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 ...

She hasn't actually been in Ambridge all that time - she left and came back. She's often silent, too.

Must admit I’ve never loved Hannah and can only conclude that at some point the creative team felt obliged to bring in a youngish woman who was not a First Family heiress. But they’ve clearly been puzzled over what to do with her; if she left now the highlight of her Ambridge career would be shagging the Ssusage King. Lowlights - being evicted by George and friend zoned by the Hot Farrier. It’s not much …

Could the linking of the two events by a pony and trap ride be designed to make public and dramatic the Grundy downfall?

After all there is only one pony and trap in Ambridge. Even if they find a brewery dray from somewhere what are the chances the second vehicle involves George and Gem?

Now that George is being obnoxious rather than vulnerable, my dodgy moral compass is having a bit of a reset.

I wouldn't let any man speak to me the way George is speaking to Emma.

I think I would tell Alice that George had been driving at the time of the crash and when he got back to the car after rescuing people she had crawled into the driver's seat. George was in a state of shock after rescuing people and saving lives, panicked and let her take the rap.

And as Alice was the cause of all this, she should change her plea to guilty so neither she nor George will go to prison.

Not quite sure how Alice would react ...

So your way out requires Alice to perjure herself, @BeatriceBatchelor? And gets George off the hook for t”the more serious of his crimes. crime Good plan. But yes, it’s her fault, so she should take the rap. Or maybe Joy should - she sold Alice the vodka after all, so basically the broken collarbone serves her right (would have been her neck if I’d had my druthers). Pleading guilty doesn’t necessarily mean Alice wouldn’t go to prison, either, it’s just that pleading not guilty makes it a great deal more likely.

Oh, and George ‘saved’, at the most, one life. Although if I were Fallon but had the full facts at my disposal, I’d be inclined to see it more as ‘nearly bloody well drowned me, the little git’.

I hope Alice would react with a resounding Eff Off.

I wouldn’t mind Joy disappearing to do a stretch for a while. I find her so irritating

So entirely predictably Alice has confided in the wrong person - ie someone entirely incapable of giving her good advice and more than capable of persuading her to ignore her own instinct to do the right thing. Talk to your own family Emma - mum, dad or brother - it’s not getting away with crashing a car you need to focus on, it’s being sent to prison yourself for failing to dob in a relative. Once George goes to the police with his cock and bull story about Harry, Emma will be deeply implicated in the deception. It’s not looking good for her 🥲

And another thought, even if Emma does not go to prison, could a criminal conviction stop her working as a tree surgeon?

Sorry, I'm not understanding what crime Emma is committing by not dobbing George in. She wasn't a witness. There is no duty to report him for the story he's told her. (Susan's situation was different - she was knowingly harbouring a convicted criminal on the run.) AFAIK she hasn't made any false statement to the police - though I may have missed it! - so she's not perverting the course of justice.

Because she has not been in Ambridge all that time. She came there in 2008 on a work placement with Tom's pig operation and left in 2009 to go to college, only coming back to the village when she applied for a job at Berrow in 2018.

Emma is committing a crime by conspiring with George (and Will) to pervert the course of justice further than he already has.

Whether the police will find this out, unless she, George or Will tells them, may be in doubt, but that she is at present doing it is clear.

Does anyone have the number for Borchester Police Station? I'd like to ring them myself and tell them what we know. I need this storyline to reach a conclusion. My patience is being sorely tested by the current glacial pace, although I must grudgingly admit that the last week has seen some progress. Emma is going to crack soon, I'd say, so either way George is likely to have his collar felt soon. Surely?

Surely Emma already knows about Chris’ abortive attempts to pin the blame on Harry and so won’t allow George to continue with this ludicrous idea.

Well you would have thought so given Susan was there. It’s totally unrealistic that she wouldn’t have told Emma every detail

As (unlike George) Alice is a fairly honest person, I doubt she would be comfortable lying, let alone committing perjury.

Given the terrible personal ramifications on her of George’s lies and cruelly setting her up, I cannot see any motivation for her to do that anyway. Especially as she would still have to take the blame for something she did not do and very likely go to prison (I am not sure why you think she wouldn’t)

Although George was attempting to be helpful (whilst immediately looking what was in it for him), he chose to drag Alice across the car and drive her off, even though she repeatedly told him to stop. He chose not to pull over when she repeatedly told him she wanted to be sick and knowing she was barely conscious.. Worst of all he dragged her across the car again, to set her up.

i think the best thing would be for Alice to tell the truth (if she remembers and refrains from beating George over the head with the squirrel tray, for the terrible thing he did). In such a case the courts could decide, and if your conclusion that Alice caused it all was shared then no problem, George would get off without a stain on his character and Alice would be banged up.

Personally I don’t think that would be the general consensus, and George would be held responsible for his own decisions and actions. Just as (despite the extreme provocation from the terrible consequences of George setting her up), Alice would be held responsible for beating him to a pulp with the squirrel tray..

On reflection I think your straightforward idea for the rich to be convicted for the crimes of the poor had more legs. It could also benefit the rich as a tax avoidance measure.

That truly is an Elizabethan level of crime. Almost anything can amount to a conspiracy if Walsingham the authorities have it in for you (and some level of proof). They're just a family chatting shit at the moment; they haven't taken any steps or committed anything to paper or electronic record, and I reckon the CPS would take a dim view of the chances of a successful prosecution on the basis of Emma's blabbing something about the 'plan'. Whereas, if George goes through with his idea of framing Harry - well, that will be very interesting!

Yes, if, after the event that he is caught dead to rights committing perjury, it comes out that his father and mother encouraged him to do so, that is when "conspiracy to pervert the course of justice" cuts in. It is a crime, and she is committing it at present; if she is discovered to have done so, having done so will be a chargeable offence.

I think that it's a bit dodgy to suggest that a crime is only a crime if the person doing it gets caught.

The irony if Emma ends up in prison for a crime similar to the one her mother was imprisoned for.

Aha!!! So that’s why Susan was so unnecessarily dragged into that Chris v Harry meeting - even though we wondered why she was apparently silent.

Emma’s probably going to skirt around her worries in conversation with her mother, and Susan, all unknowing, will casually mention the fact that Harry had no clue about the accident … Even as George is signing his sworn ‘dobbing Harry in’ statement at the police station …

but do we honestly believe radio carter hasn’t already told her!!

I agree it would be hard to believe … But quite often in TA people have conversations that you just know they would realistically have had yesterday or that morning - but they’re just staged for our listening.

Maybe Susan might say they’ve all been so stressed about it, she just hadn’t wanted to talk about it? I dunno …

If I was in Alice’s position, with no memory at all of what occurred, I would book an appointment with a hypnotist at this stage. Desperate times etc. I am puzzled by her apparent belief that saying “I just know I wouldn’t do it” and producing a character witness will cut any ice in court.

We often hear Susan discussing Chris’ business with Emma so it’s very hard to believe she wouldn’t have told her about the visit to Harry. It’s not clear if Alice knows about it? Perhaps if Chris told her he went to see Harry because he thought someone was in the car with her, that might spark a memory. She almost remembered when she drove over the bridge with Adam.

I know Kate isn’t very sympathetic to Alice’s thinking here but I’m surprised she hasn’t suggested something even if just to come to terms with what happened

(mutters obsessively) I stll want to know what kind of car Alice has that George is so keen to drive. (And if it has a transmission tunnel in the front, because it's the devil's own game to shift someone over that.)

Are there cars made this century which don't have a handbrake and a gear-lever between the two front seats? Most seem to have cupholders and such as well.