Archers thread #157: How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless clan! Discuss The Grundys here. Bicker about The Archers as well if you like.

[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, 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 idea of making it clear in the title many of us are inveterate bickerers!

Now over to you, as we are about to eat and I won't hear tonight's offering till later ....

I assume the name was so that we could hilariously imagine she was a 30 year old gold digger

On the cheese salad chat a lot of French bakeries sell pre prepared salads as lunch deals. I had a very nice one with soft blue cheese, lettuce, olives and beautifully ripe sliced tomatoes this summer in Perpignan.

We recently lucked out at a work awayday where the catering was significantly better than the usual sad sandwich platters. One of the dishes was a delicious salad of beetroot, puy lentils, aged feta and spring onions.

It must be difficult when you don’t exist on Saturdays.

I wish Natalya had been a 30-year-old gold-digger. It would have made for a MUCH better party. Instead, it was a nice enough event but very dull.

it was a nice enough event

Apart from the victim not having wanted it. His children /‘children’ really are the pits. Adam’s anxiety over Brian being entangled with a gold digger would have been particularly touching had his anxiety not been for his own future bank balance.

And what was ruddy Paul doing there? I refuse to believe he and Brian are chums, if they have even met. And to anyone saying ‘but he’s a fwend of Dorothy Ruairi’s…’, Ruairi had a party of his own for the ubiquitous nuisance to infest.

In the plus side, we heard Stella without being subjected to Pip

At my boarding school, cheesy mashed potato was a regular main course supper dish.

If we were lucky there was fresh fruit afterwards.

TheUsualChaos
I had quite hoped Chris and Alice would eventually find their way back to each other. It seemed such a shame and Chris was so good to her. It would have been nice to have them back as a family again now Alice has got herself on track. But seems the SW have got this new eventing guy lined up for her.

Me too. It did not seem as if the love had disappeared.
Plus I read an interview with the actors not that long before the split in which they described the relationship as "rock solid"

Agreed on Chris and Alice!

Re the name Natalya being more appropriate to a 30 something gold digger. I think Natalya is the child of Russian exiles and is heiress to a lost fortune. Or maybe she was a World War 2 spy from Eastern Europe.

Anyway, maybe her roots are not English.

True re Saturdays @WitcheryDivine but Friday evenings and Sundays exist!

Chilcott is not a keeper. Alice will date him and then realise Chris is still The One.

I think this, too.

Luckily, this won't be at all awkward, because despite being two (three, including the blacksmith) horsey people in the same area, they have no contacts in common. So they can have a clean break and never see each other again.

I suppose if he's an uncle, he might not live so close, and agreed to pay for livery which suited his niece geographically rather than himself. But a good farrier would be known over a large area.

It was discussed upthread that he might not live close by. But the fact that he was able to drop in three (?) days in a row, and talk about turning up another time for a tour of the yard means he can't be too far away. And his advice was asked about other local horse spas.

Maybe Natalya was named to sound exotic, and her dancing is part of her Eastern European charm. But 80 year olds could still be gold diggers, I have two friends in their seventies actively looking for rich men to support them.

And wasn't that refreshing!

I was bemused by the exchange that Natalya couldn't be Brian's girlfriend because she was the same age as him. Surely that's something you would look for in a partner, a significant age gap is generally considered to be a disadvantage. Was the implication that Brian is still considered a bit of a lech so would only go for a younger woman? But JD was only very slightly younger than him, so why would they assume that?

I was surprised to find that the BBC spell the name "Natalia" just like the girl I was at school with. All the comments I've seen being made about her have spelt it with a y.

Natalia to me had a long middle a and natalya a short

I assume Adam etc had both seen it written down and heard Brian say it.

It was lovely to hear Brian, and as many others have observed, (a) Stella without Pip is so much better and (b) what on earth was Paul doing there?

BOOP for the various well-meaning but clumsy attempts to say something appropriate to Helen, who clearly just wanted to suppress all thoughts of her newly deceased ex-abuser/husband/stabbee. I imagine she got absolutely hammered.

Is getting hammered compatible with her resolve always to be in control, though?

Stella is GREAT without Pip!