Archers thread #166: Choppy waters in Ambridge! Look out for the red flags and 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'd love to be married to Harrison, 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.)

Another thread started in great haste, mid-packing! Over to you.

You'll regret saying that when you're inundated with Mankwold.

Your grandmother sounds like would have got on well with my mother, who would sometimes go to ask the butcher for a bone for our non-existent dog. I don't think it crossed her mind that she should borrow an actual dog as a prop though!

She also keeps a 'beware of the dog' sticker in her front door, in the hopes that it will scare of potential burglars.

She refuses to have a dog, because she grew up on a farm and believes that dogs should be free-roaming animals and only allowed into the house in the dead of winter. She also doesn't believe in buying food specifically for pets, and thinks that feeding them table scraps is sufficient. As she is the sort of person who thinks that a bone is an excellent basis for a meal for several humans, there are barely enough scraps to feed a hamster, never mind a dog. So all in all it's as well she doesn't have one!

Tying it to DDay specifically is odd.

Given the wartime conditions I am afraid my lime marmalade and parsnip cake may have to be made without the lime marmalade, or indeed much sugar, but I'm sure everyone will understand and enter into the spirit of the thing.

She also keeps a 'beware of the dog' sticker in her front door, in the hopes that it will scare of potential burglars.

’Beware of the soup’ might serve just as well ( no disrespect to Mamma Gasp intended)

I'm contemplating getting a Beware of the Flying Flapjack sign. I'll get a spare one for Brookfield

Flying flapjacks, marmalade cake, Brexit, dogs or no dogs and now boneless soup. This thread gets very random very quickly some days…

It's FinkMamma with the dogless bone soup. She actually makes two very tasty soups: one with a tomato base and one with a potato base. I pass on the ones containing various animal offcuts. Gaspmother is the one who hops around a Scottish island on its excellent bus service.

I was just trying to move the conversation away from Harrison's sex life!

For which some of us are very grateful.

It does but what about The Archers would you like to discuss instead?
No sex please we're British. (I am anyway)

I though he wasn't having one at the moment, and serve the unfeeling guppy right.

Rivetting though all this talk of cakes has been, if we're going to talk about TA again, I will ask again how long we think it will be before the great reveal?

I fear it may be years in the future. I hope not.

Yep I think years too. They like a slow burn.

the crash seems to be a slow burn. Hopefully months rather than years

Looks like Roy is getting his happy ever after in Bulgaria

following their drivers? What kind of operation are they running. And why have they assumed it’s just one driver - if it’s not linked to one driver then it could be more than one

they seem keen for us to understand strangles

is Oliver's old boy going to die? I guess they’re not going to tell the grundys and there will have been kids from the stables who went to get their fortune told…

is Oliver's old boy going to die? I guess they’re not going to tell the grundys and there will have been kids from the stables who went to get their fortune told…

Yes, it's looking ominous for Oliver's horse, and/or Bartleby given the public service info about how Strangles can be passed on.

I thought that was an unusually good episode. Fagash being sensible made me wonder, is Jakob's calm sanity as infectious as strangles? (See also the way Kate behaves around him these days.)

I assume Oliver's horse is done for. Will Champion The Unloved Pony survive and, if not, will it all turn out to have been Alice's fault?

I'm also enjoying the Freddie storyline. Fingers crossed that nobody takes him up to the roof to show him where the stolen meat is being hidden.

Fingers crossed that nobody takes him up to the roof to show him where the stolen meat is being hidden.

“It’s what Nigel Elizabeth would have wanted”

I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of criminal with access to an abattoir

I'm thinking Jason must be a red herring

Amazing that Elizabeth’s relationship with Vince has lasted so long. Fascinating.

I'm glad Freddy is standing up for his fellow ex-con and hope he is right to do so.

I've just realised that Clare Perkins who plays Denise is Myrna in The Outlaws (which I absolutely love). She actually looks as I had imagined Denise. Normally I find it very unsettling that TA actors don't look at all as I expect them to.

That would be a very pleasing outcome!

Incidentally, there was some chat about "bribing" people with free meat. I was in the (very good) local butcher's shop the other day and had to wait for a while because there was a bloke buying industrial quantities of stuff. It was probably for a care-home. When the bill had been totted up (well over £100) and paid, I saw the butcher chuck a couple of steaks into the bag. And that is why they keep the business.

New series of the Outlaws on right now.