Archers thread #168: Near to the Maddening Crowd? 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 to hear more of Harrison's strange little moaning noises, or other unusual views.

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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.)

Thanks to @OverArmour for the title suggestion!

Over to you.

Asking has (with utter nobility and a and b the c of d) listened again to what was going on in that episode, to find out what happened.

I can confirm that when the synopsis for that day says
"Martha is being restive about feeding from a bottle; Susan is surprised Alice is giving up breast feeding. Alice says she is going to meet some people that evening for a couple of hours, leaving Christopher to look after Martha. Susan offers to have Chris and the baby to stay over so that Alice can have a good night's sleep at home. Alice was only going out for two hours, but Susan presses her case. She wants to be distracted from worrying about Tracy and Jazzer."

it is accurate.

What Alice told Harrison when she rang him for help was that she went into Borchester for her support group, and then bought some booze from a shop that was "just there" on her way home. Then she started to drink it in the car because she didn't want to drink in the house, where Chris might find out about it. And then she realised she shouldn't so she pulled off the road into Leaders Wood. So quite definite that she drove when she was drunk, and at a time at which she knew what the problem she had was and when she was going to AA meetings. The exact position she was in during early May this year, in fact. (Leaders Wood is just across the road from The Nest, so she was practically at home when she came to her senses about drunk-driving; it may be that it was the going home that caused her panic rather than realising she ought not to drink and drive.)

Incidentally, when Harrison drove to fetch her he said he would be "keeping her on the phone": is it legal for an off-duty copper to use his phone while he is driving? It was a hand-held one in his house when that conversation started.

Thanks, but if you read it carefully it does necessarily suggest she was drunk driving at all. It actually fits in very well with the fact that we know, she pulls her car off into the woods to drink and sleep it off. It didn’t say when she had pulled the car off the road into the woods. It would be a bit coincidental if she was just driving along drunk and decided she wanted to ring Harrison and by pure chance pulled over into the woods to ring him, in the very place she normally drives to before drinking.

If you look at the start of that synopsis she was supposed to be going out for a couple of hours to meet some people but Susan gave her the very opportunity of doing what she did, by getting Chris and Martha to stay with her for the night so Alice could get some rest. And why is she afraid to go home if there is no one there. Because she does not want to drive whilst drunk?

Even in the much more unlikely scenario that she was drunk driving against her normal pattern, that could have been the incident that made her realise how dangerous it was. However it would seem very unlikely given she pulls over in the woods to drink and sleep it off.

After not being able to plead guilty on Friday, she said about driving drunk and bridgegate she wouldn’t and couldn’t . Which is different from never have. Though that synopsis does not prove she ever has.

After bridgegate and horrified at her supposed behaviour of driving and causing it, she makes the wrenching decision to give Martha up to Chris. He reassured her that he knew she would never put Martha in danger,. She was so disgusted at herself at what (supposedly) had happened, she pointed out that it could not be guaranteed.

Her willingness to take responsibility for something she hadn’t actually done, and despite feeling she could not have done, is why I believe the key in the glovebox has (as is clearly repeatedly implied) always worked for her since she started doing it, as otherwise she would have known and admitted to it.

Of course far from ideal and danger of driving with residual alcohol in system the following morning. I assume she used the car in the woods, so she can be totally alone without fear of anyone turning up - until George.

It still doesn’t make sense to me why she would put keys in glove box and stay in drivers seat. It’s not very comfortable and surely would make more sense to move to the back or passenger seat. This putting more distance between her and driving.

I think Asking listened to the episode again so isn’t relying on synopsis

VoxPop
Thanks, but if you read it carefully it does necessarily suggest she was drunk driving at all. It actually fits in very well with the fact that we know, she pulls her car off into the woods to drink and sleep it off. It didn’t say when she had pulled the car off the road into the woods. It would be a bit coincidental if she was just driving along drunk and decided she wanted to ring Harrison and by pure chance pulled over into the woods to ring him, in the very place she normally drives to before drinking.

See my post immediately above yours.

It might indeed have been a terrific coincidence if it had happened to be the same wood she drove to each time, but Leaders Wood and Heydon Wood are not the same place and are in quite different directions from where Alice lives. One is very close to The Nest and the other on the far side of the village from it.

Thanks I posted the minute after Asking so had not seen the post. Where can you listen to this episode? Interesting about when she pulled over. Cannot imagine she had drunk much whilst actually driving

Omnibuses are available at Adrian Beale's website. He wants donations for Refuge if you use them.

Thanks sorry missed your post again, not very familiar with geography but I suppose both pulling over in woods. Where can I listen to the episode as quite interested.

Great thanks

Missed my post again...

Incidentally, if we are playing "we don't know when she actually did the drinking", we don't know that she did not spend the drive from the Village Shop to Heydon Wood on 5th May with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding the vodka bottle to her mouth, do we.

Precisely, although it would not make a lot of sense, given she would have wanted to get there as quickly as possible to knock it back because she was desperate. She would have been seen outside the shop if she had done it there. But she seems very sincere about not driving drunk and very willing to take responsibility for her failings (even those she did not do) so it does not readily stack up.

I am not playing imaginary games making improbable things up, I am just looking at the facts presented and usual behaviour.

I don’t think I am presuming anything definitively, just looking at the evidence.
Certainly you could not state definitely from that synopsis (as you did) that she was drunk driving, as it did not say when she pulled over, and her habit of driving to woods and then drinking, suggested she drank after she pulled over.

I could not listen to the episode as I got into some sort of donation / password loop. Presumably it as you state makes it perfectly clear she was drinking in the car before she stopped. You still cannot say definitely (as you are) that she was drunk driving, unless it makes it clear what she drank driving along, before she stopped (could have been just a swig to take the edge off) and what she drank after. She knew her house was empty.

As I also said even if she was drunk driving, possibly the incident she learned from. It does not make her current insistence that she couldn’t and wouldn’t (rather than never had) untrue (flapdoodle). Especially given her readily taking responsibility, her self loathing and beating up on herself to people.

Checking in, not much to say about the current stories since they’re all a bit depressing.

Oops wrong thread

Whether Alice has driven drunk before - possibly/possibly not we can’t be sure - is irrelevant really. The dramatic irony of the current storyline is that we the audience know for sure that what she says is true - she had put the keys in the glovebox and she wasn’t in the driving seat at the time of the accident. How might she be saved? There have been a number of bits of evidence flagged up to us as listeners which may or may not come to light - there’s also the suggestion that George’s conscience is getting the better of him. The not guilty plea has bought Alice some time for all or any of these things to come to light. The possibility of a reversal of fortune is surely too dramatic for the SWs to ignore?

The possibility of a reversal of fortune is surely too dramatic for the SWs to ignore?

Surely there has to be? The alternative is Alice probably going to prison (as Adam so helpfully pointed out, pleading not guilty but then being found guilty increases the chances as does the case being heard in a higher court) which would make Ambridge quite the crime hotspot.

I think Adam was aghast so could not help stating the blindingly obvious

Even if the truth comes out, Alice is far from out of the ‘woods’ ;)

LillianGish
Whether Alice has driven drunk before - possibly/possibly not we can’t be sure

I suspect that people in Ambridge are reluctant to believe the "I would never dream of driving when I was drunk" tosh that Alice is trying to promulgate now, simply because they know it isn't true. Adam in particular might remember her getting drunk, driving and crashing in the farmyard a new bit of kit he'd just got for the farm.

She was definitely drunk and planning to drive home from the pub when Nic persuaded her to hand over her car keys and get Chris to come and pick her up, on 29th January, 2018. So she didn't find the idea so very unthinkable then.

Likewise, on 19th May, 2021 she drove to the village shop while she was drunk and tried to buy vodka, first from Jim and then from Susan, each of whom refused to sell it to her (even though Jim had worries about her probably driving to another shop while she was drunk); that was occasion on which she heaved the brick through the shop window.

The villagers know fine and fair that she does drink and drive when she feels like doing so, even if she makes a great big song and dance about not doing so when it suits her narrative of the moment.

Very interesting asking - I wasn’t listening at that time so missed the background. Thanks!

I’m getting shades of Sirius Black in Azkaban here - Alice knowing that she’s not guilty is keeping some kind of spark in her alive…

My understanding of the science behind memory blackouts due to excess alcohol is that the brain does not create the memories in the first place. The memory receptors stop recording. So there is nothing to recall. Nada.

So it's highly unlikely Alice will start to remember what happened that night.

George needs to confess, he will feel batter for it.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime - Not forgetting her other indiscretions (who was that bloke at work ... or have I imagined him?) which certainly involved alcohol and probably driving home. I occasionally idly wonder if Martha is Chris's daughter, but I never wonder for long because it isn't that interesting. 😁

The difference being that with Sirius Black, no one else even entertained the idea that he might be innocent! Whereas Adam, Chris, Neil, and Lilian are all bandying around how stupid it was for her to plead not guilty, but not one of them has got around to saying, "Hang on, if she's claiming she didn't do it, then what other explanation is she offering for how she and the car got there?! Is she saying she was kidnapped and then abandoned?!" Chris and Adam at least are semi-entertaining the idea that she genuinely might not have done it, but without voicing anything about just how that might be possible.

I was hoping that tech-illiterate Eddie would see something incriminating on George's phone (is it the same phone? Did he claim the other one was water damaged beyond repair?), but alas it was not to be.

if I was a juror I would not believe for a second and alcoholic who said 'I would never drink and drive, I just wouldn't'

Several articles support it being a retrieval not storage issue. Like an unaddressed bit of computer storage. Don’t know that is always the case but seems lots of evidence to support that it at least can be.

This study from the
Journal of Drug Education: Substance Use Research and Prevention …
Hypnosis and Retrieval of Events Stored during Alcohol-Induced Amnesia
Two case studies demonstrate the amnesia for events experienced during alcoholic blackout is state dependent and that blackout material is stored. The problem is retrieving, not recording the events. These case studies show that the forgotten information can be retrieved by the use of hypnosis.

Possibly contributed to by shock induced memory loss, suppressed by overwhelming evidence that what she believes (the actual truth - that she did not do it) cannot possibly be so

Agree about the spark, and far from blowing it out, it is clear the family understand they need to support her in this. Which is great (even if it wasn’t true) because they can guide her through her journey to self realisation, which will help her immensely. I cannot believe what mental torture it must be, people insisting you have done something because of overwhelming evidence, when you are sure deep inside you have not.

Agree George should fess up and far from just for his own good. The problem is these things just get more difficult with every passing day, he has already been willing to let her plead guilty without saying anything.

Hopefully you would base it on evidence, in relation to the individual.