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!

Has Tracy ever shown any interest in animals?

Not so far as I remember, @LikeTalkingToLassie. Nor in growing anything. It’s like she’s in the countryside, but not of it. (Unlike her sister who, even though not working for herself, has developed expertise in dairy production.)

Unfortunately, as the Grundys can testify, close connection to land and what grows in or on it is not a guaranteed route to success.

In a way I’m sad Toby left. He did seem to grasp the point of being there, rather than anywhere else. Perhaps one day we’ll be allowed to hear how Rex is getting on with his stately home pigs …

As @TottersBlanklyIntoBimboCore said earlier, not everyone who lives in the countryside has to be farming or even interested in farming!

Oh didn't realise I'd posted straight after you.

I seem to remember that Susan owned a pig back in the day when she was Susan Horobin. I think she won it as a piglet at the village fete and then talked a very reluctant Neil into showing her how to look after it because she fancied him. And Listener, she married him.

Because baby Emmur was on the way.

Someone else may have answered this, but I am well behind and running to catch up after an Easter break.

Ambridge had a primary school when The Archers started in 1951, and continued to have one for many years; Shula and Kenton attended it. The headmistress (as they were in those days), Elsie Catcher, described Shula as "backward". She had been appointed as head of the school in 1927, was an important Village Character, and when she retired in 1967 it was amalgamated with the school in Loxley Barratt.

Walter Gabriel, a great friend of Dan Archer's, started out as the Unsuccessful Farmer who didn't follow the Government Guidelines and made Phil Archer look good. He went broke and lost his farm, after which he was a village character whom everyone knew and who could get involved in any storyline that was going on: useful to the writers! His son, Nelson Gabriel, was a bit of a nogoodboyo, and came out of National Service in the RAF with an accent out of a Noel Coward play; he sold antiques for a bit, and then ran a wine bar in Borchester and was a friend to all the younger element (which meant Shula and Nigel and Caroline and Elizabeth) and sometimes bestirred himself to sort out problems, as for instance getting rid of Hazel Woolley when she was trying to gouge money out of Jack Woolley; Nelson happened to have a copy of a porn film in which she was involved. He would; he was that sort of person. A rural-England Trampas, if you remember the telly version of The Virginian.

There was a pub somewhere outside the village called The Cat And Fiddle, latterly run by a gay couple called Sean Myerson and Peter (who had no surname, I don't think, and didn't speak). It was where Eddie took refuge when he periodically got barred from The Bull; Kate had a job there as a barmaid for a while, and Elizabeth and John and other younger Archers sometimes drank there when The Bull was being stuffy.

I'm glad you found the thread. Pull up a bollard!

Hope your break went well, Asking, and didn't involve any train to or from Euston in the past week (don't ask, as it were). I like the sound of Elsie Catcher. My Dad's old school sends out a magazine to alumni and as that was one thing we forgot to cancel it turned up here recently. There were some absolute gems of anecdotes about old school teachers.

Apparently said at Parents' Evening: 'I have a soft spot for your son - a peat bog in the North of Scotland'. The same teacher liked to teach in the dark, having for some reason a horror of artificial light, and had been known to throw a silver teapot across the staffroom.

Another teacher arrived at his second floor classroom to find the boys had locked it from the inside. He was, however, a noted climber, so went outside and climbed up, entering by the open window.

Modern schools may be safer, but I suspect also more anodyne. Possibly why they feature so little in TA, along with the almost total lack of interest in education and culture.

Hazel Woolley was an erstwhile pornstar?!?!

That's not the way I imagine her 🤔

Does George Grundy know?

DEAR GOD. Listening now and I despair. What is wrong with people? Do they all have 'doormat' tattooed on their foreheads?

Fallon, Harrison, Alice. GIVE ME STRENGTH.

For once I found the komedy kapers amusing. 🐴

She may have been; certainly she really, really didn't want Nelson to show that film in the village.

To be fair, it's possible her involvement was, erm, behind the scenes rather than in them, but she certainly agreed to go away on the basis that if she did, Nelson would agree to forget about showing the film.

How unbearably tedious that Alice is now the World’s Greatest Authority on how to beat alcoholism.
I think that her conversation with “Eve” was one of the worst things I have ever had imposed upon me by The Archers. Possibly this is The End for me.

Am out - can anyone let me know if there was anything worth tuning in for?

Tonight's episode was dreadful..Alice
I didn't enjoy it.....Alice...
15 Minutes of my life.....Alice....that I'll never get back.......Alice

I found Alice's attack on Eve to be a very horrible thing. Walk a mile in her shoes first, Alice, and only then throw accusations at someone who has had to try to help someone who was destructive and vile – just like Alice.... Did Alice really not realise that Eve was effectively talking about her and how she treated her mother and family and friends? (Is it better to disrupt a funeral and be offensive to the bereaved than to disrupt a child's birthday party? Really, Alice? Are you sure about that?)

Ah, other people noticed that. I was fairly sure it wasn't just me, but it's nice to be reassured; thank you.

Actually I thought that conversation was really interesting, and informative. I listened to it twice. And it really pulled the rug out from under Alice.

Hahaha oh goodness I can’t wait… Alice

Harry is SO creepy I’m amazed anyone would touch him even with someone else’s, as my
dad would say.

I was fairly moved by the Eve conversation. I have a family member with serious difficulties- and 'battle scarred' is how I'd describe us for sure. Also it shines a light on just how lucky Alice has been. Of course, all the things Eve described, Alice has done too.

But bloody hell, Alice you giant blundering busy body!

Also FFS Robert. I think Lynda would think it was poor form to bother Harrison off duty.

"You won't regret it."

Yeah. Right.

And months of utter boredom for us. I can see that it's helpful to show that alcoholism is common, but the whiny Harry gets on my threepennies.

I grew up with parents who were very partial to R4 at every opportunity and hated it, particularly The Archers. It was Marjorie Antrobus that converted me into a fan, I absolutely loved her.

I think Eve is an interesting character, but even if she wasn't, I just love Juliet Aubry's voice, and find it extremely soothing.