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.

Oooh what did Asking say to get deleted?!

Just gimme the gist.

Nothing controversial, as far as I could tell. It was in response to the poster who speculated that maybe all the SW were white, naming a couple who probably weren't. Can't remember the names because I don't pay attention to the SW or editors, but one of them had a Sikh name.

Underwoods!!

Philippines restaurant scene was pretty painful. Why are his staff Filipino except for the chef? Very unprofessional bullying your boss/step father into a decision by taking him to lunch with your mother/his girlfriend. Wonder how usual it is to have a work canteen these days. And a gym? He’s so privileged.

not sure I can face Harrison touring the village discussing his loss. At least he seems to accept that she doesn’t want kids

On the one hand, I did not need to hear Tom giving lending credibilty to Harrison's behaviour by equating it to a late term miscarriage. On the other hand, if it hastens the inevitable confrontation between him and Fallon and they finally realise that they want incompatible futures, then so much the better, because she needs rid of him sooner rather than later.

Not sure if this has been addressed in previous thread but, how come no one is asking how come George was just walking by the scene of the accident as soon as it happened? I can't believe he got away with blaming Alice, and presumably she wasn't sitting at the wheel either when they got back to the car! It just doesn't add up to me...

He moved her into the drivers seat but why he was walking past remains a mystery no one thought about

Good old British police work - wait 4-6 weeks for blood test results when she was clearly wasted and not bother doing any other investigation until results are back

It was excrutiating. Speaking as someone who eats a lot of filipino food (parish social events), the walk through a stereotypical menu was so stilted. Why didn't they throw in pansit and lechon just to make sure that between them they had eaten every filipino dish that the British public have heard of?!

Plus, even though there was the line that not every worker is Filipino, are we now meant to infer that the majority are? And therefore, all the workplace bullying Freddie has endured was one ethnic minority group ganging up on the one white kid (apart from the cook)? The SWs maybe should have thought that through a little more carefully.

I have to say I didn’t imagine the workforce as being predominantly Filipino. From the bullying I was expecting some stereotype of working class thug

however, maybe he is pushing for the food and gym to try and make friends. Personally whenever my work do something like that (eg free coffee machine) I tend to feel I would rather get the extra £2 a year it costs them

How much police time does a minor shunt - which is all it was - merit? Had it not been on the bridge ( past caring which bridge or bit of water) everyone would have walked away virtually undamaged* (well, Alice probably couldn’t have walked, but you know what I mean. There is no reason, as far as the police know, that George shouldn’t have been passing. They have someone obviously impaired by alcohol in the driver’s seat of one car and, presumably, a coherent statement from the sober enough driver of the other car. There’s no point I can see for them to turn it into a major investigation, and there are not the resources for this to be done as a matter of course. Eyebrows might be raised when they see how low the blood levels were in her alcohol, but then again they might not - there are recorded cases of people with insanely high BACs ‘functioning’ enough to drive and perform other tasks.

*yes, in this scenario, George would have been in a bit of bother, I do realise that.

It wouldn't be murder because UK law doesn't recognise a foetus as a person.

I mean the bridge appears to be majorly damaged leading to great expense and inconvenience

I know that. I meant aside from that there was no intention to kill which would need to be there for it to be classed as murder even if it involved the death of a full grown adult.

My feeling is that the previous scenes at the abattoir, with the bullying, the SW probably had in mind the stereotypical British working class banter/thug, as you say. Now they have decided to do a different SL, with a majority Filipino workforce. But I don't think they have bothered to remember what this implies about the previous storyline. Either that or they're just hoping that the listeners won't remember, which seems foolish given how short a time ago it was and how eagle-eared many of the listeners are.

I would be very surprised if the bullying SL is going to reappear with Freddie as the token non-Filipino being ostracised by all the other workers because he's just not one of them, despite his offering of homecooked pork lumpia. That would be problematic, to say the least.

Yes!!

and who knew ambridge had a thriving Filipino community!

Winding up a new management trainee is something which crosses race and cultural barriers. Pretty much par for the course and not much at all to do with Freddie not being Filipino, I shouldn’t think.

I do know a couple of towns where the 'meat factory' is staffed by people mainly from one non-local ethnicity. Being rather horrible but well-paid jobs seems to make people keen to work with others from their own community if not family.
So one town all Filipinos, one all Brazilians, one all Moldovans. For once a story detail that rings true.

But they weren't in Ambridge, the restaurant was in the thriving metropolis of Borchester! I have no idea where the abattoir is, but not in the village. It could well be located next to Borsetshire's Manila Town 😅

Yes

I don't object to that. Like you say, there are certain low-prestige industries which do seem to attract a group of workers from one place in a particular area. Around here, it's noticeable that the majority of the food app delivery drivers are Brazilian, for example, despite Brazilians not being a major demographic in the community overall. What bothers me is that they're doing it alongside a recent SL of Freddie being bullied by the same people,

I always assumed abattoir was on outskirts of ambridge but hopefully Asking can confirm!

maybe Rochelle is dead and so the man in the house genuinely didn’t know her as that was her house before him. He’s probably fed up of getting all her post

But Borchester is a small rural town which some sources equate with Evesham. The county town/city is Felpersham, and a more likely location for a Filipino community. Why Borchester isn’t the county town of Borsetshire I shall never understand

The towns I know with ethnic minority slaughtermen are all in the 10,000 ish population range, and I think of Borchester as bigger than that - Underwoods would seem to need 50k or so to support it.

Would it? Romsey (20 000) has Bradbeers, Dorchester (21 000 - possibly around 25 000 if you include Poundbury,) has Goulds. And that's just two Borchester-like towns I know.

The deletion was because I used the words "infest the programme" (or possibly "infest Ambridge") about an objectionable individual, which was deemed to be "a little inflammatory." It's actually a reference to the Horrobins in Hope Mirlees' Unheard of Ambridge.

The rest of the post was pointing out, in reply to the suggestion that the the SWs might all be white and sensitive about their portrayal of people who are not white perhaps being misinterpreted, that at least three scriptwriters in recent years have been other than white. (And having looked at their pictures on the internet I know that they are not white; I checked before I posted.) The point was not what race anyone was; it was that not all are white.