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!

Weren’t the pigs johns thing originally?

I meant John - Hayley was John’s girlfriend. Going back a few years now!

I feel like toms pig obsession grew from grief

I can't remember the stalkyness when Fallon and Harrison got together, what happened?

She said "no" to going out with him because she had looked for him on line and found him ladding it up with a gun club, and disliked what she saw. He ignored her and took to turning up wherever she was and trying to make himself indispensable to her. He arrested her father, and even then, when she told him to get out of her life and stay out he didn't hear her and went right on turning up at her and being "helpful".

It's all in Lowfield, starting him with joining her quiz team at The Bull when she actively didn't want him there on 2nd June 2014 (and causing them to lose, too, in his eagerness to show Jazzer up when Jazzer had an answer right). He pestered her both by text and in person.

I'm finding Harrison's behaviour really unrealistic now. I've always thought of him as not very bright but basically decent (although I know some here disagree). On that basis his reaction to the miscarriage - his distress and need to blame someone - seemed believable. But his weird and very unpleasant behaviour at the cricket match seems wholly out of character to me and I don't understand why his distress would manifest in such an odd way.
As others have said, it seems likely he is going to thump someone and lose his job. I'd be very happy to see Adam and/or Alistair getting thumped. They are both deeply irritating, although I suspect Harrison's employers wouldn't see that as a valid defence.

I think that it ought to be borne in mind that PC Burns was introduced by Sean O'Connor, whose ideas about how women a] want to be treated and b] should be treated seem to have included Kathy being bullied out of her job at the golf club by Martyn Gibson, and more distressingly the sexual abuse (and specifically coercive control) of Helen by Rob.

That James Cartwright, who plays Burns, had just been charged with smashing someone's eye-socket in a brawl outside a nightclub when O'Connor selected him to play a policeman somewhat shocked me at the time as well: employing him at that precise point seemed like a naughty boy cocking a snook at his teacher by doing something Bad but not punishable. But I do know that is not the fault of Harrison Burns.

Did he arrest Fallon too and make her spend a night in the cells? I never understood why she changed her mind

that story was all about a man not taking no for an answer and then showing all the other men out there that it works! I guess soc thought it was romantic but I thought it was super creepy and unrealistic

Yes the stalker type behaviour at the outset was creepy and unpleasant, but since then he seems to have portrayed as a basically decent person IMO. It feels to me as if the SWs are suddenly turn him into someone different.

Whereas it doesn’t feel to me at all like a personality transplant, more that this is a side of the ‘real’ Burns that he’s managed to keep largely hidden (at least in private life). I admit that prejudice might be playing a part here, but it also sits easily with his behaviour when he first appeared, as outlined by previous posters.

Yes it seems like this is him when he isn’t getting his way in life

and there was a rumbling of mysogyny in the way he spoke to and about the female characters. It was very uncomfortable listening. I wish they could have paid for Tom to be in the scene

if your response to grief and the realisation you’re not going to get your way is to turn into a grade A arsehole then you are most likely a grade A arsehole

He did arrest her, and then when he let her out claimed to have cautioned her, which would not be his business to do as arresting officer (if he was even still on duty the following morning).

And if she had accepted a caution on a drunk and disorderly, that's goodbye to her licence to sell alcohol, as far as I know. So that must have been some sort of fake.

I seem to recall she wasn’t even particularly drunk and not disorderly?

of course given everything that’s come out in recent years they would never be able to write his particular courtship style now

No sympathy for Harrison, he knew Fallon's feelings about having children. He clearly just assumed she would eventually change her mind before ethe biological clock ran out. He's making it all about him.

I think we're heading for a Harrison/Fallon break up and a Chris/Alice reunion.

She was trying to thump her ex-boyfriend "only messin'" Rhys Williams, who had told her he had to go back to Wales to nurse someone, or some such.

Lowfield says that they were on Kirsty's hen night, and
"Fallon has too much to drink, and then spots Rhys with another girl. Her friends are unable to stop her confronting, and then assaulting the pair. Fallon is thrown out by the bouncers, and does not go quietly, resulting in her being arrested by none other than PC Burns."

The BBC synopsis says
"Fallon sees Rhys in the club, kissing a young woman. She's livid and confronts them. Things escalate quickly and Fallon is thrown out of the club. Seeing PC Burns, she tries to convince him that she's been unfairly treated. Helen does her best to drag drunk and disorderly Fallon to a taxi but she won't be calmed."

Many of us found Burns courtship style pretty sick even back in 2014.

Fair enough.

That's when I gave up listening for a while and only came back when I accidentally heard an episode with Helen and Rob and thought something interesting was going on.

Gosh that bridge being out of action is creating havoc!

unsurprising that bartleby didn’t win!

poor cow.

and poor Josh - not even there and they have to make a dig!!

and now Alastair has panics over going into water

sw are definitely milking the crash sl and all possible outcomes!! They’re going to need an army of psychotherapists descend on ambridge.

freddies conversation with George is going to delay a confession!

They’re going to need an army of psychotherapists descend on ambridge.

I read that as "an army of psychopaths" and thought "Bring it on!"

freddies conversation with George is going to delay a confession!

Pricking his conscience, though…

If the Am is so shallow that a ford (with no road on either side of it) is easily passable in a car, but deep enough for a car to be completely submerged in it, it really must be tidal. We've known that it is ever since it was said by Adam to have washed debris down to Hollerton during the Flood when usually it flows down to Borchester, but this is just more confirmation.

I didn't get the impression that this was the road (with a bridge) where the accident happened, but rather that it was another road (with a ford) where a car had broken down, blocking the crossing.

But then I rarely pay attention to detail when it comes to TA. Why should I, if the scriptwriters don't?

The wife’s Miscarriage: all about Harrison
Christianity: all about Harrison
Cricket: all about Harrison
Harry and Alice: all about Harrison

he is such a tediously selfish man

The ford near Brookfield does not have a road leading to it on either side of the river, though; it has a footpath.

But road or not, it is a ford, shallow enough to wade through when fully clothed. And it is about 250 metres upstream of a bridge where the water was so deep that a car was completely submerged in it.

and there was a rumbling of mysogyny in the way he spoke to and about the female characters. It was very uncomfortable listening. I wish they could have paid for Tom to be in the scene

Even better if the target of Harrison’s aggression was Tom, who generally deserves a good thump, although it will give him something else to whine and be the victim over.

I shall add @LardoBurrows’s excellent quote of “chronic pig botherer” to my usual “regional sausage merchant” description of Tom.