Archers thread #162: ‘This is like talking to Lassie’ – how right you are, Fallon! Discuss The Archers 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 think cowhide-covered walls are a great idea for a cafe with vegan and vegetarian customers, 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.)

Title comes from one of the better scripted conversations of recent weeks, when Fallon said ”Harrison, this is like talking to Lassie! Just TELL ME”. So true of so many conversations on TA where you just want to shake them and yell 'Just TELL US, and quickly, so you don't get interrupted before you can say the important bit', but of course they rarely do and days pass before the conversation resumes. @TheBell suggested putting it in the title, so thanks for that.

@OverArmour had a great if more obscure idea, paying tribute to a Peter Greenaway film: The Policeman, The Drunk, The Vet and his Lover. That will do very well as a starting point for the new thread. Will Alistair leave? Will Denise tell John she's leaving him? Will Paul learn to be less noisy? Do any of us care?

I do care a little about Harrison and Fallon. I want Harrison to get a grip and realise he needs a paying job more than the captaincy of the cricket team. I don't care at all about Harry but I think he's been brought in purely as a plot device so with any luck we can all forget about him very soon.

Over to you!

I thought the Justin/Emma episode was well-played and my initial what a tight git reaction was changed and agree that it was a timely lesson about the real world of business. Of course when Justin calls in the tree-cutting favour there'll be a hideous chainsaw accident. Sad faces all round.

Miranda really does speak similarly to Julianne - not so much the tone but the things she says. My memory of her wasn’t of someone who worked herself necessarily, very stuck up but hard done by romantically was the general vibe.

I admit I hadn’t been paying much attention to the Welsh First Minister ‘story’ - and will avoid commenting as I know nothing of the context or backstory of either contender - but my ears did prick up when I realised the description of a donor - ‘convicted of illegal dumping of waste’ -sounded very like Brian Aldridge.

I don’t know why, but it slightly hurt my heart to realise that’s how he might still be portrayed in the wider Borsetshire world. And that influential people might not want to be associated with him because of something dreamed up by SWs, to the unarguable detriment of TA.

(But as I say, I know nothing about the real life events or their effect on Wales.)

I was a bit cross with Alice for inadvertently sabotaging Brian’s date. I’m not sure it was entirely in character for him to drop everything and run to support her on a Friday night.

He really should have just admitted to not being in Ambridge and said that he would see her tomorrow given he was actually at the venue and drinking champagne with someone who gave him a twinkle in his eye. I know no one wants her to lapse but surely he doesn’t have to be on call for her 24/7.

I don’t know - I think it shows that Brian has started to take on jennys parenting role and he takes it seriously.

whilst I love Brian for being such a cad I feel like he’s past that now and I like the new post Jenny version we were seeing

It irks me that they're re-writing history to suggest a warm, sympathetic relationship between Jenny and Miranda that even those of us with poor memories when it comes to TA SL just know never existed.

It feels like they are rewriting the marriage breakdown too. I seek to recall at the time Jenny found the whole Lillian affair difficult and she was certainly not the type to console the aggrieved wife.

I also don’t recall Miranda being the type to work. Running around picking up the pictures etc seemed very unlikely.

i’m half expecting them to bring Nigel back and claim he was in the shower the whole time

While we're on the subject of Brian - something I must have missed - who bought Home Farm?

Some people by the name of Gill, who held a very noisy party on the first New Year's Eve they were in residence, cut the head off Ruairi's concrete dog and messed up the garden, then got in builders to rip out all the décor, and have since only been mentioned once – they cancelled the papers for the weekend on one occasion.

i’m half expecting them to bring Nigel back and claim he was in the shower the whole time

Would suit me!

Me too!

It was such a mistake to kill him off. I wish they had let him survive but maybe paralysed and that would have created really interesting possibilities. Are any of the characters disabled?

so many other characters they could have killed off to shake us to our core

Are any of the characters disabled?

There will be once the tree surgery chainsaw mishap has occurred. This could in fact be why this SL has been introduced . . .

Ha ha! Good point!!

I'm astonished the SW did nothing with that. They should have been the big new family in the village!

The destruction of Brian for the crime of having money was planned and carried out by Huw Kennair-Jones, and he may have had plans for the Gills, but the story was inherited by Jeremy Howe and he seems not to have had any particular interest in it.

My tiny mind is boggled by the RL spouses and ex spouses amongst Brian, Miranda (which my phone autocorrects to Piranha! Appropriate?!) Oliver and Justin!

I texted my RL Archers friend and said "Aldridge/Bellamy Christmases are about to get far more complicated!"

I thought it was quite touching that Brian dropped Miranda to see Alice.

I vaguely remember Miranda being unpopular in Ambridge because she's horribly superior, and that people were sniggering about the goings-on at the panto between Lillian and Justin.

Hope B and M don't get together, I can't bear her snooty voice

Of course Brine and Piranha will get together. I think he'd have more fun with the woman from the cookery course; Natalia IIRC.

Yes @LikeTalkingToLassie the sexy party dancer!

So good to have more Brian. I'd listen to him doing his supermarket shop.

It’s not Robert Snell as we know him

New Robert!!!

Can’t listen tonight! Please update on Robert!!

Linda just said maybe you should find something "new" to occupy yourself with!