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!

His concern was that Alice and Martha were about to go off with Harry in a situation where he would be doing a lot of driving, so he wouldn't have time to start engineering appropriate situations. To say nothing of the fact that Fallon would have thought that his keenness to start touring local drinking spots with her was just a tad odd.

I think it's a bit of a daft storyline but it does hang together after a fashion.

It's s bit rich of Fallon to go along with her very vulnerable friend's well meaning but daft plan and then blame Alice when it goes disastrously wrong.

To be fair, she only went along with Fallon talking to Harrison, although that wasn't a brilliant idea trying to catch him at work, not talking to his boss.

I think it's a bit of a daft storyline but it does hang together after a fashion

Compared to the Joelene/Markie story, this looks like a great work of writing and character portrayal.

IME it would be v hard for the ancient 200 year old tree to slip through the cracks on a planning application. Planners are obsessed with trees and arbocultural surveys so having one chopped down like this is very unlikely. Unless you have employed Ed and Emma to do the work!

It’s almost as if none of these people have had proper professional jobs where messaging them and expecting them to pop out alone is unreasonable, let alone speaking to their boss or expecting them to give brain width to your crazy scheme when they are focussed on work

Round my way the first thing the council do when you put a planning application in is to slap a tpo on any trees. Unless the person applying has contacts of course which is what I assume happened here

Quite. And all those objectors and nobody asked what was happening to the old oak - presumably within the red line of the application. Thats not plausible at all! It would have been a great focus for objections

Well Jim said they just assumed it wouldn’t be touched. As if!!

It would be a more realistic alcoholism SL if Alice fell off the wagon, though it would make more sense if it had been a reaction go JD's death. It would also be more realistic if Martha showed at least some signs of FASD, given the way Alice was caning it whilst pregnant.

Well they were worried about it when JD died and they all kept an eye on her

martha is a wonder child now so you know, what’s the big deal if you drink in pregnancy?

I don’t think Alice was drinking throughout most of her pregnancy? My memory is hazy but didn’t she stop a couple of months into her pregnancy and then start again after Martha’s dramatic and slightly premature birth. Jazzer playing midwife whilst giving birth in the back of a car could not have been pleasant and I think it triggered feelings of guilt that she had somehow caused Martha’s difficult arrival. She was drunk at the Christening so I think she restarted after a few weeks.

Fallon agreeing to drive to Harrison’s workplace was a ridiculous plot device. He said at the end of the episode that he had another 4 hours of his shift left so it makes even less sense for the ladies to have driven over to speak to him as he hadn’t even finished work yet. There is no reason at all why Fallon wouldn’t have been happy to just wait at home. Completely unrealistic that she a) allowed Alice to railroad her into driving to the car park b) didn’t physically restrain her from leaving the car and approaching Harrison’s boss (I would have).

Also how comes the chief policewomen is making such a fuss when there are loads of coppers getting away with so much stuff in RL.

my immediate thought was: hahahaha he'd have to rape and kill someone before they even thought about doing anything. and even then they'd sit on their hands for as long as possible before... giving him a stern talking to.

I can't stand Alice. (and i really don't like the way the actor talks). So when Harrison showed up while she was talking to boss, i had to stop listening (I was bored and broke my rule of not listening) urgh

Fallon would NEVER have driven daft Alice over to talk to Harrison on his lunch break or whatever. It’s not actually an emergency. And if you saw boss lady leaving in the middle of the day surely you’d assume she was popping out for work not going home for the weekend?!

I think the fact that Harrison is a bit in two kinds about his job anyway is important, I doubt he’ll be sacked but he might just think “fuck it” rather than stay for the investigation.

Very likely. If it’s never been thought at risk, and no-one has brought it to the Council’s attention, it won’t have a TPO.

Why didn't Neil and/or Susan phone someone (Neil someone in the planning office, Susan a local) immediately when they saw the tree being felled, to get a witness on site ASAP? It's the 21st century, even in Ambridge, they all have phones.

whilst a major breach you do wonder why they would get rid of an honest copper given the recruitment crisis and the other things coming out atm. It seems a bit tone deaf by the sw given recent news But he’s not an honest copper if he’s habitually accessing the Police National Database for the benefit of his friends and family.

There’s also the questionable arresting of Fallon while he was -stalking- courting her

Yes, it’s a totally different order of magnitude from rape and murder, but do you really want police who feel they can use their powers and access to information for their own ends?

IME it would be v hard for the ancient 200 year old tree to slip through the cracks on a planning application. Planners are obsessed with trees and arbocultural surveys so having one chopped down like this is very unlikely. Are they quite as concerned in the countryside as they are in towns and villages?

Did he access the database just to check Harry out with a view to possibly telling Alice, or did he do it as a matter of routine because he'd arrested Harry and needed to find out whether it was a first offence?

I don’t think Alice was drinking throughout most of her pregnancy? My memory is hazy but didn’t she stop a couple of months into her pregnancy and then start again after Martha’s dramatic and slightly premature birth. But is it not the early months when drinking is most dangerous?

Perhaps all the OTT comments about what a wonderful job Alice has done with Martha and how marvellous Martha is are leading up to the shock horror announcement that her teacher in nursery/Reception class (once she starts) thinks she's lagging behind on all milestones.

I assumed the latter. I assume the police are covered by GDPR just as everyone else - perfectly fine to look someone up as part of arresting them as it's pertinent to that part of the job, but not just to tell your mates.

Yes, I'd assumed that. If he'd not had to arrest Harry and just looked him up out of curiosity, that would have been an open and shut case. However, as others have said, all rather ironic when it seems as if the Met would have taken on any white male who applied even if he had the word PERVERT tattooed across his forehead.

My first child was unplanned (on the Pill and still fell pregnant which was something I genuinely thought only happened in soap operas) and I had no idea for the first month or so. During those early weeks when I was unaware, I went to France to visit family and had a lot of alcohol plus the odd glass of wine a couple times a week as was my wont back then. I completely freaked out when I realised I was pregnant. Midwife mentioned this kind of thing happens a lot. Thankfully a healthy baby arrived 8 months later. But yeah, I think very heavy and sustained drinking of the kind Alice was probably engaged in is a big risk.

My French relatives couldn’t understand what I was fussing about. One mentioned she had a glass of wine most weeks throughout the entirety of her pregnancy, another continued chain smoking whilst pregnant with all 3 of her kids…

Many pregnancies will have a lot of drinking in the early stages before women know, especially if they go out partying a lot. And I, like probably many of my contemporaries (early '70s), had a mother who smoked right through her pregnancy. She may have been drinking then, too - I don't know, but she had issues with alcohol at various points in my life, and I don't know if she was dry at that point or not.

No one would recommend either of these things, but it doesn't automatically mean disaster.

With Pc Burns, I do think sometimes that when a climate such as the Met currently is trying to change, that it can create zero tolerance kind of approach or making an example of people in easily proven cases.

More people get sacked for fiddling expenses or timesheets than harder to prove corruption.

He'll lose his stripes surely- but he's an idiot for having done in it in first place.