Archers thread #155: Cold Comfort Farms! The rural sagas continue. Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

FILL THE OLD THREAD UP FIRST! https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/4902507-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?page=10

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 like to hear more scenes in the 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 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.)

Lots of lively discussion about Brad's university aspirations and the Open Day on the last thread. Do you want him to end up at Felpersham or do you want him to spread his wings and go further afield? Where will Mia go?

Will this thread see the end of Rob, or do we have many weeks more before his long overdue demise?

What's going on at Grey Gables? Are they running into financial trouble? Will we hear from Roy, who I had forgotten was working there until he was mentioned the other day? Who are the mysterious 'Owners'? Will the locum GP turn out to be Adil's sister, as we have been surmising since she first spoke? Why's she been conjured up?

Talking of the GP, I'm hoping against hope we're not in for bad news about Jim's mole.

Praying that we're going to get a long and much-needed break from hearing P*p. Not praying that we hear Rob being christened. Who would be his sponsor, as someone commented on the last thread? Harrison? Surely that would be a conflict of interest. Can't see who else would do it locally.

I wonder how Ben is getting on now he's back on his nursing degree? Will we ever hear anything about Lily's course, or how Freddie's getting on at the abattoir?

So many questions! Over to you for some answers and boundless speculation.

The combination of Usha (not heard of for years and now back as Pat’s best friend having been usurped by Stella over at Brookfield), Pat (previously pretty quiet for a long time) and Alan - feels particularly ominous. Helen and Lee seem to have left the building. Then there’s Pat’s randomly mentioned shotgun which we all know is lurking primed and ready just off set somewhere. It can’t have been mentioned for nothing - Pat has never been heard of shooting crows (or whatever it was) before or since. Usha was brilliant tonight though.

Usha's delivery is very odd to my ear, even worse than Pip's. But excellent, no nonsense lines from her this last couple of days

I felt a little tweak to the script would’ve helped last night:

Alan: You’ve defended some pretty unsavoury characters
Usha: It’s not the same
Alan: Why not?
Usha: Because they all went to prison for a very long time

I would hate if my DH said to me "end of discussion "(Alan). I would say Ive not fi ished talking and who do you think you are talking to.😤Alan is an arse, Vicar or no Vicar, he is not always right even though he thinks he has God on his side.

Yes!!

Ignoring Alan and Usha for a moment, I'm bemused by Emma's GCSE class where apparently they're reading all the set texts for the entire course in the first half term! Then will they start analysing them all at once between November and Christmas? And then what, spend the rest of the time before the exam unpicking the confusion?! Have the SWs never been near a school, had children, or spoken to any teachers?!

Emma sounds so stupid nowadays I am amazed she can actually read or write!

She used to appear quite streetwise and on the ball with good emotional intelligence- eg when Mere started her periods - but last night she just sounded like an 11-year-old…

They’re making Emma into the punchline.

the course does seem wrong - sure she would know what her set texts are but they wouldn’t have started the second text so soon surely. Just makes the sl ridiculous and shoehorned in because the sw are trying to follow some literature agenda

expect a special event at the hay book festival…

The fact that the refugee meeting Pat wants to go to at the church is on a Friday won't be coincidental, given that that's traditionally the day for big dramas on TA. Perhaps Rob is planning on finding a newly-discovered interest in refugees, or claiming he is one. Cue shotgun?

I was assuming that given it's an adult class the tutor has told them which three texts they are going to study and Emma, feeling super keen and motivated, has gone out and got them all. Either that or theyr'e studying two texts in parallel. What was the other one? Have we been told?

We read Of Mice and Men when I was at school, but not as an O level text, probably a year or two before that. I haven't read it since as I didn't enjoy it much, but that's probably the set text effect. Our set texts for English Literature O level (Joint Matriculation Board 1977) were Romeo and Juliet, selected poems from a Browning anthology and Lord of the Flies.

Will there be a dramatic event at the bonfire involving Rob perhaps?

Emma said they had started mice and men.

the grey gables event with vip guests from the village is really bizarre. The whole thing comes across as not very professional! If head office is big enough to have a PR department they are not leaving the opening events to the local busybody. My dh briefly worked at a hotel head office and you didn’t just have one dude working on the refurb and management like that. I can’t see how this can be a company behind it and adil was delaying on giving the PR dept details because there isn’t one and head office is his mum and dads living room

Are we thinking Wicker Man?

Yes please!

It is nearly half term so seems likely the keen students are reading ahead to the second text. But then I would go mad if I spent more than a month covering a single text (and did an unbelievable amount of reading under the desk at school.)

I suggested the Bull emoji, I’m pretty sure! What a terrifying alert to how long I’ve been on these threads

I've found an AI generator online that produces very pretty stained-glass windows when you prompt it, but unfortunately the result is a bit too abstract if you put in the terms above. I tried custard but that didn’t work at all - they just ignored it totally 😂

It's really irritating me how they are making Emma into some bone-headed yokel, grateful for the patronage of the great and good. She's never been the brightest but she currently sounds utterly moronic!

"Jesus didn't live in Abridge!" 🤣 Not a line I imagined hearing on radio 4! I'm totally unreligious and not churchgoing at all but I do have some sympathy with Alan in that I imagine priests will need to sometimes work with and support people who are not good people at all? Don't church communities accept anyone who wants to come along and hear the teachings of the lord kind of thing? Like I say, I've never been religious so perhaps I'm out of touch.
Of course Rob is awful and of course he is playing Alan like a fiddle, and Usha is right to be cross, but I don't think priests can pick and choose who they support based on character traits / past behaviour?

But they can do what Alan has done - pass them on to someone else where there is a conflict of interest

in fact usha could have said that - I’ve never defended someone where the victim was a neighbour and friend

as a non-religious person I don’t think he is being a great advert for the church. Sounds very navel gazy and very much about himself

So difficult to be off hand when you’re lying, isn’t it? There’s a huge temptation to over-explain

Cheltenham is on a par with Felpersham.

Sadly Penny Hassett’s church is St David’s not St Agnes

when we reached the 50th thread back in 2016, I asked MNHQ if we could have our own "smiley" / emoticon in honour Goodness, I remember that! Have I really been reading these threads for 7 years?

I imagine priests will need to sometimes work with and support people who are not good people at all? Don't church communities accept anyone who wants to come along and hear the teachings of the lord kind of thing? This is true, but surely not where the victim and her extended family belong to the same church? I think @Fink explained very well what might actually happen and indeed Alan has taken advice and is getting Ron referred elsewhere. It's the dragging it out that feels contrived because obviously if Alan had immediately packed him off to die in another parish there would be no opportunity for melodrama in Ambridge.

Funny you should say that, @Bruisername
I'll explain in a complex post I've got brewing in my mind at the moment.
<mysterious look>

I expect some of Usha's clients did not go to prison at all. Even though they were guilty. That's RL.

Even vicars are human beings, and Alan is under huge pressure. I find it entirely realistic that he would say "End of discussion" to his wife at the end of the conversation, and I expect Usha was as unamused as @Alwaysdieting would be.

Why are people assuming studying Eng Lit involves discussing one literary work at a time? And Emma has only recently discovered the joys of reading a good book. Reading is not a chore to her! Lynda is treating Emma like an adult, unlike some posts on here which seem to me to have a patronising undertone.