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.

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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.

That's in Matilda. Miss Honey teaches it to the whole class and Miss Trunchbull complains about all the women being married, and mixing poetry with spelling.

Ah Matilda, thought it was familiar

I had to check how to spell penchant above, always had difficulty with ly or ley at the end of words.

Remember in a big (possibly pre 11 plus) spelling test and teacher called my name and asked if I was doing alright, then said good I know the rest of you must be fine. Presumably my spelling was the worst in the year.

Not just spelling, I remember ringing Relyon beds and referring to them as Rel yon rather than the obvious (if I thought about it) Rely on, must have given them a giggle.

That's very interesting. My mother is about to turn 95 and she was taught it by the nuns at her primary school in the 1930s.

The science behind laying down memories.

Very little research to suggest it is retrieval issue rather than storage.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6668891/

When I was you ger I had several alcohol induced blackouts. To this day I can not remember anything during the times I was blind drunk.

Thanks Saffy must be very frightening.

the study I quoted must be an outlier then and the hypnotists holding out false hope - which is totally wrong.

I do get the impression with Alice her certainly that she didn’t do it goes beyond her belief she wouldn’t. She wasn’t really conscious so perhaps she was in a different state and could retain partial memories of being disturbed, and they were suppressed for some other reason, which was maybe not alcoholic blackout. I wonder did she remember putting that brick through the window. But possibly far less drunk then.

Even Fallon could not readily recall what she was doing on her night out. Don’t know if the others jogged her memory or she still couldn’t remember after they told her. She didn’t dispute it but that doesn’t really tell us anything.

But she WAS conscious enough to try to get out of the car to be sick.

Of those other risk factors, four are correlational rather than potentially exacerbating factors.
Yes, we all know women who were partying rather hard before they knew they were pregnant and whose infants were ok: thing is, those mothers for the most part, stopped drinking/recreational drug use when they found out, part way through their first trimesters. Alice only discovered the pregnancy slap on the twelve-week mark, and she continued to cane it through much of the second trimester. IF the programme wants to have a public information remit ( which it seems to, albeit “only when it suits it, dears”) then it could be considered irresponsible for Martha to be written as having been completely undamaged by marinating in vodka for most of her gestation.

Christopher would be mad even to consider getting back together with Alice, and she would be mad to do it. Imagine being Forgiven, but scrutinised all the time (quite apart from regaining a MiL like Susan). Ugh.

Did find this in your link Saffy …

Unlike en bloc blackouts, fragmentary blackouts involve partial blocking of memory formation for events that occurred while the person was intoxicated. Goodwin and colleagues (1969a) reported that subjects experiencing fragmentary blackouts often become aware that they are missing pieces of events only after being reminded that the events occurred. Interestingly, these reminders trigger at least some recall of the initially missing information. Research suggests that fragmentary blackouts are far more common than those of the en bloc variety (White et al. 2004; Hartzler and Fromme 2003b; Goodwin et al. 1969b).

Lets hope if any, that Alice had fragmentary blackouts then, as it seems they are far more common and often reminders trigger at least some recall of initially missing information.

I learned it in the 60s.

”Christopher would be mad even to consider getting back together with Alice, and she would be mad to do it.”

The heart wants …..
Speaking of correlation, I think love and sanity are often very weakly correlated

From the figures I've seen, about a third of pregnancies where the mother has been in a situation similar to Alice's (very heavy drinking throughout pregnancy, including binge drinking) go on to develop FAS. The proportion is a lot lower in less heavy drinkers (0.5% for some lighter drinkers). Now, a third is a huge risk to take. There's not a lot of preventable conditions I'd be willing to risk contracting if the risk of me getting it was one in three. But the fact remains that it's still more likely than not (twice as likely, in fact) that the child will be fine. I'm certainly not suggesting that drinking while pregnant is A-OK, but it would be irresponsible, IMO, to present Martha with FAS as an inevitable consequence of Alice's behaviour as though there were a one to one equivalence.

I wasn't suggesting Dahl invented it. It's just that's where a lot of younger generations will know it from. I wonder where the nuns learned it, maybe passed down with the catechism!

I think we did know that Gem was with a G. It was something to do with jewels. Did Shula call him that? It was a boring storyline. and I’m a weirdo who likes Shula and misses her.

Also - my worst spelling word was hangar. We hadn’t been taught it and I didn’t even know what it meant. I knew ‘hanger’ must be wrong but felt I had no choice but to write it. I was indignant about all this, as I’m good at spelling and usually got 10/10. It still rankles a bit, 38 years later.

I think we heard on air that someone (Alice?) said the new pony was a real gem as a companion for Bartleby. So I assumed the spelling to go with the sentiment.

Dahl (born in 1916) probably got taught it at school too.

No I realise you weren't. I don't enjoy Dahl so I didn't read his books to my children and hadn't come across this before. I'd always assumed ithe jingle was a Catholic thing, but it would appear not.
Dahl was born in 1916, so he was 13 years older than my mother and was brought up as a Lutheran and went to a prep school and then Repton. So his educational experience was quite different from my mother's.
I wonder where the jingle came from. There must be some reason why "difficulty" is the only word that has a mnemonic like that - unless there are others I don't know about.

I don't remember any other songs/ rhymes for specific words but Magic Magic E has always stuck in my head. We use it with teen dc now as a joke with nonsense words, e.g. 'bul becomes bule with me'. Clearly it's more hilarious IRL than it sounds!

There must be some reason why "difficulty" is the only word that has a mnemonic like that - unless there are others I don't know about.

Necessary - never eat cream except Saturdays and Sundays

I remember “possesses possesses, 5 S’s”

and for occasion - two collars (c) one sock (s)

Yes, I know others like this. It is the "Mrs" thing that seems weird to me and makes me think there must be some particular origin to it.

I think it just makes a nice rhythm.

Heinz Sandwich Spread is my guilty pleasure.

I remember being taught the 2 collars, 1 sock one. But I could never remember it because of course when dressed (in a shirt) you have 1 collar and 2 socks. So I'd always remember it that way round.

Alcohol is far worse than drugs for babies. There is a difference between foetal alcohol syndrome where the facial features are present and spectrum disorder where a child may be affected to a greater or lesser degree. It's the most common neurological condition in children. The rates are high.

Yes emmen used to drink but a pint of guineas or a glass of wine, not a bottle if vodka. Martha would be unlikely to not be affected.