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!

Why are they trying to make Emma seem so gullible? And the way she was going on at alan. Although all this signposting is pointing to a Halloween ‘special’ on the night.

why is Alan hiding things from usha?

my theory - there are no secret owners. Ardil bought it with the life insurance payout when his wife died. And he’s running out of funds.

going down the theological - if hell is the absence of god then would a non-believer care?

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime Not futile at all! The Archers involved were futile, IYSWIM.
But I for one enjoyed every word of your post

I think the Emma-ghost thing is so Alan gets to thinking very hard about the afterlife and redemption. Emma might also have noticed that Alan is not his usual self - as did Usha.

Was Adil talking to his wife on the phone, or a relative? sounded like it ended with endearments in a foreign tongue to me...

why is Alan hiding things from usha?
pastoral confidentiality

I think the Emma-ghost thing is so Alan gets to thinking very hard about the afterlife and redemption

I thought this.

According to the BBC, Tracy was born on 23rd July 1975. This means she will have left school at the end of Summer Term 1991, a few days before her 16th birthday. She probably spent her last few school years bunking off half the time anyway

one DC was identified as G&T. What’s G&T?

Adils wife is dead. I assume it is the GP sister

Yep, same way Usha can’t talk to Alan about her clients.

@MereDintofPandiculation , Gin & Tonic. hic.
Gifted & Talented

I didn’t realise pastoral confidentiality was a thing! I met a vicars wife on my nct course and she was a terrible gossip so her husband obviously wasn’t very good at confidentiality!! I knew more about a bunch of her parishioners I never met than I did about my own family!!!

"Do you think they really did have witches back then?"!!

I mean, I know she's not meant to be a genius but come on.

I knew more about a bunch of her parishioners I never met than I did about my own family!!! I think there's a difference between talking about someone to someone who doesn't know them and will never meet them, and talking about someone within the same community. A lot of other people agree with me, else half of MN would be distinctly lacking in posts But your vicar's wife sounds a menace!

Within couples, people vary. Some confide in each other, others don't. DH and I were managers in the same organisation, and never discussed with each other the private problems our respective staff brought to us.

I guess she was a menace as she definitely told us stuff her husband had told her

Two slightly shoehorned-in mentions of Alan on the sauce in the last few episodes…. Cider before the harvest supper (?) and tonight starting on his beer without even noticing the glass. Hope it’s not a sign of a storyline to come….

that would be a realistic sl although maybe too close to alice

It could just be to illustrate how stressed he is as a result of the Rob situation. I hope so anyway!

I was waiting for it to be pointed out to her that when Macbeth is set is not the same 'back then' as when Shakespeare was alive, it is considerably backer then, in days of yore. You'd think that would have been covered during the first lesson.

I pity the tutor given the task of marking Emma’s essays…

I was a bit cross with Oliver and Lynda for bullying Ardil for working 16 hour days. It’s the way things work if you are approaching a big opening/launch of something. Having two pensioners - who are clinging onto the working world with their fingertips - suggest I take a week of/spend time on my allotment before the grand opening of my new hotel would infuriate me! Of course the poor guy is not sleeping and working all the hours he can!

I also agree with the PP who said he would be insane to let Lynda handle the opening of a high-profile/fancy hotel expected to draw guests from far and wide - especially as it’s only just struck her the press people might want to be involved. She’s acting as if she is producing a village panto…sigh…evidence once again that they should write her out alongside Robert. Perhaps they could go and spend more time with Mungo…

This point was never made to me at school, and it affected my appreciation of the play not one jot. At age 14, and even Emma's age if she wasn't interested in history, it was all A Very Long Time Ago. We did know it was sort of based on real people, but that Shakespear was a dramatist, not primarily a documenter of history.

We had to read the play in parts in our English lessons. My friend was Lady MacBeth, and we discovered that there is an incredibly difficult line she has to say.

When they are feigning horror at the murder that took place at their gaff in the middle of the night, she has to say "What, in our house?" We were unable to say this in any manner that sounded authentic.

While I'm on:
Is this a dagger I see before me, the handle towards my hand? Come let me clutch thee. I have/hold(?) thee not, and yet I see thee still.
that's all I've got left in my head of that, promise I did not cheat! Good old rote learning homework

I was wondering whether Eng Lit courses for adults returning to learning really start with Macbeth? I mean, it's a good story and all, but I'm surprised that they don't start with something slightly more accessible than Shakespeare.

Mind you, it makes a lovely change hearing about any literary alternative to sodding Lark Rise.

I am surprised that Grey Gables is taking soooooo long to update - unless it's a 1 man band firm doing it all

But it's got everything! 3 witches (and I'm sure there are people who still think witches might exist today), brilliant witches' chants, prophesies that turn out to mean the opposite, a scheming woman behind a weak man, lots of bloodshed, a very important ghost (or is it in MacBeth's guilty mind?), the scheming woman goes mad with guilt, the weak man's hubris, the conundrum of how a wood can move, and lots of dead bodies at the end.

Cross-post
I wasn't referring to Grey Gables.

my theory - there are no secret owners. Ardil bought it with the life insurance payout when his wife died. And he’s running out of funds.

I have always suspected that Adil is not merely an employee of the mysterious new owners. But dead wife’s life insurance? How much might he have received?

Speaking of Macbeth, as a former teacher, this is my favourite John Finnemore sketch: dai.ly/x2rpfcq