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

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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 think it's great that Shula's ministering to the heathen of the North-East, 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, 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!

Poor Hilda

this whole sl with Alice and Harry is becoming even more ridiculous - surprisingly

and who is this celine

How old is Harry supposed to be that his mum can tell him who he can go out with? Its ridiculous.

Tbh I thought that if his Mum had said - I hadn't realised her Dad was Brian Aldridge - I had an bc affair with him and he could be your father would have been slightly more realistic compared to the ridiculous rubbish she came out with

the way she behaved was incredibly strange imo We’re told Harry is a successful eventer forced to “retire” through injury, so he’s going to be 30s at least. Why does she imagine she has any influence over his love life? Unless she’s just “nursed” him through alcoholism, addiction etc and that’s the”point” of him.

The way Eve C went about giving Alish the brush-off might have been less than ideal but one does see her point. No normal mother is going to be thrilled by a divorced alcoholic with pre-existing child as a prospective daughter-in-law, let alone a funeral-wrecking, brick-hurling one. And yes, Harry’s divorced too, but that’s totally different. Obviously.

Poor Hilda, uprooted again. It’d be fairer to re-home Adam who caused the problem

but why doesn’t the dairy have some sort of automatically closing door?

hmmm, didn't Harry say he had a close friend who had died of alcoholism? Maybe not so much a close friend as a partner?

Or, (my preferred option) they were planning to groom her into gestating the Messiah and as she is suddenly found to be unsuitable, has to be jettisoned asap so a new candidate can be found. There will inevitably be a time pressure, since we are clearly in end times and messiah has to be both gestated and grow to adulthood.

A Rosemary's Baby scenario, newt? I like your thinking….👀

My take on this is that we can’t just have Boy meets Girl falls in love Everybody happy for them They live happily ever after. There has to be some adversity for them to overcome, some plot twists and some “will they won’t they” or it wouldn’t be a drama. Eve is providing that for us.

This. And I have no interest in getting to know Harry’s mother except as a vehicle to bring about the permanent disappearance of Harry

It was weird. At the lunch date, we were given the impression that Harry had some underlying issue (opioid addiction has been mentioned on here for some time, along with some other theories), from the way his mother spoke concernedly to him while Alice was in the loo. So today would have been the perfect opportunity for another hint in that direction - 'you know why a recovering alcoholic is just too much for you to cope with, darling, maybe for someone else it would be fine, but you won't be able to handle it, not with your situation ...' Instead, it just looks as though his Mum is being Mrs Judgy Pants about Alice without any particular concern for any fragility in her son. I'm not saying she shouldn't be Mrs Judgy Pants, given Alice's history, just that it's weird to miss an opportunity to develop Harry's backstory, if there is one.

Also, surely it's right up there in the Handbook of Being a Posho (or Debrett's, as it's also known) that you would never be so unspeakably rude as Eve was this evening. Go out with Alice, keep the shopping trip as short as possible, and then just don't initiate any further contact (and speak to your son in private, if you insist). Or at the very least, invent a plausible excuse for why the shopping trip is no longer needed - you've decided it's wasteful to buy a new outfit, you will reuse an old one, or the event has been cancelled/you can no longer attend, so you don't need a new dress after all. I find it completely implausible that someone of her (presumed) class would be so blunt. JD would be shocked!

Now, that is a distinct possibilty.

Especially as we know the either Henwee or GiddyJack is the actual Antichrist (As foretold on many messageboards). Soon the evil will be revealed.

There will be a cataclysmic struggle between the forces of Good and Evil for domination of the world. Ambridge will be at the centre of it all.

Woe! Woe! The End Times are upon us!

There will be signs and portents for those who listen with a keen ear.

Has the 🔮been reading Good Omens again?!

Also, do we think Adam told Pat and Tony the full story that Hilda only got in because he was playing a trick on the staff? I bet that went down well!

I’m not strong enough [whimpering]

I totally agree (if we are looking at prosaic interpretations) that Eve was unspeakably rude and perversely so, given that an acceptable excuse would be so easy to come up with.
Maybe she IS worried they may be half sibs, and doesn't want to leave anything to chance.

Milk will spill and the demon cat shall drink of it.
Lo, the sinkhole shall open, but who will fall?
A singer of sea shanties country music shall be purged in the flame.
Woe, woe, to Ambridge!

I listened again to Alice and Harry's conversation, and both said text instead of texted. Surely people of their background wouldn't do this? It really jarred for me.

@SequentialAnalyst

The 🔮heartily approves of your soothsaying abilities

@SequentialAnalyst 🤣🤣🤣🏴‍☠️

I can understand Harry's mum being apprehensive about Alice being a recovering Alcoholic even though she has been dry 2 years. And she could of put Alice off without slamming the door in her face.
I expect the women that told Eve laid it on with a trowel, but lets be fair Alice was awful to Chris to her Mum and Dad and nearly dropping Martha at the christening, so I can understand Eve being worried but she cant tell Harry who he can and cant see, its up to him.
I hope Tony doesn't have Hilda put down it was all Adams fault. Hilda was just being a cat.😾

@echt I think they're young so text is used universally. Even my sisters proper posh pals use it.

I don't know anyone who says text-ed.

I hear both text and texted, but I've never heard of it being a class marker, or even an age marker. Text is universally much more common, IMO, but I don't see any real pattern as to who uses either. I use both.

I say texted. Text is slightly jarring but not as annoying as 'could of'.