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

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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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, 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 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!

Odd how we all hear things differently. I love Clare Perkins' voice and delivery. She was in The Outlaws on BBC1 not long ago and sounded very similar, but with a Bristol accent. Just watched a clip from a film she was in which is on her IMBD page, and again, she sounds similar, but with a London accent. If Wikipedia is to be believed, that's her own accent, as she appears to have grown up in Lewisham.

The scripts she's being given are not great, but that's not her fault.

A and D should just focus on their work. They are too distracted by their love lives and don’t seem remotely interested in the animals. The practice is clearly overstaffed as everyone (apart from Jakob) has too much time on their hands. May be that’s what Don is coming to say and Paul is going to be fired. I won’t miss him and it would mean A and D would have less time for snogging in the cupboard.

Her voice is fine but don’t you find the Ali-STARE pronunciation distracting? It’s so bizarre!

I find her delivery very clunky and pp has it when they said she pronounces every syllable

i also don’t think she’s a very nice person (the character I mean). Quick to temper, unprofessional, happy to mess 2 men around. It really doesn’t sound to me that she has much affection for alistair and he sounds pathetic around her - I can’t really blame her for not sounding passionate about him I suppose

i thought she was brilliant in The Outlaws and was convinced by her Bristolian accent. In TA however, she drives me potty and am still glad I'm not listening if she's back on the scene.

By the Power of Streaming, provided you have the tech and the savvy, you can now listen to the Omnibus earlier than before - any time after midnight on the Sunday morning. So you can, in theory, combine driving to church with driving your family mad by insisting on listening in the car. Or, of course, stream it at home at 10am - this may depend on whether and when you want to listen to Desert Island Discs.

So I am tentatively welcoming this change. I still haven't been listening, though I have been reading the thread. Goodness only knows whether the bizarro version in my head would match the version I'd get from catching up my listening

BOOP for Jakob.

Blimey. The Alistair thing is so ridiculous.

I thought Jakob was a bit harsh to Paul given he knows the reason Alistair is leaving is because he wanted an affair with his mum. And I don’t think Paul is being selfish at all - Alistair and Denise are.

anyway, it’s one of the sl I’m kind of pretending isn’t happening

The part time thing coming back to bite. Harrison hasn’t been very sensible

Yes, but does Paul actually ever think about anybody but Paul? he's dead upset that Gran is dying because he won't see her again: nothing about her in any of his statements about it that I have heard, it's all been about how upset he is.... And if he were being disgracefully unpleasant to Alistair (he accused him of lying, among other things) for other than "I don't want this" reasons I might have some sympathy for him, but he clearly wasn't.

And he is a nosy, noisy PITA, which it was about time someone told him in blunt words. Tiptoeing around his tender sensibilities is clearly not good for the little scrote.

But Alistair was lying. Paul obviously senses something is going on and the 3 other people in the room knew.

and I don’t think what he said about his gran means he wasn’t thinking of her too and he has shown concern for his father

I'm not a fan of Paul and he is undoubtedly irritating to work with but in this scenario he was being lied to and whilst he is overly dramatic that’s the character they’ve given us

It is still utterly unacceptable to call your boss a liar in front of two other people, whether he is or not.

That would be written warning time, if Jakob had not been kind enough merely to tear him off a strip verbally.

(His concern for his father was in the context of this giving him licence to tell his mother what to do, so I tend to discount it. He was guilt-tripping Denise, not showing real sympathy for John. If he really cared about John, he still had some leave he could have spent with him.)

that’s the character they’ve given us

Lucky old us, eh? I’d mind (fractionally) less did I not suspect that they mean us to like the odious little tick. But he’s one of nature’s redcoats, than which I could not damn him more utterly, so they’re on to a loser there.

Well I don’t see Paul that badly and given how his mother behave it’s not unsurprising. She has always come across as self centred and unprofessional too!!

I don’t like his character because he seems like a stereotype and I think it’s pretty insulting tbh

I find it entirely possible to dislike Paul because he is (fine phrase!) an odious little tick, and at the same time to dislike Denise because she was planning not to have an affair no no really, not even slightly, before bothering to go through the slightly nuisancey business of getting rid of the husband she already had.

I am also able simultaneously to dislike Alistair for not being able to remember how painful his two divorces were for him, and how upset he was when his first wife went off with one of his friends: his planning to be the Other Man seems rather sordid.

(Redcoats to me are members of regiments in the British Army before WWI, stern cruel men enforcing the Highland Clearances and such, and I really can't see Paul as one of those?)

I assumed a butlins redcoat!

he is such a caricature.

the whole sl is bizarre and weirdly written is there a reason they may want to open up a vet position? Are they trying to get fresh blood in? Seems an odd choice given Alastair can’t be far off retirement.

or are they blue coats? I’ve never actually been but remember Hi de Hi

Redcoats to me are members of regiments in the British Army before WWI, stern cruel men enforcing the Highland Clearances and such, and I really can't see Paul as one of those?

Neither can I, @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, not at all (ooh, the big butch things!). I was thinking more the Butlins kind, given Paul’s draconian enforcement of FUN on all and sundry. Just asking to be strangled, that is.

Hi De Hi had yellow coats

And that’s the only thing I can contribute to the whole tedious storyline

google tells me that pontins have bluecoats

Butlins were the original, and they were redcoats.

The threads seem slow (where is our statistician!). The SL are ridiculous but also a bit boring really. The drama seems lacking because the characters are quite new (Harry), not very rounded (Paul) or missing (John for eg) or acting uncharacteristically (Jim)

Who’s John?

Isn’t that Denise’s husband? Accept I may not have heard properly as I switch off a bit…

Oh yes. It would help if I listened wouldn’t it?!