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!

As others have said, alcohol is available in prisons, although not quite as readily as drugs because it is less easy to conceal. It's homemade "hooch". Prisoners often make it by fermenting tinned fruit. During the last football World Cup there was a temporary ban on the sale of tinned fruit in prison shops because, of course, British football fans can't enjoy an international game without getting drunk. Some desperate prisoners made hooch out of hand sanitiser during the COVID pandemic.

It was to give us a GP appointment🙄 and for Paul to have a safe sex chat. I don’t really understand what they think they’re doing with this sl

i suppose George may end up the jailbird

that convict who escaped in France - turns out the secret service had cameras in his cell and he was drinking, taking drugs, had phone and other devices and even had visits from his ‘sister’ in private and, well, let’s hope she isn’t his sister

Yes, I'd remembered them and forgotten Freddie. Sigh.

I literally could not care less about Paul and his relationship.

In a roundabout way, prison has been the making of Freddie. I know that alcoholism is no respecter of persons, but Alice has been spoilt all her life and she is still being indulged to a preposterous extent. If a brief spell inside was guaranteed to get her to her rock bottom it might not be a bad thing overall.

Do you have anyone in mind?

What happens to alcoholics and addicts when they go to prison? Are they forced to go cold turkey? I thought that was dangerous.

I was just about able to tolerate the itch SL until they went and made completely unbelievable with Paul getting a GP appointment on demand. It's 6-7 weeks here - and that's with a random GP; it's longer if you want to see a named GP. And 5 weeks to see a nurse.

You are asked if you have alcohol or drug issues when you arrive. Heroin addicts can be weaned off gradually if they want or are prescribed methadone. Alcoholics get medication while they are weaned off. Life in prison is easier for drug addicts than alcoholics though because it is so easy to access illicit drugs inside.

😂
too numerous to mention?

All of them? Except Jakob, of course.

Strangely @Godesstobe my 8am phone call produced a same day GP appointment a few weeks ago. Which I then had to cancel.

Not sure if I was unusually lucky that day, or whether people around here have given up trying so there’s less demand.

It is simply impossible to get through to our surgery by ringing at 8 am. I have never been higher than 11 on the waiting list when I have tried and that means at least 90 minutes before the phone is answered. The surgery's official advice to us is to call in and make an appointment in person rather than trying to ring! If you arrive at 8 am there is already a queue of people just trying to make an appointment. It's actually quite frightening and I am just grateful to be a relatively healthy OAP.

We have to fill in an online form detailing the issue and then triaged. I’ve never had to go for anything urgent as my work has access to a private gp. I tend to use that even though I would prefer my gp. But I guess I am opening up a space for other people

But “i have an alcohol addiction” is. On the other hand, there has never been a requirement to employ a person with a disability if their disability renders them incapable of doing the job even with reasonable adjustments.

Addiction is specifically excluded from the definition of a disability I believe. So even though it may well fit the definition of a long term condition that has a significant impact on day to day life, it isn't included.
Although illness arising from the addiction may count.

Our GP's surgery is just brilliant, bearing in mind that over 20% of the population is aged 70+. Or perhaps that's why? As an experiment, at 21:00 on Monday evening I've just logged into the website and been offered nine appointment times, with my own GP, for Wednesday. I bet if I logged in with MrG's account, he'd be offered an appointment tomorrow because he's 80+.

Though if I think about this rationally, of course it would be better to see the younger patients and just let us die.

So we have references to misogynistic rap lyrics and now GP examination for STIs. Really really not what I listen to TA for.

I find it bizarre that Fallon would have picked that song tbh

and what kind of nightclub were they at? Did she go up on stage to sing it?

Kirsty said she got up onto the bar.

It was after that they were asked to leave. Politely, Kirsty said, not thrown out.

In my, admittedly quite a few years back, experience of nightclubs there’s no way anyone would have noticed anything except a drunk woman standing on the bar - they certainly wouldn’t have heard anything she was singing!

I thought that, but we were told what we were told.

We are specifically instructed not to turn up in person seeking an appointment. And they ceased any online contact years ago - think it all became too much to manage. So the only access is via the phone - for either a call back from a GP or an in person appointment.

I have the world’s best GP practice at the moment and very sadly have to move away from it due to house move. They seem genuinely bamboozled when I thank them for (to them normal) things like seeing me in a reasonable time frame, listening to me, being kind to my family when they are ill.

I felt exactly the same after last night's episode. Is this what they think counts as including the youth of ambridge? 🤦‍♀️

I keep thinking Fallon might be pregnant, but that’s daft innit.

Forget Paul's possible STI and his changing relationship status with someone we've never met, the highlight for me last night was Tony's explanation of why silage bales need to be moved quickly after wrapping (before fermentation starts). The Archers used to be liberally peppered with explanations like this - the lifeblood of Ambridge - there's still plenty of room for obscene rapping in a Borchester nightclub, equine social media and the World's First Lesbian as long as we can be reminded (preferably at least once an episode) that what the majority of people in Ambridge are doing and talking about is farming.