Archers thread #161: Kenton seems to be getting better, but the storylines aren’t. Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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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 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.)

Well, here we are. I was strongly tempted to go for the dog's dinner, dog/human bullies etc suggestions for the title, but Mere asked if we could not have anything graphic in the thread title, so I've held back. In a couple of weeks when this thead is nearing its end the attack may all be a distant memory, anyway.

Goodness knows what's in store for us now. Kenton seems likely to have PTSD, not surprisingly. Surely we must soon find out why HARRY talks so. Unconvincingly. Alice! Hello. CHRIS. CHRIS. etc, and also whether he is (as many of us suspect) addicted to opiates and/or up to no good. Too much to hope why nobody in Ambridge horsey circles had ever heard of him until recent weeks.

Over to you!

It would have been so easy for him to just carry the dilemma to the police station and lay it at the feet of his superiors. But no …

A brewery might not employ a sacked policeman, but The Bull is a free house.

Harrison’s not overly blessed with brains, is he? Deary me.

But you still need to get a licence? I once almost had to be licensee as my boss had drink driving conviction and they refused him. (supermarket not pub)
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-licensing

The police are consulted and can object

I think the licence is in Doreen's name

Isn't it drink- or drug-related offences that lead to refusal of licence?

Anyhow, we are talking about Ambridge. if the editorial team want Harrison to have a licence to sell alcohol and his wife to be the licensee of a pub (as with Peggy and Jack Archer, and Jolene and Kenton Archer) they'll go ahead and do it.

What happened to Harrison's brief foray into religion though?
At one stage the 🔮 thought it had glimpsed him signing up to join a monastery on a rocky outcrop off the Northumberland coast.
It says it's having to recalibrate now (and doesn't appear best pleased about it)

Massive catch up this evening and a few thoughts.

1. I’m amazed that ANYONE enters into a practical task with David without fear given his record of being around “accidental” deaths
2. but I enjoyed David and Vince silly chat about made up bits of flange or what have you, and then acknowledging that they were both clueless
3. Harrison is risking his job for Alice… possible romance in future if he and Fallon split?
4. I think the scriptwriters have handled the slow burn of Fallon/Harrison possibly drifting apart with unusual delicacy (so far!!!)
5. Will is being really kind and I really pray that kindness is repaid and this isn’t another way of impoverishing Grundies
6. cowhide walls - smelly??

And why the heck couldn't Harrison or Fallon have just said, "Alice, have you googled Harry? I really think you should"

If he’s sacked as a policeman though it’s not necessarily for a crime that a brewery would object to? It could just be for being unprofessional in his job. If he got done for being indiscreet I can’t see that being criminal?

maybe this is easing his path to future vicaring although we have just had Shula doing that INTERMINABLY. I know a 30 year old vicar but it feels like Shula has taken about 30 years to get ordained and still isn’t.

Will did sound rather lovely in that episode (insert a Lynda Snell sniff)

Harrison has always been the most unrealistic policeman - from his early investigation into the stolen bunting to his creepy hilarious technique of trying to win over Fallon by having her arrested. Most recently he wanted to go part time and become the wildlife officer or something (which sounded like an Archers version of the school road safety officer). I think the problem stems from the fact that TA is not a police/detective drama so there is not much for him to do professionally (the equivalent of milking the cows/pulling pints/making cheese/counting change) so he only springs into action for what tend to feel like rather contrived scenarios. Also he doesn't seem to have any friends who are policemen who might have advised him on the best course of action in the Alice/Harry scenario.

I didn't know Nic's character well and whilst she'd have good reason to say "life's too short," surely she wouldn't be urging her husband to jeopardise their family's only asset by putting money into the hands of such a feckless pair.

I thought Will was going to suggest he and Ed do the training and set up a family business that might employ George and Emma some day. That's what Nic should have told him from beyond the grave.

How does Will earn money these days? He used to have a regular income from his house, but now he’s living there that has presumably gone. I agree that he might have gone into business with Ed - is it too sexist to say he’d probably make a better tree surgeon than Emma?

Understand he delivers veg boxes for bridge farm?

yes he can probably release £20k but he would be daft to do so for these 2. I don’t know how fit Emma is but they can’t be relying on Ed doing all the high tree work. Could they not sell some of his sheep to get some money?

Loaning money in a soap generally goes wrong. Or is he giving it to them? Either way, it has disaster written all over it.

Also, once Eddie twigs there is money to be leveraged out of Will, he’ll be straight onto it. Will has done well to have ringfenced the house for this long. Won’t be long before he is asking Mum and Dad to find an almshouse with a spare room for him.

When Will said he needed to get some
flowers I wondered if he had may be found romance on his veg box round. I was surprised Emma had overlooked the anniversary- she is the sort who would make a real point of remembering things like that.

Oh, it was worse than Emma forgetting the date; they had all forgotten the place as well.

Nic was buried in the green burial ground. Why did Will need to stop by the church to visit her grave? That isn't where the green burial ground was when it was created in 2012.

St Anthony of Padua was reinterred in a grander place after he was canonised.

As noted above, Nic giving her blessing from beyond the grave to the remortgaging of No 1, The Green for Emma’s benefit is a significant miracle …

Brilliant!

Wouldn’t the first step in something like this be to get a job as an apprentice somewhere, to see if you do actually like it and get paid to train and… get experience actually doing the work.

They could try going on a course to see whether they are capable of doing the work and actually do enjoy it, and only shell out for all the gear after they have made sure of those basics.

I didn't rush out and buy a complete silversmithing workshop before I had discovered whether I was capable of using a planishing hammer, or raising silver into a teapot. I did a one-year apprenticeship with all tools found, instead. (Well, technically it couldn't be a silversmithing apprenticeship in the city of London, because those had to last seven years properly speaking, but I did study in the Ward of Farringdon Within under a single "master" rather than going to a college. And then it was all wasted because nitric acid and babies really don't mix, or if they do it isn't good for the babies, so I didn't use the training.)

Not sure I’d bother calling Harrison out in an emergency - he seems easily distracted

Harry strikes me as vindictive so I think Harrison is in trouble.

’it’s fine, no one’s listening’

On an entirely different subject - maybe with a Trigger Warning first.

If a female character who expressly Did Not Want Children were about to become accidentally pregnant and were then (Nb fiction) to unfortunately die in childbirth - d’you think a SW might, before it all happened, write exactly the paean of praise that Harrison just delivered in honour of Fallon?

Was that in Chancery Lane, @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime? I’m sure I used to pass a silvery looking place about a million times a day going up and down that street in a former life.

Silversmithing stories would be far more interesting than The Archers.
The pre-pancake activities were for a reason.