Archers thread #156: Fireworks in Ambridge! Helen gave Lee a rocket, but Grey Gables is a damp squib. Is the writing on the (church) wall?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're irresistibly attracted to George Grundy, 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.)

Thanks to @OverArmour for the title suggestion, which I have tweaked a bit. I was strongly tempted by Less GGP (Grey Gables Peril) More GPP (Guinea Pig Plot), which was a plaintive cry from @PuppyPerson some days ago, but if Poppy has found new homes for the baby guinea pigs that may be the last we hear of them for some time, sadly.

Surely in the life of the next thread we must hear more from or of Rob, or Ron as some on this thread prefer to call him? <taps foot> Will Kirsty snap and tell Helen a few home truths? Will Pat's shotgun finally be brought into play? We can only hope ...

Also, will we ever find out who owns the other 60% of Grey Gables? Why is Adil AWOL (to use the other bit of OverArmour's title idea!)? Why aren't we hearing from Roy? Will GG ever re-open and will Emma get her Big Chance at last?

So many questions! Over to you.

Weren’t they described as quiet fireworks as well? So probably just standard!

Yes, if they kill everyone they’ll be responsible having got them from Eddie. But they’ll be more likely to be silent as they just don’t work.

Also here for the Ruth and Stella relationship. Ruth keeps going on about Pip not being hurt but then she’ll be the one to hurt her.

Pavel was one of the strawberry pickers, I think he and Adam ended up in a hotel together.

But wasn’t there someone else, a farm manager? Rob caught him and Adam snogging at the Hunt Ball, IIRC.

Charlie?

The gorgeous Charlie? I’m very much not one to condone affairs, but actually I thought he was a better match for Adam. They had chemistry if I remember correctly.

Oh Peggy is nasty and not very Christian at all. Stuff your money love!. Do people give big donations to thier local church these days?
I cant see anybody putting up with Pips fluctuating moods. Stella must have the patience of Job ( another church reference).
I hope Stella gives her the elbow and I hope Hannah moves in. Its what Pip deserves.

I don't think there is any chance of Stella and Ruth copping off but I think the conversations between them highlight how immature Pip is. Ruth and Stella sound like peers and equals. It's all very cringe.

I do actually know how you can get spaghetti that is stuck together in a lump.

You put it into the pan straight out of the packet so it is all pointing in the same direction, and then you use too little water so that it is only just covered, and you put the lid on. The spaghetti sticks together in a solid mass.

It requires a certain amount of dedication to being a bad cook to achieve this, though. I've only ever known one person so determined to be crap at cooking that she spoiled spaghetti in this particular way time after time.

Helen came out of the New Year's Eve party and saw Charlie (Justin's manager before Rob was) kissing Adam. A few days or possibly weeks later she told Rob about it to distract him from being nasty to her about something.

Can anyone picture the whole ‘Rob on a traffic island stops traffic’ bit? Surely a traffic island is in the middle of the carriageway so the traffic just speeds on by…

I’ve written traffic so many times it longer looks like a word. Cars and stuff 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes, they do. I am not a churchgoer, but having spent time recently looking at my parents' finances I've learned that the old system I grew up with of people putting cash in a collection plate at the Sunday service has been replaced with regular worshippers giving the church money by standing order. This makes it a lot easier to claim Gift Aid, I suppose, and it's a more certain income stream, without the risks of cash handling. I imagine there's capacity for visitors to put money in a box if they want.

Someone I was talking to recently in London deals with Gift Aid on donations for his C of E church and he said it's a very significant source of revenue for that parish. I forget whether it was the Gift Aid or the donations that amounted to thousands of pounds a month. That's London, though. My parents' church won't be pulling in anything like that, and I'd be very surprised if a small Midlands village could match that either.

As for how much Peggy has been donating, she may have felt that St Stephen's is so important to the village and to her personally that she, as one of the wealthiest parishioners, should make a substantial contribution. It must cost a small fortune to heat and maintain a mediaevel stone church. Alternatively, she may feel she's been extremely generous by donating £5 a month and paying for the flowers once a year, and the church will be lost without it. I doubt we'll ever hear which it was.

*mediaeval

I can't picture Rob on the traffic island, and still less can i picture lots of cars all at a standstill because of it (they'd drive on past) and hooting. I've been in plenty of traffic jams in this country but never one that involved all that hooting. Had Nick Warburton just got back from Italy or America or somewhere where they do stand on their horns as a matter of course, when he wrote this scene?

I assumed that Miles must have parked by the traffic island when Rob hopped out. You'd think one of the other cops would have moved it out of the way. Or maybe they were stopping the traffic in case Rob walked out into the road.

As I've said above, I agree about the hooting. I think it 's just a fairly lazy way of depicting a traffic jam on the radio. But then, it's not as if the jam was actually central to the scene - they could as easily have had Rob teetering over the brink of a tall building or something while waiting for Jesus to turn up.

medieval

I assumed it was one of those little roundabouts with a painted circle and he was sitting precariously so miles was blocking it too or not

Brian wants to do what Jenny would want him to do.

If Jenny was alive, she would do what Peggy asked, though she might not agree with Peggy's decision. DDs do things for their ancient mothers, eg take them to the hairdresser etc (see TA in recent years) and pass on awkward messages. Also, Peggy is still a formidable woman.

Peggy wants someone else to pass on her awkward message.
I suspect Peggy also thinks that if it makes Brian uncomfortable, then so much the better.
So Peggy asks Brian to pass on her awkward. message.

Brian wants to get it over and done with.
Brian accidentally finds himself in a church meeting about ecology.

Game, set and match to the SW's.

Ah... yes... and then Rob told Ian, which had the desired effect of Ian being upset with Helen and thus isolating Helen further from her friends. He was a master of manipulation.

its not at all unknown for abusive men to stand on railway bridges/rooves and then phone their poor wives, demanding that they come and talk to them, otherwise they will jump- sometimes the police even collude in this
Rob didn't think of it this time but he may yet have a moment of twisted clarity

I have been unfair to Peggy by omission.
No parent wants to outlive their own DD.
The late Queen Mother didn't want to, for example.
Trust me, the QM didn't say "at least she lived to a ripe old age" about Princess Margaret.
I expect Peggy feels bitter. And I agree, she is certainly not acting as a good Christian would.
I am sure Alan has some understanding of Peggy, and I bet he hardly took a moment to forgive her, for she knows not what she does.

Rob sounded genuinely psychotic to me. It creeps up on you, whatever the organic or social cause. First, for whatever reason, you think, "I'll get baptised"- it's something to do, and you can't get Helen & Co, and Ambridge out of you head, so why not? Then before you know it, you have lost the plot and are sitting on a traffic island absolutely certain that Jesus Christ is about to come past and heal you, and you are determined nothing will make you miss him when he arrives, because you know for sure that this is your one chance of being healed of a brain tumour.

Reading between the lines, Harrison was wondering whether to detain him under the MH Act, Section 136, removal to a place of safety for professional psychiatric assessment, which empowers police to detain very mentally ill people for their own safety, and/or that of the public.

Yes he’s definitely losing touch with reality and perhaps the baptism was more genuine than malicious as part of that

On church finances: I attend an early 20th century Anglican church in London, it’s not of particular historical interest but it is a fairly large building and pretty well attended. The parish council worked out that it costs on average £25 per congregant per week to run! When I attended a different church as a teenager, that cost was £5 a week.

The heating and electricity bills are a big part of that, but also just the cost of running an old, drafty building that works for the community (for example, they ran a ‘warm spaces’ for people struggling to heat their homes). Not to mention the boiler, the roof, the maintenance of a plot of land in London…

I know a fair number of Anglican priests socially. One of their biggest stresses is how to keep the show on the road financially. A lot of pressure is put on the priest of the church - or churches - to raise money for their church, to fix the organ or mend the roof or pay a youth pastor or just pay their own expenses… I know more than one who has had a breakdown. Ditto church wardens who have stepped back or felt their faith challenged or weakened because of nasty, petty, needlessly unpleasant and arrogant behaviour from congregants.

Perhaps that’s why Peggy’s gesture seems to petty and nasty. It’s bloody hard to be a priest, of any denomination, and it takes a real vocation to put up with the way that some snidey, nasty congregants treat you, as well as the way the church treats you.

Rant over. A subject close to my heart.

Does Rev ring true for you, @AngryBirdsNoMore (and @Fink)? I watched it last year for the first time and loved it. Since then, I've started helping out at a food bank based in a church and have been very struck by some similarities ...

The vicars I knew at the time it was broadcast said Rev was more like a fly on the wall documentary than fiction.

Agree with @funnelfan - yes, very. An Anglican priest in my family said he enjoyed it but it made him wince and at times he couldn’t watch it, it was so true to the pressures put on the clergy.

It gets some of the personalities you get in a typical parish spot on!