Archers thread #167: Welcome to Ambridge, the world capital of loose ends! Discuss The Archers here.

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Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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Over to you!

Re always putting her keys in the glove box when she's drunk, I would guess that if she knows she does it and can remember where they are when she sobers up ("sobers up" up to a point, that is, i.e. probably still well over the limit) then she may well know where they are when she's still utterly incapable.

Does that make sense? Not really, but I can't find a clearer way to write it. I blame the litre of vodka I necked an hour ago. But I've had a refreshing nap and now, if I can just remember where the glove-box is ...

Cheers!

Well, yes. Nothing but coccyx to lean back on.

If goldfish learn something at a particular stage of inebriation, they forget it until they are at that level again.

Or so it is asserted. Personally I would like to know how the hell anyone can tell. (We have a goldfish.)

The suggestion seems to be that a drink will only drive because the keys are in the ignition. I’m surprised that loophole lawyer hasn’t used this defence 🙄

We have just got a new second-hand car which starts when the keys are not in the ignition, because there is no keyhole to put a key into. You just need to have the key somewhere in the front of the car, and be able to push in the clutch pedal before pushing a button to start the car.

Word of warning - my friend put her key on the roof to unload her shopping. Forgot. Got home and no key and her husband was in a different city with the spare and she had school pick up!!

That’s also a good point because doesn’t she have a snazzy little number which would most likely have the keyhole less technology?

Thank you for the warning. That is horrendous. So far, I have remembered to put the wretched thing in my pocket as I get into the car, and I hope this will become a reflex like reaching for the stopwatch when using the phone at my parents' house because we had to pay our own shares of the bill.

Since it costs over three hundred quid to get a replacement key, and takes ages, I shall do my best always to do so. There was only one key with it when we took delivery, and that's one mistake I shall never make again: any car that doesn't have two keys with it will get struck straight off the list of possible purchases.

Good luck!!

I had thought that there was no possible future for the Fallon/Harrison marriage but they do seem to have both calmed down tonight and listened to each other at last.
I hope they can make the marriage work, partly because I am an old romantic and would prefer them to carry on loving each other, and partly because I am so sick of that SL that I may have to tear my own ears off if there is much more of Harrison's weird moaning sounds.

I remember that scenario seeming really weird at the time..... but look what they were planning (maybe not exactly but something)

Just tagging on to add that I hated English at school but found it easy and liked reading, so I did English at university (I was very lazy in my younger days). In my third year I read Henry IV part 1, which ignited a passion for Shakespeare that I couldn’t have imagined when we were cringing our way through Romeo and Juliet at school!

I know I am awful but I don’t want Alice to remember anything.

Um surely you can't do translations for EngLit, it's English Literature.
Similarly for non-fiction - it's English Literature

I get the point on non fiction but how do you include quality writing and interpretations? Or does that happen in the language exam?

a good skill for this generation would be critical reading skills

I'm an avid reader but GCSE English Lit did nothing for me.
Pretty much the same here. Loved Shakespeare, hated the poetry.
I don't think it helped that we were in an unstreamed class.

What I think the teaching at school missed out was in instilling a love of literature (other than Shakespeare)& why we should read it.

I've caught up on several classics as an adult, and always have a book on the go (I'm about 25 pages from the end of a 5-book omnibus edition today).

I don't find it at all believable that Alice is sure she wouldn't drive when drunk. IME alcoholics do drive when they have been drinking, even with much loved young children in the car.
I do. She was too drunk to function.
The alcoholics I can think of would drink over the limit.

What is the evidence against George (while we can still remember - trial will be months hence)? Fruit cider in the footwell - Joy can testify she sold it to him. Possibly George's fingerprints in the glovebox (based on forensic road traffic investigation someone saw on TV). He would almost certainly be called to give evidence in any trial - since he's morphed from scheming psychopath George at the time of the accident into overwhelmed-by-guilt George, perhaps he will give himself away on the witness stand. Whatever - Alice is right to plead not guilty, she did not do it and we know it.

I'm glad she pleaded Not Guilty. I <3 Alice.

But George didn't "do it" either, did he? I mean, if Alice hadn't been trying to open the car door, the accident wouldn't have happened.

I think I must be alone in not rating the way Alice is acted (she does ‘drunk’ quite well, I grant you). She over enunciates and is always so earnest! That scene at the end with Adam was unbearably hammy on both sides.

I think it was a genuine accident that George should have been truthful about immediately. He’s made it so much worse by his error of judgement

Which bit of Harrison’s anatomy would you like to drop off?

Hard to decide, @MereDintofPandiculation: 70% of his skin? I’d also like to rip out his Lancastrian gland while he’s still awake to enjoy it. Whoever told him to turn the accent up to 11 was sadly misguided.

a GP giving very little hope that an alcoholic can get more help than just being told they need to want to give up

I don’t think that’s necessarily inaccurate, @Bruisername. Alice has HAD the (expensive, hard to access) help, and is still drinking. Over to her.

Alice had repeatedly asked George to stop because she wanted to be sick. But he ignored her.

Of course George did it he was driving, he took the car and Alice without permission maybe well meaning but nothing Alice wanted. Probably would have been seen as an accident if he had fessed up at the time (unless he was over the limit). But it would I presume be criminal now given what he did to cover up. No doubt his hero tankard at the bull would also be withdrawn.

I find it extremely annoying that Alice will be vindicated in her feeling that she just wouldn't have done it.

Yes that bothers me!

Will Joy remember? She must serve loads of people, including George, on multiple occasions. Would she remember months later that it was fruit cider that night?