Archers thread #169: Denise rocks the boat in more than one way! Will Chris find a message in a cider bottle? 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 @LikeTalkingToLassie and @BrightYellowDaffodil for title inspiration. Is this the end for Denise and John? It does seem odd to introduce John now if he's going to disappear. He has a lovely voice.

Over to you!

Not looking forward to endless scenes with Paul speaking to D and A in terse, clipped tones. He sounded like he was trying to be really menacing in that final scene so we are basically now going to see a different take on bullying in the workplace.

I thought it was really prurient how he wanted all the seedy details of the affair. He’s her son, not her husband.

Opps I meant Jazzer not the ex-footballer.🤦‍♀️

He sounded like he was trying to be really menacing in that final scene so we are basically now going to see a different take on bullying in the workplace.

Maybe Jakob will overhear and sack him for bullying!

They are all employees of Lovell James or does Alastair have some form of partnership?

I would imagine management will have issues with what’s going on at the surgery and would want to move one of the nurses. Would make sense to be Paul but they may not want a couple working together - especially where one is the boss of the other.

i have more sympathy for Paul than the rest of you lot but they’ve written this all really badly

Also given George’s love of a drink, are we supposed to think that he was sober when he took Alice and her car without permission, when he deliberately chose to get behind the wheel and drive.

The cider bottle was empty, it was quite late and I find it hard to believe someone with George’s wherewithal, history and desire for a good time would leave a party (however bad) without procuring some other drink to try and make the party more enjoyable / assuage his disappointment, or at least to make his walk home less dreary.

if the truth about the accident all comes out and given the fact George was returning from a party and the empty cider bottle was his, might it be fairly assumed he orchestrated the cover up because he feared he was over the limit. So might he be treated as a drunk driver as well as perverting the cause of justice. His actions mean he was deliberately avoiding a breathalyser, which he presumably would otherwise have been given as a matter of course as the driver in a serious accident. In such cases don’t the courts usually treat this as severely as if he had failed the breathalyser. Possibly the scriptwriters will brush all this under the carpet.

He seemed reasonably sober (but who can tell) and did react to try and mitigate the results of the crash, but nothing sobers you up like a bad accident. He certainly seemed preoccupied with driving Alice’s sporty little car to the exclusion of stopping to let her get out and be sick even though she said it repeatedly, and the occupants of the other car said Alice’s car came straight for them, with no time to react, so seems it was going fast.

I agree it must have been upsetting for Paul, even more so as they worked together and he had unrealistically built his parents failing marriage into some kind of perfect fairytale. But they have made him behave like a prima Donna.

Of course his mum and Alistair have not covered themselves in glory with some inappropriate, childish, underhand behaviour at work. But Paul was unaware of all that and he is an adult.

All the stuff after the accident, where he kept pressing and pressing about details of the supposed hurt sheep, despite his boss repeatedly saying he would deal with it, suggested obsessive behaviour, unless he already suspected, of which it now seems the latter was not the case.

As for his ultimatum of him staying at work and if they don’t like it they can leave. They had both already begged him not to give up his job, even though he had already verbally resigned

Not in the least bit interested in Paul and Denistair - I'm just not that invested in either Alistair and Denise as a couple or in Paul's relationship with Denise. On the other hand, I loved Pat's intervention with George. She genuinely she thought she was being helpful with her advice on giving evidence in court and had no idea that was exactly what George DIDN'T want to hear. Pointing out that Alice's lawyers would be trying to trip him up and that everything would be alright as long as he told the truth is exactly what he's worried about. Likewise the advice to ignore whatever might happen to Alice because that's not his fault. We all know that her little pep talk will only have made him feel much worse - the more people say that all he has to do is tell the truth and the more likely he is to do just that!

I did quite enjoy the George / Pat exchange too, for the reasons LillianGish says above.

I’ve never heard it pronounced any other way than “vye-cariously”. Legal background here.

It’s always been ‘Vick-arious’ in my experience; in fact I’ve never heard anyone pronounce it otherwise so I’m genuinely surprised by that. It may be that it’s an established alternative pronunciation in legal circles though.

Paul is a tiresome idiot but then he’s struck me as very controlling from the start - forever railroading people into doing what he wants to do (‘partying’ on his instructions, organising the vet’s practice the way he wants it, cross-questioning AliSTARE about the supposed sheep emergency on the night of the crash). Demanding all the details from Denise is totally inappropriate and the sort of thing you’d expect to see a distraught partner doing, but a son? Sorry, no. And then laying down the law about the way things are going to be at work henceforth, at his whim - double no.

Paul seems like the writers can’t decide on his character.
On the one hand, such a walkover with Etienne..are we supposed to believe that one appointment with a therapist, which he was stood up for, has improved his assertiveness to the extent that he’d be low-key threatening Denise and Alistair. It’s a bit of a stretch.

I have never heard it any other way than this and no legal background.

I was introduced to the word (pronounced vick) at school in the context of reading fiction being vicarious experience. The connection to the word 'vicar' being that a vicar helps us experience God or something to that effect.

I’m a vye. Was concerned when I read I’d been saying it wrong but then I googled.

WagnersFourthSymphony · Yesterday 23:42
Anyone know how many SWs are on the case at the moment, and what kind of continuity there is? It feels as if a lot of balls have been dropped.

This year, weeks' worths of scripts have been written by ten different people: by week it has been
Sarah Hehir
Tim Stimpson
Naylah Ahmed
Caroline Jester
Liz John
Keri Davies
Sarah McDonald Hughes
Nick Warburton
Katie Hims
Katie Hims
Sarah Hehir
Tim Stimpson
Daniel Thurman
Daniel Thurman
Keri Davies
Nick Warburton
Sarah McDonald Hughes
Caroline Jester
Naylah Ahmed
Sarah Hehir
Liz John
Sarah Hehir
Katie Hims
Nick Warburton
Keri Davies
Liz John
Sarah McDonald Hughes
Naylah Ahmed
Tim Stimpson
Tim Stimpson
Naylah Ahmed (next week)
Nick Warburton (week after that)

Whether they do liaise with each other, once the scripting conferences have decided on the plot which has to be covered in each week and who is going to write that week, seems to me to be anybody's guess.

I haven’t listened to the latest episodes because I’m at a point where I cannot bear to hear any more from Alistare and Deknees so I’ll have to listen to the omnibus and tune out their scenes. The George/Neil/Pat scenes are the only things I’m interested in this week.

Am I reading correctly that Paul is demanding details of the affair? That is seriously weird and deeply disturbing. No normal child would want to hear about their mother’s extra marital dalliance (it’s interesting that John didn’t ask for any details beyond wanting to know if Alistair was the other man which I think points to the fact he is not invested in his marriage) but usually a cheated on spouse would demand that information, not a son. Paul sounds borderline abusive, jealous and obsessive. I wonder if he is going to do something to Alistair in a fit of rage.

I suppose it’s a word that may not come up that often in general conversation. I would often use it for example if someone is enthusiastically describing something lovely they have done or are about to do and I might say how lovely it is to enjoy it vicariously.

As said non legal background and always used and never heard any other pronunciation than vi / vye - carious. All really depends on method of syllabification. Anyone unfamiliar with the word and seeing it written might use their knowledge of Vicar and Victoria to add a hard k. However as we know pronunciation often follows different rules for different words, and syllabifiication and pronunciation may differ on extended words even from the same base origin.

I see no reason the legal profession would make up a special pronunciation, so presumably it is pronounced there as they saw that word pronounced generally.

Family from and brought up in Manchester to my mid 20s. Lived and brought up my family in the south west since. Mind you I say ba th not baaa th and would never use the word THE directly before the word both (makes me cringe every time as seems totally redundant) and surely lost to, but defeated BY not TO, and definitely no s in licence. Going all Victor Meldrew here.

Ah the anomalies of our ever changing language.

VoxPop
The cider bottle was empty ... George was returning from a party and the empty cider bottle was his...

Do we actually have any evidence apart from things said by Susan (who was not there) and Paul (who was not there) and the world and his wife who were not there, that a cider bottle – as opposed to alchopops in one version – was found in the car and was empty? As far as we have heard, the police have said nothing on the subject.

I don't think we even know whether the police impounded her car: would that be normal practice in what must have appeared an uncomplicated case of driving very much over the limit and causing an accident? We also don't know where it is now, nor how badly it was damaged.

Apart from George, who is understandably saying nothing on the subject, the only possible witness to the presence of a bottle Alice did not buy would be Alice, and while she did not deny its presence when Chris told her it was there (how did he know?) I think she was too paralytically drunk at the time of the accident to have noticed whether there was an extra bottle in her car or not, and has simply taken other people's word on it. In the same way she thinks that she drove into another car and forced it off the road, which is what the rumour mill claims but was not what someone actually involved in the accident said had happened. (Even allowing that she was not driving at all, her car driving into the other and forcing it off the road still isn't what Fallon said: "She thinks Joy must have been knocked out as they hit the water. He asks what happened: she doesn't really know because she was in the back, but they got to the bridge and a car came straight for them and clipped the front of Mick's car when he swerved out of the way. Sending them off the bridge and into the river, Alistair says grimly; she guesses so.")

For the record, I cannot think of any reason for George to have been carrying an empty bottle around with him when he got into Alice's car; he doesn't seem the type to have been keeping it to put into the recycling when he got home, and there were woods on his route to throw it into when he had finished it if he had been drinking it while he walked.

I'm Scottish but the first time I heard the word vicarious pronounced was almost certainly in Leeds when I was in my teens. Since then I've been in London with my London-born husband and I've only ever heard and pronounced it vick-arious. I was barely aware it was possible to pronounce it any other way. (For what that's worth.)

Etymology:
vicar (n.)
early 14c., from Anglo-French vicare, Old French vicaire "deputy, second in command," also in the ecclesiastical sense (12c.), from Latin vicarius "a substitute, deputy, proxy," noun use of adjective vicarius "substituted, delegated," from vicis "change, interchange, succession; a place, position" (from PIE root weik-* (2) "to bend, to wind"). The original notion is of "earthly representative of God or Christ;" but also used in sense of "person acting as parish priest in place of a real parson" (early 14c.).
https://www.etymonline.com/word/vicar

vicarious (adj.)
1630s, "taking the place of another," from Latin vicarius "that supplies a place; substituted, delegated," from vicis "a change, exchange, interchange; succession, alternation, substitution" (from PIE root weik-* (2) "to bend, to wind").
It is attested from 1690s as "done or experienced in place of another" (usually in reference to punishment, often of Christ); by 1929 as "experienced imaginatively through another." Related: Vicariously.

See also: vice versa. Same root.

The cider bottle is a rubbish plot point

if this so ends with Alice remembering during the trial and shouting it out or George confessing on the stand then I will have to stop listening

Paul is behaving rather like Debbie did when she found out about Brian and Siobhan.

As far as I am concerned he is behaving like a character written by Tim Stimpson.

We must have been googling the etymology of ‘vicarious’ at exactly the same time, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g.

I only recall becoming properly aware of the word 40 years ago during Tort supervisions as an undergrad. Pretty sure we said ‘vye’ carious. Although - Tort was on Friday afternoons in a college right opposite the coach station, from where coaches left for my then boyfriend’s city about five minutes after the end of the supervision. So I may not have been concentrating too hard. Anyway that’s how I’ve pronounced it ever since …

(‘Vik’ arious liability has quite the wrong rhythm - I would definitely have remembered something so jarring.)

Good spot re Debbie! Very true.

Ha forgot I did do Tort as part as business studies aeons ago, but hardly counts as a legal background. vicarious certainly flows better without a hard k.

Re the empty cider bottle it was Alice that told Chris.

Alice herself had been told about it. Disgusted at herself for presumably being so desperate and Chris was very suspicious when she told him, as Alice does not drink cider (fruit or not) and why would she need to when she bought the vodka.

edit: was presumably the police that told Alice

I have included the quotes on the above before, and the comments on the collision from the witnesses

Of course the shop witnesses are important as they know Alice only bought Vodka and George bought fruit cider for his party (the one he was walking home from) after some discussion, so would be memorable

I put the stress on the second syllable of vicarious, if it helps.