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!

Exactly this

Anyone else not really feeling the love for
The Archers atm?

The Pip/Stella storyline, Freddie being full of enthusiasm for a job in an abbatoir, Adil, the tea room. I don't know, it's just all feeling a bit crap and difficult to engage with lately as too much of the script writing just feels completely off.

Oh well, I've listened for circa 15 years so I'll keep going 😆

Love the new title btw 😄 shame they haven't got the TV series of Larkrise on iPlayer, would probably enjoy watching again now the evenings are getting longer.

Yes indeed, @TheUsualChaos but I still listen religiously.

I wish I could discern the point of the ‘Lark Rise to Ambridge’ venture. I mean, I vaguely enjoyed hearing Louiza Patikas and Susie Riddell on Front Row last night (though they sounded strangely flustered and under-prepared) but it would have been better if they’d been talking about something that actually mattered in some way.

But this radio adaptation? It’s hardly going to bring in a new audience, is it?

I’m loving the tearoom story (even though it would never happen in the real world) because I love loathing Natasha. She’s just brilliant. But last night’s listening was a real grind. I can’t care what happens to Will, his dreary parents and the dull twists and turns of who knows/who doesn’t know re Piella leave me cold.

Even Josh (who we keep expecting to leave to pursue his Hollywood career) hit a new low last night. Would he really risk his street cred by asking the Scary Crows to perform at the harvest supper?!?

My problem with the Archers at the moment is that everything feels very stilted. We don’t have episodes where a number of storylines are advanced, instead we seem to have periods of one particular storyline dominating almost entirely, then it switches to another. Eg Helen and Rob (which seems to just have gone away), then the tearoom, then Pip & Stella. I know the episodes are short, but it seems to have become very jolty.

Yes agree - it’s very clumpy in its focus

I thought that LP and SR were fine on Frown Rot. They didn't sound like the characters.

Is it that we don't particularly care for Pip, Stella and Josh?
I like Natasha as a character, Fallon has worked hard to make the tearoom a success, and I do feel sorry for entitled, envious Emma.

With Freddie, I do like him, but why does everyone treat him as if he had the mental age of a 12-yr old? Common sense would be for him to resit his A-levels or do an access course and go on an Estate Management course

I wonder what sort of appearance fee has been negotiated for the Stoned Crows?
I suspect it will be considerably more than Jim and Kiki. David won't be pleased.

A joint of meat and a tin of millionaire shortbread.

Perhaps a night in the B&B?

Each, or all of them at the same time? 😂

Why does nobody give livestock as payment anymore? I'd happily take 3 chickens or a goat for a night's work (assuming I'd already planned ahead and been given the various housing and equipment needed in payment for previous jobs!). I do sometimes get some odd presents through work, but nothing living. The closest I got was when teacher training in a semi-rural location and a Year 7 brought me in a brace of pheasants.

@Fink when my Mum died, our farmer friends gave me half of the pig they had just slaughtered. We named it Death Pig and thought of her every time we are sausages for the next year. Best death present ever!!

“rocked your boat” isn’t a real phrase is it? Rocked your world, floated your boat.
It's called creative writing I think - disrupting what you're used to hearing and messing with it in some way. Recommended in lots of writing guides (e.g. one of Orwell's "rules" for writing is "Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.") I like it as it's less boring that familiar phrases/cliches and that draws more attention than familiar phrases do - for example I was truly grimacing at Toby regretting not having "really rocked your boat".

Glad I'm not the only one wondering how flipping busy the dairy can be making Borchester Blue for the as yet unopened hotel. How long does it take to mature?

Thinking about the tearoom - it strikes me that Ambridge seems to have a rule that no matter how stupid and impractical an idea sounds, if it's about making something "more upmarket" then it always succeeds. They basically seem to want everywhere to be fancy, regardless of the price/likely demographic of the customers.

I agree about giving livestock, dead or alive, as payment for services rendered. I think the barter system is very much under-used, especially now when so many people are struggling financially.

Many years ago we kept some sheep, ducks and hens for our own consumption and would often trade lamb joints and chops or eggs for odd jobs like help with cutting up logs or putting up some fencing. The farmer up the road kept beef and was partial to lamb so we often swopped joints. I once visited a friend for the weekend and instead of taking the usual flowers and chocolates, I took wine and a leg of lamb for Sunday lunch. My friend was a bit shocked at the thought of us slaughtering our own lambs, even though I explained they were not pets and had a good life running around free in the field and were well looked after, until the inevitable trip to a small, local abattoir. Her husband, however, was thrilled and declared it the best lamb he had ever eaten.

I miss storylines or just general chat about farming and agricultural matters on TA.

Nobody knows who lives in the house Will was thrown out of, but it is the property of Home Farm, not Damara, Borchester Land or the Berrow Estate. It was the subject of a legal action when Brian wanted to evict Sammy Whipple from the cottage Brian owned, in order to install Greg Turner, the gamekeeper Brian employed. Since it has not been sold to anyone since then we must assume it is still Home Farm/Brian's.

Fink
How can Josh try to pin this on David?! He was asked to sort the entertainment.

He wasn't asked, he was told. And he did as he was told.

He can pin the mess on David because it is David's fault. Josh did in the end agree to sort out the entertainment, and as recently as last Wednesday he told David that he had done so, but at the time David and Ruth were too busy interfering in Pip's sex-life to listen to him. (And David chose not to believe him when he did take in what Josh was saying, and asked for no details.) Meanwhile, having told Josh to do it and at no point told Josh he didn't need to, David went off and asked Jim to sort it out for him, and then didn't bother to tell Josh that he had done so and that Jim had agreed to be responsible for that part of David's event.

It is not Josh's fault that his father is incapable of delegating one job to one person, not one job to two people who are not in communication with each other.

Paul is being a nasty bit of work, in this instance. Lily is just being her usual delightful self, but I had hoped for better of Paul.

Didn’t a new gamekeeper move into it?

We don’t know, presumably because the BBC decided the shoot was too elitist to be allowed any more air time. It’s a real shame - even more than with actual farming, I found I was able to follow the seasons in Ambridge in relation to what the gamekeeper (latterly Will) was doing or planning to do with the birds. And what sort of entertaining or socialising Jenny was arranging, framed by the shoot. And which yokels Grundys would be trusted to provide comedy inserts and annoy the gentry. It’s a huge thing to have cut out of the story of village life.

TottersBlanklyIntoBimboCore
Didn’t a new gamekeeper move into it?

We were told that Martyn Gibson, as chairman of Borchester land, was planning to evict William from the cottage belonging to somebody else because he (Martyn Gibson) wanted it for a new gamekeeper, but not told what possible right he had to do so, nor who the new gamekeeper was going to be.

Agreed.

when my Mum died, our farmer friends gave me half of the pig they had just slaughtered.

I am enormously relieved that nobody gave us anything of this sort when Dad died! Lots and lots of flowers and cards, but no pigs or other dead animals. One person brought a plant, and my Mum was very appreciative, as all her vases were in use by then.

Back to TA: there must be more to come from Rob. They couldn't just have re-introduced that horrible storyline only to let it peter out with no further drama, surely?

Well, it was certainly different @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g and very tasty 🤣 I got to the stage where I was grateful for anything but flowers which I know sounds enormously ungrateful. I so appreciated the thought but I didn't know what to do with them all!

Agreed. Like the fact the hunt is never mentioned any more - I know they had a hunt ball, but what happened to the dogs and the kennels?

But Queen Camilla said she wanted an end to it. So it’s by royal edict really.

The Rob story that is