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!

Was it the lovely coat that Emma coveted?

I didn’t hear coat coveting. Was there a reference to it being fashionable or is Emma coveting it indicative of it being a middle aged coat

The song Fallon mentioned was called Sweat, not Slut. You probably don't want to know the lyrics, they are neither tasteful nor artistically meritorious.

The coat coveting occurred when Fallon bought a lovely coat and then Emma bought the same one. Or perhaps the other way around. Anyway Fallon’s was brand new and Emma’s was from a charity shop I think.

There was then an awful storyline involving Emma wearing said coat whilst having sex with Ed outside in the woods. This was caught on a security camera by someone who was very distressed as they thought Emma was Fallon. I can’t remember the details, I’ve blocked it all out.

🤮

it feels to me that all of these post retirement age characters come across as much younger and that’s because they’ve had to keep them as they just don’t have the characters in the next generation (who all come across as much younger) I was thinking exactly this last night. When I started listening the lynchpins were Phil and Jill at Brookfield (David and Ruth have stepped into their shoes and Pip looks just about set to do the same). Pat and Tony at Bridge Farm (now more of a tea room, dairy, and shop, a bit of farming, but more packing veg boxes than sowing and planting since the departure of Johnny, I know Tom and Natasha are supposed to be running things, but it doesn't feel as if they are). Brian and Jenny at Home Farm (it honestly feels as if it's more or less disappeared, farmhouse sold and the land now farmed by a hired hand - Debbie is gone, Kate is camping, Alice has written herself off and Adam is still banished). Clarrie and Eddie at Grange Farm (no longer in existence except as a farmhouse belonging to Oliver. William's game keeping came to an end, Ed is still essentially agricultural) Moike and Betty Tucker at Willow Farm (long since gone, descendants with no farming links whatsoever about to be permanently erased by Roy's move to Bulgaria). The problem for me is that when the characters cease to be rooted in the land, it makes it less likely they would not move elsewhere to seek their fortune (even just to a neighbouring town). In losing their grip on the agricultural storyline, the SWs begin to lose their grip on Ambridge.

Maybe the itching is scabies.

Why do people think the itch is to do with something spread sexually? Surely if he was scratching his bits, Kirsty wouldn't draw attention to it by asking if he has fleas. That's a moment to politely ignore someone scratching.

It was a long time ago. I think Emma bought one on vinted and it was so alluring she and Ed had sex on a log pile 😳.

Ah but then we wouldn't know he had an itch because it's radio.

We know it's in a place not usually exposed to sunlight.

Plus, why write the itch in if it didn’t foreshadow or serve a storyline purpose? Bit random just to throw it otherwise?

Afternoon all,

Re-delurking after an absence of well over a year to give you some more unfortunate information. "Sweat" is the radio-safe version of Snoop Dogg's original song which was originally entitled "Wet". Much as "Forget You" was the radio-safe version of Cee-lo Green's original song, which I'm sure you can deduce the title of if you don't know.

Also, quick bit of information about alcoholic blackout. (I think) recent research has shown that blackout isn't FORGETTING things that have happened when you are that drunk, it is that your brain just stops recording memories. There's an intermediate stage where you are out of it and don't really know what's happening but can retain flashes - it sounds like Alice was in that state for a while and I can vouch for that being realistic once she'd downed pure vodka in that quantity over such a short time period. But she probably slipped into complete blackout and insensibility just as George was getting into the car.

At any rate she's not going to exonerate herself even if true memories do come back to her, because nobody believes what alcoholics say when they've been drinking (and most of the time even when they're sober).

MereDintofPandiculation
"Alice has been employed at the Stables since September 2022, so not for the two years she'd need before taking her relations to an employment tribunal." … unless on disability discrimination grounds.

I am not at all sure that "I keep falling over because I get so drunk" counts as a disability.

I think it’s the fact Paul seemed evasive and uncomfortable when Kirsty noticed the itching that has made people wonder if it’s the result of something unfortunate. He obviously made up the story about being sunburnt.

I love this! I imagine it would make the noise of an old telephone dial on the final night when it rewound back to its original state

And buzz when it had finished, like one of those mechanical kitchen timers.

That reminds me. What happened to monkeypox?

Excuse my insane optimism

Hello, Cecile, good to see you again. Thanks for that info. Hope all is well with you.

I don't think anything happened between Paul and Fallon. Kirsty wouldn't have been so sanguine if it had.

And finally ... I cannot stress enough how much I don't want to hear about pubic lice or any other medical condition that causes itching in an area not usually exposed to sunlight, as Captain so tastefully puts it above.

I’ve spent the weekend enjoying watching Clare Perkins in (two and a half seasons of) The Outlaws - where she plays a grey dreadlocked, Somerset accented activist, somewhat left over from the zingy days of the 80s, whose community payback leads into an absurd criminal spree. She must find Denise quite staggeringly bland by comparison.

(And I see she’s in a West End play until late July - which would explain her absences from Ambridge after the Bridge Affair.)

And finally ... I cannot stress enough how much I don't want to hear about pubic lice or any other medical condition that causes itching in an area not usually exposed to sunlight, as Captain so tastefully puts it above.

Now you’ve put it like that, I can’t agree more. While of course I know STDs happen in real life, I’m just not sure I want to think about pubic lice/crabs etc when I don’t have to - esp as I generally listen to TAs when preparing food…

the sw seem to be a lot seedier these days

I'm surprised they haven’t done a PSA on Prep-E with this open relationship thing

I love The Outlaws, Totters! I hope there will be another series, and that Christopher Walken can make it back to Bristol for more filming this time.

I know that. Hence the fact that I started the post with "Even if".

To say nothing of the fact that she's also supposed to be running Amside and helping to run The Bull, and she's nearly 77.

Does wanting to swan off to London and drink without your relatives nagging you count as being sick?