to believe him. And Rob's blocking Alan's way is straight out of his playbook.

A pattern I recognise from my own encounters with tossers, male ones anyway.

deffo, and his bible quote was very much 'shit, what DOES it say in the bible, I must be able to think of something'
hopefully Alan will find a way to confirm he was lying (about Helen supporting him, despite her family's opposition), and then his instincts will be confirmed

I'm wondering if Rob has already been christened. He's of an age where it would have been par for the course.

Also, surely Alan has a let-out clause where he doubts the bona fides of the would-be joiner and this would constitute a grave offence against the sacrament/God. I'm thinking of how an RC priest can withhold absolution of sins in the confessional if there is doubt about the penitent's avoiding future occasions of the sin/lack of a firm purpose of amendment.

Does Rob need a sponsor? If so, then it would have to be someone baptised in the Anglican Church?

Also quite suss (although possibly a sign of his illness) that a man who - IIRC - was a boarder in an English public school in the 1980s could only think of one of the most famous lines of the Bible when pressed. Surely he went to the kind of place that had mandatory chapel and some of it must have stuck?!

It would have been a much better come back if he'd been able to say to Alan that he really related with the figure of Sisera or Holofernes (two men who were killed by women wielding a sharp object). 😅

Or "suffer the little children to come unto me"

I genuinely thought Rob was about to start singing Gangsta’s Paradise

Didn't Rob say he'd been raised in the Christian faith? If so, on the face of it it seems unlikely that he wouldn't have been christened and indeed confirmed.

Was that the bible quote from Pulp Fiction? 🤔

I’ll eat my hat if Pillars of the Community Ursula and thingy didn’t have both sons christened! He dodged that question didn’t he?

He also intimated that he and Helen were on cordial terms.

But Helen, knowing what he's like, had attended hospital with him. So if Alan somehow subtly (yeah, i know,) manages to ask if she's been in contact with him, she couldn't say, "absolutely not, no word outside of court since back then." Rob knows this, it's how he works - he's used a tiny bit of truth, twisted it slightly to set the direction he wants, but mostly let the other person fill in the gaps, leaving Rob able to say, "I never actually said that."

I'd have thought he'd have been christened as a baby. (But then I'd have thought that fairly likely for Harrison, too. Just more so for Rob.)

Yes of course he'll have been christened and v probably into the Church of England.

Were he to go to some free church pastors this wouldn't have been an obstacle, the argument being that it wasn't done of your own choice.

Alan should however have directed him to someone who could have helped him in his spiritual quest, a vicar somewhere else in the diocese maybe, a little way away, whom he knew would be able to handle men such as Rob.

V good OT references, Fink!

Surely word would have reached Alan and Usha of what George had done to help Rob see Henry at the country show and how distressed Helen had been?

I agree I would have thought the 'Rob is back living locally' gossip mill would have been going a hundred miles an hour, after the Henry / George meeting, but also because Penny Hassett isn't that far away. My experience of rural living is it can be very hard to avoid gossip or not be 'spotted' buying a pint of milk by someone who knows who you are?
At this point would Alan not have a quick word with Harrison, I appreciate Alan may need to respect some professional confidentiality, but a quick 'Harrison can I check you are aware Rob is living very locally?' to guage his response would be appropriate, considering the seriousness of the situation? Harrison is at church every week presumably?