Archers thread #165: Bridge over troubled waters! 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 believe Rochelle exists, 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 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/5071889-the-archers-spoilers-thread-9-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.)

This thread may well fill up as fast as the last one, so let's just get stuck in!

Wasn’t it ‘be kind’? I remember wanting to punch her in the solar plexus, and that would definitely do it…

but but but

She was running her own business! She rented premises from Bridge Farm, but the Tea'n'Tat business was her own. She had been running it for years.

So what Harrison did was prevent her from continuing to run her own business, just in a different place. He certainly squashed that idea flat.

(I still don't understand how Tom and Natasha could take it over without paying Fallon for it; they could tell her to get out of their premises, but they didn't own anything more than the walls and the roof.)

(goes and listens)

My apologies to Eastie77. You're right, it was. Which is worse, not better.

If she'd had the guts to give this advice to both of them it might be tolerable, but it was definitely only the woman in the relationship that Jolene was talking to. Not on. And she was too scared of hurting Harrison's Feelz to want to go with her daughter to hospital when her daughter had begged her to: "it might be awkward". Not for Fallon it wouldn't have been; Fallon wanted her there.

Sorry if you find it blah blah blah as I was actually using your own arguments and turning them round from the other point of view so you could see they can be applied to both sides, not just the one you support most.

It is clear Harrison wanted children but was not willing to give Fallon up to have them, so he sacrificed something very important to him to keep something more important. So he was deferring to Fallons absolute wishes. Until of course he thought their child was growing inside Fallon, then lost it, which basically made him lose it. He wants Fallon but he wanted that baby. I think it unreasonable to expect him to know what strength of emotions would come to play in that situation.

Equally Fallon defers to him on certain things, it is not for us to project our own desires and annoyances on what works for Fallon. Or you could say perhaps she should go and find a partner who would support her better. The main point is no relationship is perfect, both sides have to compromise to some extent to make it work and whilst both are happy with the relationship and feel it is working for them, then so long as neither is coming to significant harm, it is up to them.

As far as a clump of cells pregnancies move beyond that very rapidly. But most importantly to Harrison it was his baby, his child, which he basically thinks Alice murdered.

I think very little of someone who shortly after his wife has been put in fear of her life, and, while she is having a miscarriage and is in pain because of it, elects to attack one of her friends violently in her presence and scare her badly.

Harrison believes that Alice nearly killed his wife by drunk driving. Same Alice who nearly cost him his job. Alice isn’t just one of Fallon’s friends.

Harrison nearly cost himself his job with his big mouth- for the second time in his career. Xref him not being able to stop himself shouting to the whole village about the miscarriage

should he have been disciplined for arresting Fallon purely to get to know her? That was surely unprofessional!

Harrison has shown more concern for a clump of cells which may well have never resulted in anything other than a heavy period than his, living, breathing wife.

He's made it all about his feelings, starting with the , in my view, unforgivable disclosure to Alan.

Alan is a vicar, and exactly the right person for Harrison to talk to.

Do you think Harrison should have just suffered in silence?

Well he wasn’t suffering at the point he spoke to alan

but think it would be good to speak with him now. Fallon not wanting to tell anyone has been blown out the water so I can’t imagine she’s forbidden him from discussing it now

Bloody Harrison wasn’t ‘suffering’ at all when he blew the gaff to the vicar. On the contrary, he was like a dog with two cocks, full of the joys of his missus being upduffed whether she liked it or not. Git.

At the time he blabbed to Alan, Harrison thought his wife was pregnant. In spite of having been asked by his wife to keep quiet about this (she probably knowing just how little the foetus' chances of survival were, especially since she wears a coil), he boasted about it to the first person he spent any time with.

Going back to Alan to say "I was wrong, she's had a miscarriage" and cry on his shoulder would have been forgivable. Bellowing about it to the whole village in a fury is absolutely bad behaviour, and shows no concern for his wife at all.

A clump of cells with a non metaphorical heart, if the script it to be believed. So if it was expected to have a heart it was a bit beyond the clump of cells description.

I have repeatedly criticised Harrison’s self obsessed inappropriate and thoughtless behaviour, and praised Fallon for her kindness and understanding, most especially given all the turmoil she had been through.

It was obvious the script writers would make him blurt it out. But he is mourning and possibly also tortured by the dichotomy of his feelings of his love for Fallon (yes not being reflected in an objectively considerate or reasonable way recently - or anything close) and the strength of his feelings for the pregnancy and its loss. He needed to speak to someone and possibly a stranger would not be right for him, but he needed to explain that to Fallon first and then do it as a calm deliberate act under the strict understanding of it being confidential.

edit.. sorry only just realised he did it before pregnancy ended

The idiot blurted it out as soon as he knew about the pregnancy.

Almost nobody announces pregnancy that early, and it was Fallon's decision when to tell and to whom.

And then, so help me, he wanted to tell her family she had had a miscarriage, and also his family because "they would want to know". Good grief. Does he tell them every time she has a period, too, just so they are kept abreast of all possible gynaecological detail about her?

Is her having had a miscarriage any business of his father's? His brother's? The aunts and uncles maybe?

Why not just take out an advertisement in the Borchester Echo?

Now I agree with 90% of the Harrison criticism because he's been a knobber. BUT i do think it was fair enough to talk to Alan and would be fair enough going forward to go back to him. There's something about vicars that just makes me want to confide in them! and I'm not even religious... and don't forget Harrison now is. So I thought that rang true and wasn't a dick move. Unlike almost everything else...

You think it's ok to tell the vicar about an early stage pregnancy? Without the consent of the pregnant woman?

Genuine question: what kind of advice do you think Jolene should have given instead?

Yes @IHaveNeverLivedintheCastle I do. The point of talking to a vicar is that it doesn't and indeed can't go any further. It was her pregnancy but their foetus.

"I will come with you because you feel you need me" would have been good. Not advice, but practical action.

I’m guessing that pint glass will end up being launched at his head

entirely predictable that someone was going to have a go at Alice once she left the house

they’re really ratcheting up the Alice hate/george love

a dormouse 🙄

That didn’t sound much like Tracy. She’s usually understanding - I can see she’s been pushed to the limit by Alice after seeing Chris but I don’t think she’d say, ‘better off without you’. After all, she wouldn’t have liked judgement over Chelsea’s termination - people make mistakes, big mistakes sometimes- they are only human.

Tracy was vile to Emma over Keith being caught committing arson because Emma fingered him. She is capable of real nastiness after jumping to a conclusion.

a dormouse 🙄

Quite, unless they were taking Champion for a walk at night, always assuming it hadn’t been frightened away by, say, two humans and a horse tramping towards it

Haven't commented on here for quite a while, just read the comments, but came on here to see if anyone else was shocked at Chelsea saying to George "Lonely old business man looking for bum". 😲

Not one comment, so I went back and listened to it on full blast, I think she said "looking for fun", so, as you were.