Archers thread #160: Ram a lamb a ding dong! To rate the mass wisteria in Ambridge, tap the feedback tablet 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 have given a home to Hilda the Hellcat, 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 @MerryChristmasToYou, @OverArmour and @LillianGish for the thread title ideas.

This week is a bit better than last week, but the Brad/Adil/Lily stuff is very odd. Coming up to the anniversary of Jennifer's death (22nd January last year). We need a new matriarch - could that be Natasha? I find her quite an interesting character. Sometimes she's awful and then she has moments as last night where she utterly redeems herself.

Over to you!

Don’t worry, it will be a cat allergy and another instalment in the ‘hilarious’ saga of poor bloody Hilda being passed around like some class of parcel. Brian is one of the very few characters whom I do not wish ill, but I don’t think that’s colouring my prediction.
I really hate their depiction and ‘treatment’ of Hilda, though. TA is pretty rubbish with pets altogether, come to think of it.

Where was Kate? Shouldnt she have been at the cake party. Yes I think its a cat allergy too. My DH's nephew was allergic to my cat, his eyes use to swell up and be red and itchy. I used to give him ice to rub on his eyes, that used to help.

Yes @Grimchmas - made no sense at all did it; I only caught up tonight and it annoyed me so much. There was no story at all for a local journo (although I do love the throwback world where there are still a raft of local journalists in somewhere like Ambridge - unless is she meant to be based at a regional in Warwickshire or for some reason coming from
Birmingham?) and I didn’t hear anything about Bridge Farm paying for coverage , which I could totally imagine Natasha doing. Just annoying really - I imagine I’m feeling how others feel when there are stories about lambs or retconning one of the cottages - makes no sense at all and why are we still listening 🤦‍♀️

They do seem to be setting us up for cat allergy... but that does seem like an absurd idea given that Brian would have spent enough time at Peggy's before to know whether or not he was allergic (and he would then have used it as a happy excuse not to have the cat)!

Except recent thinking is that a lot of cat allergy is triggered by cat saliva on the fur, rather than the fur itself. How much did Brian stroke the cat before?

If I am lucky enough to be an old lady, and unlucky enough to need to go into a home, it would be heartbreaking to think of my cat running away and being lost, sitting outside my old house, being parcelled around unwilling relatives. I find this storyline uncomical and I don't see why Kate didn't stay in the house and keep Hilda, or move in with Jakob and take Hilda.

Peggy sold The Lodge to fund her Laurels residency, so Kate couldn’t have stayed there. (Completely ruining the inheritance storyline we’ve been promised for decades.)

And Jakob very much doesn’t want Kate living with him, so it’s a good thing her dad offered her an alternative option.

I didn’t hear anything about Bridge Farm paying for coverage , which I could totally imagine Natasha doing

When Gnasher held Rebecca the journalist up against the wall by her throat, she growled that she was paying for the piece so it would be as saccharine and obsequious as she wanted it to be. When I was a local reporter, there was a firm line between the journalists and those who wrote advertorial but I can well imagine that has changed. The paper will certainly not want to lose BF as an advertiser so any suggestion that piece or any others will be anything but a puff piece is fantasy.

But this is a soap not a doco so I am actually ok with that, btw.

Good shout on the cat allergy. I was worried they were building up to dedding Brian.

One can often feel more confident in one’s predictions after loitering on the Spoilers thread, @JayAlfredPrufrock.

Though it’s no guarantee of being right!

Wouldn’t a cat allergy be more about sneezing than coughing?

Shula has been written out, her RL husband won’t want to go on for ever. And it’s realistic for a husband not to survive long after a wife dies.

Fed up of Hilda being treated as a parcel to be passed around for comedic effect. She’s already had one big upheaval in her life. She needs to settle somewhere she feels safe, and set about the normal cat business of carving out a territory and holding it.

I think Brian will realise how attached he is to Hilda and load up on antihistamines and keep her.

Ooh @Roysnewshirt I need to listen back then - I missed that entirely. But fits much more with both reality and my (strange love and) understanding of Natasha

There are so many other characters that need killing off before Brian!

I know 2 people who got kittens and developed allergies but they went away after a month so it may just be that he needs to get used to living with a cat and make sure he vacuums regularly and brushes her

My pet hair allergy is respiratory - it brings on my asthma. That's the most noticeable and severe symptom but you're right that there's also cold-like symptoms and sometimes a rash. Different people have a different balance of symptoms so I could well understand how Brian could put it down to a virus.

I would actually give a BOOP to the SW if Brian did have an unexplained cough for a while before its cause was uncovered. We've long complained that the proportion of Ambridge residents with any kind of health trouble is ridiculously low, especially older residents with chronic conditions.

Speaking of which, did I miss the outcome of Jim's visit to the GP? Was it just to introduce Azra as a character?

If this evening doesn't start with Alice having dragged him into hospital, it's likely not to be a heart attack.

Rebecca works for the Borchester Echo, which is the local paper (used to come out on Thursdays, now also on the internet), and Natasha has more than once mentioned that since she is paying for the article Rebecca will write what she is told. Natasha will see the copy and have right of correction before it goes to print.

It might make more sense if Rebecca worked for the glossy magazine Borsetshire Life?

Maybe they are lining up a health scare for Brian only to find that it is a cat allergy. Brian is well-acted and gets good lines.

I like Natasha. She's a breath of fresh air from gossipy Susan and downtrodden Clarrie.

A magazine would be far less likely to run a scoop.

If his only symptom is a cough, and it turns out to be Hilda allergy, I'll be annoyed, because that's not usually how a pet allergy presents.

I looked up this on the basis that Evesham is generally regarded as the model for Borchester, and came across the headline "Borchester Evesham shortlisted to be Britain's most depressing town 2023"

Not that it's exactly a "shortlist". 153 towns on it so far, and they're still adding them.

Top 50 'worst places to live' in England revealed as new town claims No.1 spot - full list - Mirror Online
I'm trying to figure out how Henley-on-Thames got to number 13.

@MereDintofPandiculation , maybe coughing is the most actor/radio-friendly symptom.
I don't think sneezing or wheezing is suitable for an 80-yr old actor.

Where was Kate? Shouldnt she have been at the cake party.

She was with Peggy, and good for her, rather than fannying about with Victoria sponge. Which since she is vegan ( when it suits her/the scripties) would have been a doomed undertaking anyway. She could always have cheated like the despicable Adam, I suppose.

I agree.

Maybe, as with Freud's alleged comment about a cigar sometimes being only a cigar, what is wrong with Brian is that he has a cough!