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!

that wasn’t my point - she was able to make a choice in the same way people who buy near grammar or choose private do. It’s a privilege of wealth

she gets my goat for other reasons - local campaigns where she’s shown herself to be out of touch.

I do wonder if Alice will go to prison and have a terrible spiral. George will become a local bigwig etc and then in 10-20 years it all unravels. Isn’t there a hardy book they could be copying?

<makes note>

Re schools, I know exactly what Bruisername means. Few things grind my gears as much as wealthy people who have taken immense pains and laid out huge sums of money to secure a house very close to a good state school who then look down on those who've paid out equally immense sums directly to a private school.

I wonder if South Borsetshire currently has a Tory MP and whether that might change two weeks today.

<makes another note to have a look at Hardy titles>

I was thinking of the Mayor of Casterbridge

They're all pretty grim, aren't they? The ones I think I have read (a long, long time ago) are The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. I think by then I'd lost the will to live and never got beyond p1 of Jude the Obscure.

I had to do far from the madding crowd at school and hated it. Like his poetry though

The Archers is more Near to the Maddening Crowd at the moment 😆

I do think they could spin it out that long! Interesting that George has grown a minor conscience too.

The Mayor of Casterbridge is one of the great reads of my life. (I seem to recall we speculated a lot on SOC’s apparent reliance on Hardy - though I’ve forgotten which specific stories we were thinking of.)

<makes note>
<underlines it>

never got beyond p1 of Jude the Obscure.

oh, that’s a shame, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g: you missed the funny bit(s)

Yes, I suggested a Mayor or Casterbridge SL for George a couple of threads back.

Well Fallon has been a bit of a hypocrite because she’s spoken a lot to Kirsty yet she’s cross with him speaking with Alan even before the prayers. And how many times has she said ‘I really need to sort things out with harrison’

Who had a nickname involving dullness for Kirsty? Spot on.

I'm surprised her hearing is so quick given all the news around delays in justice.

‘Don't come knocking when the motor homes rocking’ - do they have to be so crass. but I really hope she’s about to spill the beans about Rochelle because that’s getting a bit yawnsome

Roy is definitely moving. How old is his daughter with Hayley?

Abbie will be 16 in a couple of weeks.

I suppose we won’t ever hear from her once he’s moved

🤣

Bruisername
Well Fallon has been a bit of a hypocrite because she’s spoken a lot to Kirsty yet she’s cross with him speaking with Alan even before the prayers.

She repeatedly doesn't actually tell Kirsty what exactly it is that has upset her, because that would involve clyping on Harrison.
I don't think she even knew about him going and telling Harrison he was going to have a baby and how wonderful it was, did she? I think that was the only time he spoke to Alan before prayers got involved and she made it clear she didn't want to be prayed over.

Bruisername
And how many times has she said ‘I really need to sort things out with harrison’

Probably about the same number of times she has tried to do so and he has flounced out because she would insist on having feelings of her own which were not identical with his, and saying so to his face. It may even be that her trying to sort things out has been directly causal in his running away crying out that he can't, he can't, before going to Alan and saying how much he wants to talk to Fallon about everything but she won't let him, he's not allowed to.

When he said he is not allowed to talk to her about proposing to pray in her name without her permission, which is what he and Alan did, what he meant is that he is too cowardly to tell her the truth about his actions as opposed to about his feelz. This is a direct contrast to her tearing herself apart trying to tell him the truth – and when she does that, he rushes away crying out that he can't, he can't.

I honestly don't see what more she is supposed to do. She has tried being supportive, and he fell apart further. She has tried being honest, and he absolutely has not reciprocated. She has tried getting angry, and naturally enough he blames her for it. But the first thing she tried was being supportive to help him to get over her misfortunes (a nasty miscarriage, a terrifying accident in which she could have died), and he seems unable to see that the misfortunes were not actually his alone, or in the case of the near-drowning, that they happened at all. And all this has been happening while she has been suffering horrendous nightmares about being stuck in the dark with water rising round her, and not being able to breathe.

I wish we'd heard that he took up the offer of help from the police counsellor, or whatever it was Norris told him to get as soon as possible, ring them tomorrow. I have a nasty feeling that he didn't bother, and proper counselling (as opposed to Alan's hopeless unquestioning support however badly it was going to hurt another person) might actually do him some good and give him some help.

I think the best thing Fallon could have done was to tell him to crack on with Alan but to leave her completely out of it.

when she said she needs to sort things with Harrison I did wonder if she meant in an ending it way

I would happily see the back of Harrison so hopefully that is what she meant!!

Maybe he will eventually go to see azra and she’ll give him some diazepam too

Gah. Just too late to amend; the sentence "I don't think she even knew about him going and telling Harrison he was going to have a baby and how wonderful it was, did she?" should of course have read "I don't think she even knew about him going and telling Alan he was going to have a baby and how wonderful it was, did she?"

Yes, I thought too that Fallon has started thinking about the "D" word. It seems the only possible outcome, as the two of them are poles apart.

Kirsty seemed a bit taken aback that the latest upset had been about "prayers"!

Is this the third day running Joy's sex life has been mentioned? I do hope the closeness to Mick is leading up to finding out the truth about Rochelle. I know I'm rising to the scriptwriters' bait but it is keeping me listening!

Poor Jakob - the best character in the village, once more putting his foot in it.

Fallon has started thinking about the "D" word.

Dismemberment?

Yeah, I could support that

“When he said he is not allowed to talk to her about proposing to pray in her name without her permission”

I don’t think Harrison ever said such a thing.

As far as yesterday, I don’t think she tried being angry, she was being angry and actually pretty controlling. Harrison was trying to calmly explain, despite Fallon being really scathing, insisting he should see it her way and mocking his views (laughing sarcastically when it was referred to as a baby in the prayer) Here’s an excerpt, perhaps you missed it earlier …

F - You knew how I felt about this memorial service but you went ahead and did it anyway

H - It wasn’t a memorial service

F - Can’t you get it into your head once and for all there was no child I had a miscarriage

H - And I heard you love you didn’t want anything public but this was completely different it were very small just me and Alan

F - I don’t care

H - Just to help me deal with the, the loss of what might have been. Why would you want to take that away from me

F - It’s just another example of you bulldozing over me

note: the message specifically referred to prayers (not service)

He had also recently explained to Fallon in a most heartfelt way that he had tried and he had tried but he could not just turn his feelings off.

You cannot bully a person it to seeing things the same way as you, however right you think you are, and it seems Fallon was verging on that.

of course we all agreed Harrison had been very self obsessed and not considerate of Fallon but I don’t recall him insisting to her she must get it into her head that things are the way he sees them. He understands Fallons views are very different and told Alan precisely that.

I have to agree to an extent. I think perhaps that scene was set up to show she really feels they are too far apart so I would be very surprised if tomorrow she’s trying to make things up

but as the writing has been so hokey I wouldn’t put money on it!

So I've figured it out. Joy's family have all quite literally died of embarrassment. Rochelle is the only remaining survivor but now refuses to see Joy for fear of suffering the same fate.