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!

Congratulations to @WitcheryDivine and baby Shula.

I agree. 30 years ago - lithe, young, muscly guy with full head of dark hair. Now - beer gut and mostly bald with thin grey hair where it does remain, double chin and glasses.

To be fair, I do have some friends from my teens, who, now we're in our 50s, are very much still recognisable. But others have definitely filled out and lost hair.

I have been listening since I was in the womb. I'm not sure you're trying hard enough, Witchery.

Congrats, @WitcheryDivine! 👶

Hahaha gosh damn it I knew I’d missed something off the list.

Thanks all! One day she’ll be saying Kenton’s dog attack was “before my time” 😂

Congratulations @WitcheryDivine!

Hope we’ll see her on the thread in 25 years time.

I was at school with a couple of criminals and their mugshots now are definitely recognisable but I’m impressed at Jolene remembering him after just one encounter!

Since the electricity repairs/rewiring were signed off this morning, presumably the CCTV was on again tonight. I wonder whether the police will recognise him, from that.

Honest to cringe, he's an amazingly incompetent villain, going out of his way to make absolutely sure Jolene knows who he is and that his mate set the dog on Kenton. Indeed, going back to The Bull at all once he thought he had been recognised by someone there was stupid beyond usual bounds. Why would anyone do that? What was so essential about being in that particular pub car-park (essentially, trapped in a cul-de-sac with the only way out past a solid building and a solid wall: all the police would have to do would be park a car in that entrance and the vans and trailers would be bottled in) that they had to go back there like dogs revisiting their vomit?

The whole thing is implausible beyond what ought to be allowable in a radio programme with any pretension at all to being realistic.

Honest to cringe, he's an amazingly incompetent villain, going out of his way to make absolutely sure Jolene knows who he is and that his mate set the dog on Kenton. Well, that only matters if she survives tonight.(1)

I was astonished at someone who yesterday was petrified at the thought of an arson attack was happily going out on her own in the middle of the night.

(1) She will, of course. They’re only trying to scare us and ruin our weekend

Congratulations @WitcheryDivine! I have a six month old and a 2.5 year old and confess I haven’t yet tried to listen to the Archers with either. Remiss of me!

I first remember listening with my mum when I was about 14. I distinctly remember listening to the omnibus on the way from church to an extracurricular thing I did every Sunday that was a good hour and a half away. Apparently 14 was positively ancient to start my listening career!

I mentioned this thread to DH as the reason I can’t leave Mumsnet (I’ve recently gone to Reddit and am enjoying some of the parenting forums). Realised I’ve been following it for around a decade although posting for much, much less than that. Where does time go!

Surely even hardened criminals don’t go out of their way to commit unnecessary murders. This SL is really poor.

nice that the fashion show wasn’t too bad to listen to

It is so bad at the moment it is almost funny.

Why wasn’t Fallon staying with her Mum?

This woman looks like how I felt at the end of that episode. At least this week is over now.

Was it necessarily 30 years ago? Wasn't Jolene going out on tour more recently than that?

They come back late on Tuesday and meet in the car park. Guard dog attacks Kenton as it would have attacked any other human in the vicinity. They haven't recognised Jolene or made the connection with the previous incident (probably one of many in their thuggish pasts).

IIRC, one of them was asking quite a lot about Jolene so presumably did remember her?

Many congratulations!

Surely you should be listening whilst breastfeeding? That way you will start conditioning her at the earliest possible opportunity.

Was it necessarily 30 years ago? Wasn't Jolene going out on tour more recently than that?

She did - didn’t she? <Struggles> Few years ago? Very surprised and proud. Kenton supportive …

But it still makes no sense! Random thugs invading stage. Fight. Why on earth would they particularly care that she was the woman on stage? And is the SW saying that because they behaved like savage animals (for no discernible reason) they would also own savage animals (again, for no discernible reason)?

Completely at a loss as to the cause of all this skulduggery, threat and violence. It would have been easy to just set out a clear motive. Why haven’t they?

You're right. It makes even less sense now. I think for the sake of what remains of my sanity I'd better stop even trying to understand what's supposed to be happening.

But she wasn't a major player in the original incident she was just a singer in the band that happened to be on. Why the vendetta against her personally?

Didn’t the ‘thug’ try to approach her on the stage? Obviously drawn by her pirate magnetism.

he mentioned that he was a fan of her music so potential recognition from that (odd). Perhaps her avoiding him was the big mistake. Pretending not to recognise him and then talking to him just like he was a fan would have been better

still a stupid sl

So is this actually a stalking storyline?

Would J’lene be likely to have a stalker for X number of years (insert any number from 5 to 30) and never breathe a single word of it, though?

This is the whole problem with SWs who decide to impose a SL that should have had a long burn over the course of years, but it’s painfully apparent that they thought it all up 5 minutes ago and somebody scribbled it on the back of a fag packet.

It really is absolutely pitiful, whatever it is.

I thought it was that they were a bunch of crims who happened upon the pub accidentally and the guy recognised Jolene. Not sure what they came back for but presumably something illegal, and the guy came back just to threaten Jolene into keeping quiet. I didn't pick up stalking themes but I could be wrong.

No I don’t think stalking. I think it was just trying to explain why he still recognised her all those years later. Maybe he had her band poster on his wall🙄

I didn’t realise Jolene had made it so big