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!

Sorry it was just a joke based on the fact that so many things are classed as phobic. Should deffo have put that ;)

Got the impression that some were dismissing it as an embryo when as far as I understand unlike conception and implantation for e.g. that are very specific biological occurrences, the transition from embryo to foetus is more of an arbitrary definition based on a number of weeks rather than specific developmental occurrences if I am correct. Although of course they will be normally be at a similar stage of development at a given time, but it is a stage where they become quite human looking.

It was the first suitable picture I found via Google. I don't know exactly where, but on the Thames somewhere. A less attractive prospect in winter!

Around Little Venice they are well kitted out with water and power and quite sheltered really

I knew what you intended @VoxPop

Absolutely; but he should be allowed to talk to someone, preferably someone who doesn't know Fallon, and someone who can be trusted to keep confidences. Normally a minister of religion would be a good bet, but Alan is such a blabbermouth.

Normally, in RL, we’d just find someone - a counsellor, or a good personal not family friend, and not rub it in our partner’s face. The very opposite of thinking about arranging a baby loss service.

Neither! (grin) There are lovely sites where you can find out the number of days between one date (in this case Harrison's birthday on 3rd June 1985) and another (in this case 7th May 2024, the day Harrison was told that whatever it was that had been in Fallon's uterus had no heartbeat) so that you don't have to add up all the leap-days as well as the 365s.

You can also find out what the phase of the moon was on any given day, as it might be 2nd January 2011, and when it rose and set that day – which is how I know that when David said at the inquest that it was dark on the roof of Lower Loxley Hall that night until the full moon rose he was talking a load of old foetid dingoes kidneys, because the moon on that date rose at 06:41 and set again at 13:13, and would not have been visible at all during the evening when David and Nigel went up on the roof. The only thing right about it was that the moon was indeed full two days later, on 4th, between 08:16 and 16:26, which is still no use for evening viewing... I cannot imagine what possessed the scriptwriter for 29th March, 2011 (Joanna Toye) to add that inaccurate and utterly unnecessary detail, when she could have checked it in a matter of seconds on a computer.

You have to know things like that need checking, though.

Well, the moon shines down on everyone alike; or else it doesn't. Have most people never noticed that it rises and sets at a different time each day, as well as sometimes being full and sometimes crescent, and is to be seen in different quarters of the sky quite often, as well as nearer to the horizon or further up from it?

(I am reminded of the people living in a cul-de-sac in Bristol who became very excited about a regular UFO they had one month. It trundled up at about the same time each evening and went along the course of their road, more or less; they took excited video, and even got on local television to talk with a well-known Ufologist, Jenny Randles, in a programme about Things From Space. They were quite downcast when An Expert – science fiction writer John Grant – looked at their video and made a pronouncement about it: "That is the planet Mars.")

I can well believe it. Some people have no curiosity about the world around them at all. Many people are far keener to believe in outright nonsense than go for something much more obvious and humdrum.

An adult member of my family didn't realise until we talked about it a few months ago that there's approximately half a month between a full moon and a new moon. She thought it waxed all month from new to full moon and then, without gradually waning, just went straight back to a new moon the next night.

An adult member of my family didn't realise until we talked about it this year that there's approximately half a month between a full moon and a new moon. She thought it waxed all month from new to full moon and then, without gradually waning, just went straight back to a new moon the next night. We were talking about the timing of Eid and she thought it must be coming along soon because we were nearly at a full moon.

Sorry! Internet connectivity problem meant the message posted twice, not quite identically.

I’m surprised Harrison hasn’t given the baby a name. Why are they doing the prayer at night? With birds tweeting in the background. Or are they interposing scenes out of order?

what a surprise they bumped into each other. Fallon drunk acting isn’t very good

so Harrison finally comes to terms and Fallon is going to lose it

pauls relationship being such big news is so dull

Gosh that was boring. Bartley could have written a more exciting episode.

Did anyone else get the feeling that Fallon may have just noticed that Harrison has been trying to control her for some while now?

I got the impression that the prayer began in the evening (7pm, 8pm are quite common times for post-work prayer services) but then Harrison sat alone in the church for hours, hence apologising to Alan for calling him out late (to lock up). I could be wrong, I wasn't 100% concentrating.

That's how it sounded to me too. Still, at least he wasn't sitting at home glumping at Fallon – not that she was there to be glumped at today, but I bet their evenings haven't been a barrel of laughs for a few weeks now.

@Bruisername I’m surprised Harrison hasn’t given the baby a name.

He'd probably have gone Icelandic with Harrisonson or Harrisondaughter.

It's a pity that at no point in the conversation around the prayers did the vicar mention God. When he said no one was coming in and it was just Harrison on your own", it sounded so sad! He should have said, hopefully would have said IRL, "It's just us and the Lord here this evening", or similar.

Apart from that and the whole Fallon not knowing, as a Christian I thought it was a reasonable portrayal of Prayers for a particular situation.

It would have needed to be one of the many ambiguously-sexed names, like Jay or Kay, since without doing a dna test there is no telling which sex it was.

Harrisonblob?

@JanglyBeads ... Maybe Alan's one of those vicars who doesn't actually believe in a god. I know at least one (female, CofE, combines part-time vicaring with an extremely well-paid job in the City). She openly admitted to me that she doesn't, and that she views her role as a sort of social worker.

Yes @Bruisername I found the disconnect between the two apparent time frames really jarring too.

Did she ever believe in a god? I understand it’s usual for faith to wax and wane, but it seems an odd choice if she never did believe.

mutter mutter Paula Vennells mutter mutter

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime I didn’t look at the poster name when I asked my question. Had I seen it was you, I’d have known that, however you did it, it would have been exactly the right answer.

Of course you can do it in Excel too - just put the two dates in-and subtract one from the other.