Archers thread #170: The scriptwriters have cast a Paul on proceedings! 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 Drunk Alistair, 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 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radioaddicts/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/radioaddicts/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. I was tempted to try some sort of complex riff on chocolate names, given @PedantScorner's lightbulb moment - Paul's sister is Cara Mack! - and all the nonsense in last night's episode about coffee creams, but I couldn't be bothered, beyond thinking we must all be Cadbury's Fruit and Nutcases for listening at the moment. Let's hope the SWs take a walk along Quality Street or we'll have to put a Bounty on their heads!

And over to you ...

Btw I’m so behind with the thread - did everyone loathe the Alastair/John interaction the other day as much as I did? What a load of absolute old toot.

I don't think so, no.

But I can't see why it would have been if the concert-goers were on their way back into Ambridge from Felpersham, nor how, if it was, the accident went unremarked by the houses so close to it.

The whole Denistare SL is tedious but there must be some point to it. The Harrispawn SL has been worse than tedious.

I was always fond of Rotaboy. I always like Cursedy so it was a nice touch.

MerelyPlaying
However, who the hell has a ‘box room’ these days?

I rather suspect that whoever occupies the house in which I was born and grew up would have to, because the box-room there wouldn't really work for any other purpose; about four foot wide by ten foot long, with a small window at ceiling level at one end of it and the access hatch to the loft at the other near the door onto the landing.

That same house also had a larder, north-facing, and again not a lot of use for anything else because one side of it was the wall onto the garden and the other side was the wall onto the passage between the kitchen and the yard, which passage had rooms off it on the other side where gardening stuff and bicycles and such lived; they wouldn't have been much use for anything else either, I don't suppose, given that they didn't open into the house but into the yard outside; the door into the passage was at the kitchen end of it, and the passage itself was unheated, and got filled with snow during the winter of 1962-3 so that we couldn't get out through the back door.

It was a rather inconvenient house in many ways.

Probably a huge open plan space now, with the passage absorbed into the house, RSJs galore to replace load-bearing walls, internal walls torn down and bifold doors opening onto the garden. Half the houses in our area have had this sort of treatment in the last decade or two.

I hate bifold doors. My doors are for keeping the outside out. I like french windows.

I also dislike open plan living areas.

My house has a box room.

Gah - they brought up the stupid nic SL which stopped me listening for months/years

asking - what’s your view on their route and its accuracy? And they need more than one horse and trap? And is any route scenic?

why would joy care about Roy?

Litter campaign definitely on the cards. More interesting than denistare

on the hideous convos between Alastair and John and then Harrison. Did a woman write those? I don’t mean to be sexist but the conversations between women characters have been so much better

joy threw Kirsty under the bus there. But wouldn’t a Kirsty/harrison affair over litter picking be something to behold (and hopefully see him packing)

sorry but the crash SL is getting ridiculous now

May the talk about Nic continue.

They did nic dirty!

The hit and run was a deeply unsatisfactory storyline in many ways. I greatly enjoyed Nic’s demise, though.

I hate to say this about the direction the Denistaire SL might take but…I remember last Christmas they exchanged joke presents that had predictions for the year ahead inside and Alistair’s said he would be married within the year.

Wasn't it the Grundy plum pudding?

Grundy males aren't bright, are they? How on earth could Will possibly have thought the whole thing would blow over and get forgotten about when there's a trial coming up with George presumably proposing to commit perjury?

And quite apart from the odd morality of thinking that it's OK to put the blame on Harry instead of Alice, they have no idea whether Harry has an unbreakable alibi or not. If he does, the first question anyone will ask is - why does George want to lie about it?

Harry seems dim enough to respond to police questioning with something like "I was in Sunderland that night" and on being asked what he was doing there, replying "Dealing crystal meth."

I have a box room. Those BigDug shelves (cheap imitation) filled with boxes. It's what was in the loft and a vast airing cupboard in the last house.

Bruisername · Today 19:15
asking - what’s your view on their route and its accuracy? And they need more than one horse and trap? And is any route scenic?

Going north-east instead of south-east from the village green, whilst not even slightly the direct route to The Stables (which would be to go about 500 yards south-east down the road at most and not even across the Am) would eventually take you past Manor Court; you could then turn right into the lane past Hollowtree and come out on the far side of The Stables from the one you would reach by the direct route, but I would not myself choose to take a horse and cart that way. I don't suppose it's very scenic any more: mostly that area has been razed for the EV charging station. There would also be the drawback, if the charging station has opened which it absolutely ought to have done by now, that all the cars silently going to get their charge would be on that road, and it is a narrow lane not big enough for a small elderly combine (it wasn't suitable for combines to use, last century).

Bruisername
on the hideous convos between Alastair and John and then Harrison. Did a woman write those? I don’t mean to be sexist but the conversations between women characters have been so much better

The scripts this week were written by Nick Warburton.

Marseillaise
And quite apart from the odd morality of thinking that it's OK to put the blame on Harry instead of Alice, they have no idea whether Harry has an unbreakable alibi or not. If he does, the first question anyone will ask is - why does George want to lie about it?

Harry was driven to rehab by his mother on 24th April, and the accident was on the night of 5th May. I'd say his alibi was pretty-well cast iron.

Thanks Asking!

Chris already knows Harry wasn’t involved.

looks like HMP will need to find a triple room

Oh that's hilarious re Harry's alibi.

I still don't even understand what happened in that Nic storyline.

Emmur is at least doing the right thing here.

I do. Most pre WWII houses will have box rooms? It's flats rather than houses but traditional tenement flats have box rooms.

When will she realise she could now be prosecuted too?? Maybe that realisation will drive her to the station / Harrison's front door.

Depends if you refer to it as a box room though.

We have a box room. We call it Mini Fink's bedroom. Lest you feel that my child is living in a cupboard under the stairs, she also has a second room (a very slightly bigger room which would probably still qualify as a box room).

It’s mainly that I imagined the cottage that Kirsty and Roy inhabit is fairly small. We heard a lot about what a squeeze it was for Jenny and Brian living next door, of course I’m not sure if they’re the same. I’ve never had a box room and I’ve lived in a lot of older houses, a room just for luggage/junk or boxes would be a luxury. Not sure I’ve ever seen one on my trawls through Rightmove!

Also, I’d have thought those houses that did have one would by now have converted it to a shower or an extra loo. I stand corrected - some of you have rooms just for boxes.

My mother's last house - a 1970s semi - had 3 bedrooms, allegedly. The third would have perhaps taken a baby's cot and a small chest of drawers. It had a window, though, which perhaps meant it wasn't a box room. 🤔

MerelyPlaying
It’s mainly that I imagined the cottage that Kirsty and Roy inhabit is fairly small. We heard a lot about what a squeeze it was for Jenny and Brian living next door, of course I’m not sure if they’re the same.

Roy got the larger part of Willow Farm when it was cut up to make a small cottage for Mike (this was before he married Vicky) and a house for Roy, Hayley, Phoebe and Abi. The names are a bit of a giveaway: Willow Farmhouse and Willow Cottage.