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!

Not sure how much compassionate leave Harrison got as he said he took annual leave also. Much to Fallons disbelief (especially as she was back in work) as they were supposed to be saving time off for a holiday.

I just think they need to speak to get it all out in the open to stop Harrison’s ranting and help him get more perspective. They can then deal with their relationship status honestly, easier said than done.

I think Fallon did not want to hurt him further by reminding him she didn’t want children and also perhaps does not want to lose him by pushing the matter. But even Fallon must be getting a bit brassed off now, given all that happened to her and she is back at work, when the compassionate leave was probably partly because of the accident and to support his wife through it all anyway.

Of course hard to apply logic and sense to drama when it thrives on hidden feelings, misunderstandings, secrets and lies.

More to the point -how can I get the number of this very efficient dishwasher repairman!

I may be misremembering, but didn't the doctor say something to the effect that the miscarriage might have nothing to do with the accident, and was just as likely to have been the coil doing its job. There was no way of knowing. I can't remember whether he said that in front of Harrison and, if not, whether Fallon has told him. I probably wouldn't have told him anything, after his performance! Awful man.

Ha ha just beaten to it by RS re compassionate leave / A/L / swapping shifts

Doctor told them both at scan I believe, but Harrison formed his opinion and was deaf to other information. A common thread in police drama’s coincidentally but something also common in this divided world.

As I remember it, @Gonners, the doctor said it was hard/impossible to tell whether it was anything to do with the accident, but not that it could have been the coil. He only mentioned that in the context of removing it to precipitate expulsion of the dead fœtus.
And Harrison is too thick to think of it himself. I suspect his understanding of how lady-bits work hasn’t progressed much since his early teens.

The SWs do seem to go out of their way to make it all about the father when someone loses a baby. I'm thinking of Tom (and Kirsty), Ben (and Chelsea) and now Harrison. Someone upthread said Fallon and Harrison need to talk to each other. I agree (as I generally believe that communication is important), but ultimately it’s not going to help. He wants kids, she doesn’t and there’s no getting around that. I think this is the crux of this storyline - it's the urgent realisation by Harrison that he really does want kids and it's not something he can neatly set to one side to fall in with Fallon.
I also noticed the mention of a surprise party for Joy with an attempt to get in touch with the mysterious Rochelle. I'm hoping this won't be what prevents Joy from recalling that she sold the fruit cider to George (I'm actually thinking it might be as it feels that by moving Alice to London any sort of investigation is about to go quiet - a bit like the failure to ever hold Knob to account for the blocked culvert).

@LillianGish I'm hoping failure to get in touch with Rochelle will lead to a discovery as to Joy's secret past...

I really want to find out Joy’s back story but I’m concerned it won’t be anywhere near as good as some of our theories.

Spot on, sorry I was confusingly just responding to
“but didn't the doctor say something to the effect that the miscarriage might have nothing to do with the accident”
but missing the bit about the coil

It was of course on here that there was a lot of conversation about the coil actually being the very likely cause. I wondered why the doctor had not mentioned that possibility, but it probably would have been indelicate. Also discussed on here but not by doctor, that the positive pregnancy test did not preclude the possibility that the pregnancy had already ended before the accident.

I thought the cricket tea would be sandwiches and cake. Didnt know it còuld be a full on dinner ie chilli con carne, how do they play after? If our team is anything to go by, they can’t

Pat was born on 10th January 1952 and is now seventy two, so damn right she is, as well as never having played before she was in the Veterans' Team. (She was already too old to be a novice in the usual team by the time Harrison was lying and slandering to force the vote on letting women play, in 2017. Usha is ten years younger and she was too old for the team.)

Harrison's attack on Pat was disgusting: he is a thoroughly nasty bully now, and has never actually been a nice bloke as far as I was concerned because he started out as a stalker.

He is also a direly bad policeman in several respects, and because of his public gun-club boasting not a good one in that respect either.

Someone upthread said Fallon and Harrison need to talk to each other. I agree (as I generally believe that communication is important), but ultimately it’s not going to help. He wants kids, she doesn’t and there’s no getting around that.

I completely agree. I've been there. No amount of talking will a) change the fact that two people want completely different lives which are incompatible and/or b) lessen the shock of someone who has been told that their partner doesn't want children coming to the realisation that this actually means not having children at all. EVER.

You'd be amazed at the number of men who hear "I don't want children" and translate it as "Yeah, but I will in the end if you badger me enough, plus I will realise that what the world truly needs is your offspring".

Salty about it still, me?

Similarly, Alistair told Ed firmly that there was no reason to attribute the outbreak of abortion in his herd to dogs on his land, but Ed knew better than the vet and started a crusade against dogs, which culminated in his loosing off a gun at a dog in the twilight and killing it.

@BrightYellowDaffodil You'd be amazed at the number of men who hear "I don't want children" and translate it as "Yeah, but I will in the end if you badger me enough, plus I will realise that what the world truly needs is your offspring".

I strongly recommend long-divorced men with adult children on the other side of a large body of water.

Harrison’s mask has truly slipped hasn’t it. It’s as if all the good natured bonhomie over the last few years has just been a big act. There’s an annoying aphorism I hear all the time “when someone shows you who they are, believe them..” which certainly applies here.

Ditto mean drunk Alice who definitely reveals her true colours when she’s had a few. Ruari had better don a hard had over the next few weeks.

I’ve never liked Harrison so I’m not v surprised he’s reacting like this and making it all about him, if I were Fallon I’d be finding it unforgivable.

I’m so sorry for your losses @iratepirate 💙

Didn’t Kirsty famously nearly marry chronic pig botherer Tom? AS IF a man that obsessed with himself wouldn’t bore on about sows and piglets etc as well as other pig business at every opportunity.

Ooh this is vanishingly unlikely but I wonder if Harrison/Alice might be brought together by him actually solving a crime for once and proving her “innocence”?

Has anyone before explicitly said that Rochelle is ‘mysterious' - anyone else in TA, I mean? I know we speculate about her a lot here but I'm struggling to remember actually hearing any character say this. They may have done when Joy first arrived, of course…

I think someone did say something about it would be nice to finally meet Rochelle recently, can't remember who said though, Kirsty possibly.

They must be thinking it's odd she's never visited the village by now. Most of the characters are too wrapped up in their own lives to notice though I expect!

Yes, I heard that yesterday (?) and it struck me as unusual that someone actually said something, so I was wondering whether anyone had remarked on it before! Plus the fact that she’d apparently materialised at the hospital to see Joy but nobody had set eyes on her….except Joy 🤔

Are we being set up for a birthday party where well wishers cause devastation as Joy is forced to admit to herself that Rochelle doesn’t exist, rather as Jim was confronted by his abuser.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime Dead right. Harrison’s stalking of Fallon was sickening.

Didn’t Kirsty famously nearly marry chronic pig botherer Tom? AS IF a man that obsessed with himself wouldn’t bore on about sows and piglets etc as well as other pig business at every opportunity.

So true, he never stopped going on about his pigs and his sausages, for years and years and years.

Does anyone remember that Hayley wrote a spoof love poem for Tom that ended with “Tom Archer and his pigs”?