Archers thread #167: Welcome to Ambridge, the world capital of loose ends! 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 like The Archers to be wall to wall election conversations for the next month, 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.)

Over to you!

He can't imagine his life without her, and he can imagine it without a child who doesn't even exist. The non-existent child can just disappear.

i guess he can imagine it now he thinks there was a child

how old is Keira? It’s odd to ask Jake and Mia to vote aswell

Keira was born on 6th April, 2011.

Actual LOL

I know nothing about horses is £1500 a lot of money for a horse like Bartleby? It would be a lot of money to the Grundys - not to mention the money they’ll save from not having to pay for his medical care etc but why would a random woman want to buy such an old horse?

Yes it is but surely that pony is like a member of the family, how could they even consider it. Although tbf if she is genuine it could be a better place for him. Does he even have any company in his field?

He has Gem. Who is going to be left alone! Can’t meg take gem too?

I would want to visit Bartleby’s proposed new home before I could vote. More information needed.

Fallon will meet someone nice tomorrow night when she is out on the tiles. Burns is toast.

Yes it is but surely that pony is like a member of the family - well quite. Sorry I meant to add that. I can’t work out if that is how George feels or if it is just the fact he thinks he can make even more money out of him with social media.

Burns is toast 🤣🤣🤣

Harrison wants to talk to Fallon but she has said she doesn't want to talk about the miscarriage, last time I paid full attention.

As for Bartleby, is this some elaborate analogy about the upcmoing GE, and in that case who is Bartleby?

They agreed not to talk about it but when she confronted him about the service and asked him to explain himself he just ran away. That was the perfect time to say ‘Fallon, I’m grieving my dream of fatherhood. That was a future child to me and I’m struggling to come to terms with it. I know you feel differently but I can’t hide my feelings etc’

Lily, Ben (edit: or is it Josh?? I’ve confused my Archers), Paul, Fallon and Kirstie all out on the lash. Who’s going to pull whom?

echt
Harrison wants to talk to Fallon but she has said she doesn't want to talk about the miscarriage, last time I paid full attention.

The trouble is that what he wants to talk about, as she has discovered more than once, is not actually her (not "the"; he did not have a miscarriage, he didn't even have a mild belly-cramp) miscarriage, but the child he lost.

Since she did not "lose a child", she had an early miscarriage of an embryo neither of them knew existed until it no longer did, that is somewhat futile as far as she is concerned, and there is a limited number of times she should be forced to repeat this when she doesn't actually want to talk about it at all, to someone who has absolutely no sympathy for her.

For what is undoubtedly an old horse unexpected to last much longer, yes it’s a lot. But it’s generally accepted that it’s unfair to rehome an old horse unless absolutely necessary because it’s unfair to uproot them. Not only that, but they have absolutely no idea what this woman wants to do with him - for all they know, she’s going to hawk him around because of his “celebrity” driving the poor bugger into an even earlier grave.

I almost hope he gets strangles (there are worse ends for horses than a short illness where it’s obvious immediately that they won’t recover) and leaves the mercenary awful Grundys with a massive vets bill.

I'm not defending the characters' actions, and understand the status of the foetus, just saying what they are. The whole stupid SL is designed for Harrison to have a personality transplant and neither character to be able/want to speak with each other. Barmy and boring.

Just caught up on last night and - am I the first to blame bloody Alan? He turns up at Fallon’s cafe to buy a coffee and cheerily flourishes templates of order of service for baby loss at her over the counter? He does realise it was her pregnancy right? What an absolutely shit thing to do to someone at their work even if she’d known that a service was in the works in general (as he thought). I was so shocked I had to listen back to see if that was really what had happened.

Either could apply, but there'd be quite a lot of evidence needed. If they had married in the church then they would have had to sign papers in preparation saying that they accepted the Catholic understanding of the obligations of marriage, which includes openness to having children, so the presumption would be in favour of that. An annulment on these grounds would be more commonly granted if neither party had been Catholic at the time (happens in a large number of annulment cases, when a non-Catholic who has been married and divorced wants to marry a Catholic).

I just listened back because I missed it yesterday. You’re not wrong, @WitcheryDivine. Alan is an absolute muppet.

Precisely mentioned similar earlier, and to me was clear as day from his initial conversation with Harrison that they were having difficulty communicating on this, so was very indiscreet to assume Fallon knew without double checking with Harrison that he had definitely discussed it with her.

Knowing from Harrison of their very different opinions on the matter it was obvious it would be appalling for her to hear it first off Alan, like it was already planned and agreed. Given Alan’s role he should be super sensitive to these things not super Klutz.

Yes sorry I was not inferring it was murder myself but just what the despair of Harrison had actually referred to it as. Even more worryingly in a professional capacity to his boss. There is no doubt he would have known that this was legally not the situation. Showed how far he had strayed from the path of reality.

Harrison is annoying me. I'd like him replaced by his long lost, many times removed cousin, Mr Burns from The Simpsons.

I'd also sell Eddie over Bartleby any time.

Definite cheeky nod to "flogging a dead horse".

There are a couple of party leaders who meet that brief.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g Totally agree: Eddie not poor Bartleby.

Eddie isn’t worth £1500, though.

Incidentally, had the scriptwriting tic of adding the word ‘though’ to the end of every other utterance been discussed on here? It’s really very irritating.

You certainly know where you are with that Mr Burns, no up and down, just your archetypal, reliable, no boundaries scheming baddie.

Only problem being he comes as a pair with his sidekick Waylan Smithers. With them as a couple might resolve the to breed or not to breed issue, but not necessarily.