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.

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.)

Thanks to @OverArmour for the title suggestion!

Over to you.

Michael Caine was and is a very good-looking man and an excellent actor. I had no trouble believing he was irresistible to women when I saw Alfie (many years after it was made). My favourite film of his is Get Carter, which is probably not to everyone's taste.

Anyway, back to The Archers. With every year that passes, Eddie is less and less a loveable rogue, and just a rogue. Poor old Gem, about to be deprived of his fieldmate.

How do we know Gem is spelt with a G btw? Not saying it's wrong, it's just that all this time I have assumed it was Jem (which seemed like a TA type name on the lines of Jethro and, indeed, Bartleby). Gem seems surprisingly poetic and romantic.

Surely it would be the first question: "How are you not guilty? Your car caused an accident with you found slumped in the driver's seat honking of booze - if you maintain you didn't drive, who did and how did you end up behind the wheel?!"

I wonder if someone will have kept the phone. George got a new one quite quickly which wouldn't have given the original time to dry out fully.

I don't think Martha will turn out to have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Although she might well have it in RL, I think it would be too painful a story to be introduced on TA. Adult characters at least have some agency in the midst of their misfortunes. It would be too horrible to have to listen to the problems of a child with no control over their condition and listeners would hate Alice too much.

Incidentally when I Googled how to spell "fetal" - as, despite all those weekly spelling tests from the age of 5, I still can't spell - I stumbled across websites purporting to show well known celebrities who have FAS (which can apparently be diagnosed from something called 'FAS face').

Excellent point. I may be influenced by regular purchases of Little Gem lettuce. I'll be honest, until reminded by others on this thread I had forgotten of the creature's existence and can't reliably state what kind of equine it is or which sex. Donkey? Male?

Thanks for new thread, I've been catching up.

Bartleby storyline is so odd...can't figure out where they are heading with this one but I suspect Bartleby will end up staying put.

I think George is going to crumble and confess. Unless there is dashcam footage or they retrieve the voice message to prove he was driving, any other evidence can be explained away if he really wants to stick with his story and the jury is bound to have some bias against an alcoholic with form for lying and previous brushes with the law. But I think there is a conscience in there somewhere and the though of Alice going to jail, losing job and Martha will be too much for George. The fallen hero aspect of it has potential to be rather painful and I hope he doesn't go completely off the rails.

It's going to drive a huge wedge between Chris and Emma as well.

I think Bartleby is going to die after he has been paid for but before his new owner takes delivery of him. The Grundys will have spent the money already and end up in new debt.

I mean, that would serve them right tbh.

@Fink

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.

Yes, there was a lot of business about Eddie using George's phone to take pictures of Bartleby so I expect the phone is going to come up again. Maybe the message is still there on the cloud even with a different phone.

‘Always’ thanks for the link to the old episodes will enjoy catching up.

Listened to that bit of the old episode

and as per the synopsis, there is nothing I can hear to say she was was drinking at all before she pulled over let alone definitely drunk driving.

She says “I didn’t want to drink in the house”
(even though she knew no one was there)
then immediately after that “thats why I pulled over”

We also know the engine is already off when she rings Harrison, as he asks her if the car is running and then if the engine is off and she answers quite definitely to both (almost sounds a bit annoyed that he asked - like obviously it would be)

We know she is drinking in the car, we can hear her swigging it back in between speaking to Harrison. But nothing to show she was doing that before she pulled over and turned the engine off.

Yes I think he'll have to confess.

Even with the cider, everyone knows he was there so he can say he chucked it in the car when he went to check on Alice. It would sound odd, but not so odd that you'd immediately jump to "well Alice must be right that she wasn't driving, it must have been George".
I don't see how you'd ever prove it was him.

Agree it would be her word against his but I suppose someone could investigate his progress and figure out if he left the party at x time he wouldn’t have been at the bridge if he’d walked

it is odd that no one has made the mental leap that if she didn’t do it then how did it happen. Do they think she had the accident and then downed the vodka 🤔

Incidentally when I Googled how to spell "fetal" - as, despite all those weekly spelling tests from the age of 5, I still can't spell - I stumbled across websites purporting to show well known celebrities who have FAS (which can apparently be diagnosed from something called 'FAS face').

A lot of the Internet is US English. I'd have gone for "foetal", but as long as it doesn't cause confusion, I don't suppose it matters.

Has anyone even mentioned the coincidence and extreme good fortune! that George was there just as the accident happened, let alone what he was doing there if it turns out it was not his way home. Surely however improbable the truth is, it won’t take much for people to start asking questions, especially given George’s penchant for letting others take the blame and getting them in trouble with the police through his divisiveness.

I wondered if the friend she is going to visit at the retirement home might explain they cannot sell Bartleby as he was only on loan.

I remember it well.

Russian salad always reminds me of Barry Humphries

Humphries was also an actor, painter, author and Dadaist performer of pranks.
In one such prank, he would sneak a can of Heinz Russian Salad on a plane, empty it into a passenger sick bag and pretend to vomit into the bag mid-flight before proceeding to eat the contents in front of bewildered passengers and crew.

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/barry-humphries-creator-dame-edna-dies-89-sydney-morning-herald-2023-04-22/

Oh dear - foetal does look better.

I don't recall either "fetal" or "foetal" being part of our weekly spelling tests when I was at primary school though.

Well it's also a big coincidence and good luck that Alistair and Denise were driving past at exactly the right time (with a dodgy story about an injured sheep).

No, we had stuff like necessary and occasion.

The thing to remember with FAS/FASD is that only a minority of babies born to alcholic mothers will have it. Yes, it only occurs in children whose mothers drank during pregnancy, but by no means in all of them. I think that in the heaviest binge drinkers (really serious alcoholics), it's about a third of babies who will develop FAS. And Alice doesn't have any of the other risk factors which increase the chances of her baby developing it (smoker, drug user, underweight, older age, previous pregnancies & births, lower social class, domestic violence). So although it would make a good (short-term!) SL on a soap, in reality it's more likely than not that Martha wouldn't suffer from it. She'll suffer a lot more from having an alcholic mother as she grows up ...

I agree Fink, it's not a given. I've know of women who've been drinking heavily or taken quite a lot of drugs before they knew they were pregnant - arguably worse than alcohol, since you would never be entirely sure what was in them - and their kids have turned out fine.

When you consider how much women used to drink before guidelines and recommendations were brought in, it had to be relatively rare otherwise everyone would have had FAS!

The only word I remember really clearly being on my spelling tests was marmalade, and surely you just have to make sure it's an a in the middle rather than an e; I can't see a lot else that could go wrong with it unless people wanted to get creative and stick double consonants in where no double consonants should be found.

Another thing previously discussed is given Alice’s massive BA reading, would it be likely that she could drive at all (she was barely conscious even when being dragged back and forth between the front seats, and that bit in the middle got to hurt) let alone drive all the way to the bridge (presumably at a fair speed) and deftly avoid the collision.

Of course difficult to prove as an absolute, and probably not considered previously given the damning evidence of her fit up and her intention to plead guilty. But now she has this whole ethereal vibe of didn’t do it, and a need to prove it, might someone think wait a minute, how did she manage at all, and then what about those chavvy fruit cider bottles when she didn’t even have a bottle opener.

Although my last VW actually had a smart bottle opener as a divider in the cup holder in the front middle, but that was 18 years ago.

The word I particularly remember was 'difficulty', which, amusingly, I had great difficulty learning. Eventually my mother helped me to remember it by getting me to recite the following weird jingle:

"Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs F, F, I, Mrs C, Mrs U, Mrs L,T,Y"

She had been taught it at school herself. It obviously worked for both of us.