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!

I must have missed a bit a while ago - What has been Denise's excuse for why she and Paul haven't split up properly?

Does Alistair think he and Denise have just been doing out and out cheating?

Lard is great stuff - if I have some in the fridge I might make some Horribin biscuits for the craft group meeting on Monday. I converted back to it a few years ago after all the scare stories around seed oils - have to go to the Polsky Sklep to buy it, but often make my own from trimmings from the pork chops I feed to the cats.

I do love the idea of Alastair nibbling his own dairy herd to freedom and arranging it round his desk.

Yes! I thought that. My mother is a very good cook and I discovered recently that the hard white fat she often uses for her casseroles isn't Trex, as I had assumed - it's lard. 🐖 I generally use that for shortcrust pastry (half and half with butter) on the rare occasions I make it.

Your difficulty in finding lard in supermarkets surprises me, Dean - I thought Ireland was a stronghold of pork consumption? I'm not sure I would find it in every corner shop here, but the big supermarkets have it.

I’m going with garibaldi for the biscuit choice but chocolate bourbons as a backup.

Lemon Puffs are delish too but they are hard to find.
I just wonder why John went into the vet?, perhaps to let Alistair know he wasnt a shrinking violet and have his presence felt.
Funny how just 5 mins ago Stella was moaning about Fat Rosie and now she is telling Pip that she missed them both!. Making a rod for her own back there.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g DH and I often 🤔🙄 at the TV ad for 'Trex' that comes on quite a lot just now - it’s some sort of flooring, apparently, but to our generation it'll always be the lump of white fat our mums kept in the fridge for making pastry, with an equal proportion of butter….

I love a custard cream

Because Im older I remember Cookeen that was lard and
Summer County which was like Just Like Butter and Stork which was used as a spread back in the day.

Lots of good agricultural scenes lately and I'm more interested in Sabrina Thwaite's cat Tosca with a seed in it's paw which is 'in danger of migrating to the facial plane'😳 than Denise and Alistair's furtive conversation in his office.

‘fascial’, @howdyho?

Tosca’s film star looks would be unaffected. Except by a grimace of pain, maybe.

(I know nothing beyond what Google throws up!)

I'm not even slightly interested in Denise and John's break-up and even less interested in her choice of biscuits (with the exception of @BerylBillings' excellent contribution to the subject). It all feels like time filling to drag out the eventual denouement of the crash drama. Nice to have a bit of Brookfield and some farming chitchat from the heart of Ambridge. I agree with @JoelenesParrot that Denise and John feel too peripheral to be taking up so much time.

Summer County well,well,well, stirring long hidden memories of childhood.

It was always marg or butter (usually marg) and the marg was always Summer County. Lard, my mam always steadfastly swore by into old age.

That makes more sense thanks Totters,
you wouldn't think I'd once been a veterinary receptionist, though it was 25 years ago.

Veterinary receptionist - sounds like a fun job! Although probably, like most jobs, not as much fun in practice.

Cookeen - that's a blast from the past! I think Mum bought that for cooking savoury things. She used Echo block margarine for baking.

Just heard Judy Bennett (Shula) doing her other job. Decades ago R4 often got her to play a young child to avoid all the difficulties of employing a real child. In this case, she was in The House on the Strand, a 1973 archive recording the BBC has recently unearthed. Thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/5118163-hidden-treasures-r4-extra-marvellous-old-radio-plays-from-the-60s-cut-glass-accents-abound?reply=136744778

Even if George instinctively turned off the lights and the engine, you would have thought Alistair and Denise would have seen their car as it was very nearby (from hearing it almost immediately stopped after the collision and how loudly from George’s view you could hear Mick’s car creaking as it teetered on the edge with George saying no,no,no)

According to Fallon their car got to the bridge and the other car came straight for them, it clipped the front of Mick’s car and Mick swerved out of the way.

I had always assumed Alistair and Denise were travelling in the same direction as Mick. If so they would have come across Alice’s car first or at the same time as Mick’s because it was travelling towards them. They might have been distracted from it because of seeing the headlights in the river and then the rescue.

Perhaps they were travelling in the same direction as George? I imagine they would have seen the headlights in the water from either direction and Mick’s car could have flipped or twisted as it went into the water so the headlights could have been facing either way

On listening again I had forgotten part of Alice talking to her family after the police station, going through how she must have done it but could not remember, that she parked up in the lay-by in Hayden Woods turned the car off and put the keys in the glove box for safety, remembers hearing George’s voice. Kate cuts across her and said yes George was checking how you were after the accident and how much they owe him (true) and what a hero he was. Alice says no but he, err, the car was off and I just wanted to be left alone.

So it seems pretty obvious that in addition to having memories of more than herself in the car going towards the bridge (when she said ‘us’ to Adam), she also has memories of George with her in the lay-by. It is unsurprising these have been suppressed by the conflicting evidence of the set up.

Scones made with half lard and half butter knock the socks off all-butter versions.

I wonder if sobering up in rehab will cause more memories to resurface.

Just listened to House on the Strand, and chuckled when the child, played by Shula, said 'Awright' 😁. Didn't she play Henry?

Whatever happens, I hope it all wraps up soon.

The Alistair/Denise/John situation is like a poorly written comedy sketch.

I don't think so, but she may have set a pattern!

Thanks for clarifying ☺️… ok what other scenarios will out George? I guess having Joy organise fete might illuminate the truth… she’s going to be having lots of interaction with a lot of different folks over the next few weeks … plenty of opportunity for cider to crop up in conversation?

I think it's all going to hinge on that telephone message George left, saying he was going to drive Alice home? That will reemerge, I'm sure!

Sorry, delurker here

Do messages stay somewhere in the cloud after they’ve been deleted on the phone?