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!

I think the Fallon pregnancy is worse

Denise doesn't seem like a real person - most of the characters have a little development, but what do we know about her? She's the vet practice nurse (have we heard he interact with customers in any meaningful way?), she has a son and a husband, and Alistair thinks she's beautiful and fancies her. Over the weekend we learned she's a good swimmer, and evidently thinks a hearty meal is a good prelude to a night of passion (which suggests to me she isn't in love with A and suffering palpitations and loss of interest in anything except him when in his presence - such an annoying condition, always so lovely when it clears up).

If they haven't developed her as a 'real' person, does that mean I can hope the whole horrible story will be over soon.

How long is it since Neil got Weil's disease? 30 years? 40?

Didn’t Kirsty catch something nasty after swimming in the Am not long ago? It is probably full of sewage from Rex’s boat- bleugh!

Chris seemed to take the whole thing very well considering how radically his life is about to change. If I was Alice though I would find his doe-eyes irritating in the extreme. Just a constant reminder of how far I have fallen.

Thanks for the new thread GaspOde

These threads are so knowledgeable and funny - Denise getting the bends made me laugh.

I'm also wondering if George's wonder phone will turn out to be OK

Or at least the sim/data card. The gubbins of the phone might be wrecked but the sim/data card only had a brief dunking and probably survived.

it will be Chris who saves Alice - he believes in her and clearly that's what the pointed mention about him still being in love with her

I liked that too. Alice is so wracked with guilt over what she supposedly did that she'll believe anything of herself because she thinks she's an awful person whose out-of-control drinking nearly killed three people. It will be those around her who go "Hang on a minute, Alice doesn't drink fruit cider..."

And, hopefully, the bends.

How deep IS the Am?!

The penalty of catching up 4 pages at once and answering as you go along is that after three pages you meet the “new thread” post and realise no-one will ever read your replies.

only one which I will repeat here is I wondered whether Joy’s involvement in the SL was because Rochelle was miscarried and her entirely life has been in Joy’s head.

I wondered whether Joy’s involvement in the SL was because Rochelle was miscarried and her entirely life has been in Joy’s head Brilliant - I love this. Joy is key in so many ways to this story - it’s because of her concert ticket that Fallon was in the car, she sold the vodka to Alice, but more crucially she sold the cider to George. I can just hear her - accent and all - when she finds out (which she will) : No, that can’t be right. Alice didn’t buy the fruit cider - that was George. I distinctly remember he couldn’t afford anything else and the fruit cider was on offer. You remember don’t you Alistair? It was just before Alice came in for the vodka. But that won’t happen until Harrison has gone to town on Alice.

Denise could have caught that worm thing that crawls up your below stairs. But it was the Am not the Amazon. Like the idea of the bends made me laugh.

And, hopefully, the bends

😀sure Eddie Grundy would be able to source a reliable hyperbaric chamber

i believe the Am is about 4inches deep ;)

Thanks for the warning. Regular Amazon customer here so just checked under my stairs to be on the safe side but no worms thank god, just dust.

I remember young David paddling around in the Am under that bridge looking for old bottles. Someone (either Dan or Uncle Tom) made him a glass-bottomed bucket to facilitate the search, but bratty Dave had changed hobbies and snubbed him. Nasty boy, shouldn't have been let get away with it.

But things have changed (including the direction the river runs) since then.

It's like Felpersham, which used to be a small city, with Birmingham the only 'local' metropolis that provided cheeky chappies, gangsters, distant jobs, Neil's girlfriend Julie etc etc. But now Felpersham is huge multicultural city with a Lord Mayor.

The SWs don't want to write about rural life, small town life or little provincial city life. All their terms of reference are metropolitan and they are too lazy to stretch their imaginations.

I like Alastair and Denise. Alice is awful. I couldn't care less what happens to her. Kate is awful too but she's amusing in her awfulness. Alice is as dull as the Am.

Canal boat toilets don't discharge into the water. If there are permanent moorings there should be proper discharge points not too far away.

Alice is so wracked with guilt over what she supposedly did that she'll believe anything of herself because she thinks she's an awful person whose out-of-control drinking nearly killed three people.

Alice was bound to have been driving over the limit before her alcoholism became public knowledge. She's lucky the SW's didn't write a realistic drunk driving scene.

I can't drum up a shred of sympathy for her. She's a spoilt, peevish, whiny brat.

I agree @IHaveNeverLivedintheCastle .

I'm looking forward to the "Clear Up The Am" campaign s/l with guest appearance by Feargal Sharkey.

Kate is awful too but she's amusing in her awfulness.

Sometimes she definitely is. At the moment, not so much. Although it was vaguely amusing the other day when she was LARPing a responsible adult and chucking around words like ‘perpetrator’ to remember the occasion when she went and got so stewed at lunchtime that her teenage daughter had to confiscate her car keys to prevent her driving back to Ambridge.(The humble algae-herding daughter, not the priggish history Miss)

I have 25+ years experience of the alcoholism of a much loved close relative. IME, however fundamentally decent they may be, alcoholics are ruled entirely by their addiction when they are drinking and all cultural norms and relationships are completely obliterated.
Alice nearly dropped her baby at the christening, tried to kiss her best friend's husband and threw a brick through the shop window. I have absolutely no doubt that she will have driven drunk at some time and I think any suggestion that she wouldn't because she is too nice is just naive.
Also it is totally true IME that an alcoholic will drink anything when they feel the need to drink. In this case we know Alice didn't drink the fruit ciders but, if she hadn't had a bottle of vodka to hand, she absolutely would have done if she had been desperate (as Alice herself recognised). My loved one once drank a whole bottle of ouzo (from a bottle tombola) when there was nothing else in the house - so I rest my case!
If Alice is found guilty and perhaps goes to prison this could be the "rock bottom" she needs to get her sober for good. I hope so.
It follows that I have no problem if the truth never comes out - although I suspect George will be starting to come over all Lady Macbeth if he has to keep lying indefinitely.

Couldn’t George say that the chain events was: he came across Alice in the car*, put the Cider down whilst he tried to rouse her, then realised there was an overturned car in the Am and ran to the rescue and then returned to check on Alice.

Everyone saw him run off in the direction of Alice’s car after he saved Fallon so he must have already known she was there.

*I don’t know where Haydn Bridge is in relation to his house and if it would make sense for him to have been walking that way back from the party but everyone seems to have accepted there wasn’t anything unusual in him being there so🤷🏽‍♀️

Well yes that’s what I was thinking. I don’t think the fruit cider is the golden ticket here

But that won’t happen until Harrison has gone to town on Alice.

I suspect Harrison is going to lose the plot with Alice. And it'll be "You killed MY baby" - not our baby, or the baby - because not only is an actual baby that didn't happen very different to a hypothetical baby that didn't happen, but he'll have seen this as his only chance to have the child he so desperately wants.

It's so much easier for him to blame Alice for the accident causing a miscarriage and therefore there being no baby, rather than accepting that Fallon may well have opted for a termination and therefore no baby anyway.

I like Harrison as a character generally but I have little sympathy for those who get into (and stay) in a relationship with someone who doesn't want children without either being able to accept that fully and come to terms with it, or allowing their resentment to spill over.

I don't dislike A & D, just find the affair storyline rather dull. And AliSTARE, arghh!

I wonder if Alice will commit suicide whilst in the depths of her despair. George will be so racked with guilt that eventually the truth will out.

Here here @BrightYellowDaffodil (or is hear hear? I have NEVER known).

George is a long term character for the future - him raping or being integral to suicide would not work for that