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!

@Bruisername yes Fallon’s delivery was utterly bizarre and I’m so fed up with these weird story lines - why on earth couldn’t they just say it wasn’t a good time.

And why would Lynda kick him out? Do they just have one enormous room

After being in denial for awhile finally realising my relationship with TA might be, or rather should be, over.
I don't want to hear any more heavy drama especially with the unpleasant and manipulative Harry while Alice does her best to help and save him.
I live in the country and see lambs, grumpy, sleep-deprived farmers, tractors, pony trekkers, bird of prey etc and I'd like to hear about them.
Eddie's Bartleby voice was good but the scene had to include the horrible George of course.
TA isn't enjoyable anymore and as an addict that's the point to get to to then dissociate not stagger on feeling disconcerted and anxious. I thought George might swipe a cricket ball hard at Hannah's face in retaliation for his broken phone.
But I'll keep reading these threads to see what happens, hey ho there's plenty of old episodes on youtube to listen to😄

It's supposed to be an 'everyday story of countryfolk'. Well, I live in the country, the pub is not being threatened by thugs, there aren't manipulative alcoholics raging around the place, not everyone is having an affair, etc etc. instead there are new lambs, the farmers are worried about their sodden fields and fly tipping etc etc. more 'everyday' please, and less Eastenders!

Harrison's written warning means he will be sacked if he does anything stupid in the next two years. Given his track record the odds against him making another incomprehensible but well meaning blunder don't seem to be in his favour. Pretty much on a par with someone suffering a life altering accident in the tree surgery business. But could he become the licensee at The Bull if he is sacked from the police?
Having said that, as the SWs seem to be trying to show us what a thoroughly decent person Harrison is - the only reason I can see for the ludicrous scene with Robert - I am starting to wonder if Harrison is doomed to suffer a life ending accident while defending Alice from Harry or Jolene from Markie. (I hope not as I am a fan of Harrison and Fallon.)

I feel your pain. But I fear that after 70 years I am a hopeless addict and will have to stagger on for a few more years. I am hoping the reopening of Grey Gables will bring some new characters and SL.

I too am a long standing listener who constantly threatens to give it up but deep down I know it’s never going to happen. Listening to TA has punctuated my life - I breastfed my children to it, studied to it, learnt to drive to it, did the dishes to it and on and on and on.

I feel like a tormented wife who knows full well they should LTB and stop the suffering but it’s not going to happen, it’s pathetic!

It's not pathetic, TA is/was a comfort, an escapism from RL and for me a substitute for family and friends lol! Perhaps it's a form of co-dependence.
I'm probably all talk and will tune in again.

I think you might be surprised what is really going on.
Plenty of affairs, definitely alcoholics and quite a bit of county lines and dogging in my area.

Just listening to Alice and Harry. It's such a ridiculous SL. She would no way endanger her recovery like this.

The pub in our village had their cooking oil stolen this week, from a locked shed. The same people broke into a bigger pub in the next village on the same night and stole their cooking oil.

Our local has had to ban various people for being violent, and for being paedophiles.

I don't think you know as much about your village as you think you do.

Goodness, what dens of iniquity you live in! 🤣 . My village is just a few houses round a crossroads, quite a few elderly people, so it's really quiet. And even if there nefarious things going on, it's not a constant crisis to crisis. I just miss the everyday stuff in TA, like the village shows and little rivalries, trivial stuff, and the farming chat and sounds. It's just too much drama at the moment.

The SW should definitely do a storyline on cooking oil theft. Surprised they haven't yet.

Police urge business owners to be vigilant following a rise in cooking oil thefts | Gloucestershire Constabulary

It is possible to live in a village of one and a half thousand souls and not have perpetual Bad Stuff going on all round you; as with that wretched monastery in Shrewsbury where every new monk was quite likely to be a girl in disguise and murders happened on a twice-yearly basis so they could be solved by the Wise Old Monk whose name for the moment escapes me, or the appalling crime-wave in Midsomer (388 murders, 423 deaths, and an additional 250 attempted murders or suicides in twenty-five years), the amount of melodrama being constantly enacted in Ambridge is not really very convincing. If I lived there I would move away for a quiet life.

If Harry has been drinking as much and as long as it would take to do that much liver damage he probably shouldn't go cold turkey without medical supervision. It could be dangerous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome

The words 'can be fatal' fill me with crazy hope.

Brother Cadfael.

Thread title thoughts?

More farmer, less drama?

I like that. Something to work with.

Omg another Lord Peter fan?

A play version of ‘Busman’s Honeymoon’ is on at my local theatre this week.

I must reread the books.

Edit: and a play adapted by a former Archers scriptwriter is on at the same theatre in July. I wonder if it will be similar to the version of The Canterbury Tales he helped Lynda write?

Oh, me too, me too. Very memorable things in them there books.

I like the books. Harriet is great. I can't stand LPW.

<dons flameproof suit>

Just listening. I really don’t need to hear Harry working his way through these steps in this much detail. I can’t bear his voice and his constant repetition of her name. And this really felt like an educational episode.

god Miranda is a know it all. I find her quite unbearable. Amazed at all these older people riding the way they do.

I don't need to hear Harry at all.

I'm assuming the'll be an AA kerfuffle about Alice being Harry's sponsor and as for the blurriness of relationship status, at least in Harry's mind....