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 ...

Indeed, there are, apparently, a few SUVs with less of a hump. I'm not a petrolhead so I don't know if there are any modern sports cars with flat floors but I doubt it somehow. I find it awkward enough to move from driver's seat to passenger seat myself while fully able, so am curious about this aspect of the SL where George moves an unco-operative body in the opposite direction.

I think they all do but they can be quite low profile. A lot of modern cars don’t have a handbrake, just a button, and gear knobs can be small. Mine is like that, and the cup holders are sunk into the central part. I don’t think it would be easy to shift someone over it but I suppose it’s doable if you’re really desperate and they’re drunk enough not to really care.

Thanks, @BrightYellowDaffodil, that's interesting to know. It's been bugging me unreasonably.

My 4+yo Golf is automatic with electronic handbrake. Still has a gear knob and a cup holder and high armrest in the middle and it is indeed the devils own work to swap front seats inside, even when able to fully self mobilise.

i imagine most relatively modern cars would be very difficult (I do recall older cars way back had less continuous gubbins in the middle and you could almost step through)

The advantage of dragging a relatively unconscious body across (not that I have ever done a George) is I imagine that you can (with the door open) almost drag them flat on their back pulling their shoulders right across and outside the car, until their legs clear the middle, then sit them up. They would be a dead weight but George is strong and Alice apparently tiny.

I imagine it would leave a few bum bruises though depending on the nobbliness of the central gubbins!

edit. Sorry replied without reading the replies on this page

Don't think George would have cared about bruises.

Yes imagine that was the last thing on his mind as he was dragging Alice back and forth.

Well ignoring the dragging across after the accident - I was wondering more if it wouldn’t have been easier to move her into the back seat when he originally came across her

And it would, no doubt, have had child locks if it was a 4-door car and she wouldn't have been able to jump out as she was trying to do.

My car's hand brake is a tiny button as is my Husband's. It would be very easy to go across. As it's automatic there isn't a gear stick either.

Thinking of our automatic car (vw) it is reasonably wide but quite low and nothing ‘pokey’. However, having tried to get across it was extremely awkward because of the width and the steering wheel and it was actually easier to go feet first.

And Alice isn’t tiny. I refuse to believe that and think the sw only introduced that point because they realised how ridiculous it all sounds

I’ve known more than one family of exactly Alice’s status and background - growing up in the countryside as local royalty on a thriving farm, unlimited good food, ponies, holidays, etc - where one daughter was tall and buxom and the other very short. .

But no, Alice and Debbie are relatively tall. If any of them are shorter it would be Kate, and even she is definitely not tiny.

Debbie to me just looks like the actor who plays her - she has quite a distinctive voice and I knew her already visually from Black Books.

Am I the only person on the thread who not only doesn't have a car but doesn't drive? I'm rarely in a car, so this is all useful info. Alice must be the size of a Borrower for George to have been able to sling her about as quickly and easily as he did, and it's odd nobody ever bothered to mention that in all the years leading up to this interminable storyline.

We don't have a car and neither of us has driven since the late 90s (that's the year, not the age!). We only ever go in a car if we need to get a minicab somewhere. I still have a licence, though - it's a handy piece of ID.

I drive almost every day and cannot work out how George was able to move her so quickly. I once pulled my then 6 year old from the drivers seat into the passenger one (he was 'playing' at driving and wouldn't move) and that was not easy. Alistair was not that far behind him yet George was able to drag her across the front seats of a small car - which would have been incredibly awkward - and get her into position, slumped into the front in minutes. All without her regaining consciousness.

I suppose he's used to handling pigs. They're quite heavy and not particularly cooperative.

Similar to my husband. Fortunately, no one was ever daffy enough to give me a driving licence, and you should all be very grateful.

Yet another rural storyline that TA could usefully tackle is how difficult life is in places where everything is geared towards cars and you can't drive (or, more plausibly, you can no longer drive, e.g. because of ill health, disability, the frailty that comes with old age). It would add to the realism if they'd ever mentioned, even briefly, how sad Jill or Peggy or Christine or Jim or Joe Grundy felt about no longer being able to drive, losing independence and spontaneity, coping with being dependent on others for lifts, constantly having to be grateful and worrying about being a nuisance. Also, the eyewatering cost of taxis in rural areas! Volunteer driver schemes are a great boon - another possible storyline.

Another aspect that could usefully be covered - the extreme reluctance of many older people to give up driving, for all the reasons I've mentioned above, and the worry their nearest and dearest feel about not just their relative's safety but also that of other road users who might be injured or killed if the relative loses control of the car. It's a recurring theme on MN. Very tricky and leads to a lot of conflict in families.

I think they did have a period of about 5 minutes when Jill couldn't drive due to cataracts(?), and they do occasionally mention Peggy being taken places.
Rex seems to be the only taxi in the village, despite having several other jobs.

Of those you list I do recall they were quite good at maintaining the s/l of Peggy suddenly becoming dependent on her children for lifts to the hairdressers and shops after her mini-stroke.

And was it cataracts that stopped Jill driving? I think that was what caused her to move back to Brookfield?

I don’t think Peggy ever went back to driving but I’m not sure about Jill. They probably did both say something about it at the time, but I’ve forgotten what.

Has Jim stopped driving completely? I know he gave his vintage car to Tracy and Jazzer as a honeymoon gift, but I thought that was because it was too effortful. Did he not buy a more modern replacement?

No idea about Christine or Joe - they both seemed to be dependent on others in recent memory …

Thank you - that image has made my day 🤣

Joe acquired Bartleby to maintain his independence when he gave up driving.

TottersBlanklyIntoThePhysicGarden
And was it cataracts that stopped Jill driving? I think that was what caused her to move back to Brookfield?

Jill had cataracts and stopped driving because of them, like me. Like me, she had them operated on with no problems caused by this whatever. Like me, she got her sight back within days and went back to driving. She moved back to Brookfield briefly while she waited to have the operation, and in its immediate aftermath.

She moved back long-term to Brookfield in the end because she became afraid of living alone, and because Ruth insisted that she would be absolutely welcome there for as long as she liked. David had his doubts about the whole thing and said so, but Ruth was determined – right up until she threw Jill out to make room for Heather. After Heather died, and after Ruth grudgingly managed to forgive Jill for still being alive when her mother had died, Jill moved back into Brookfield again and this time she stayed, again at Ruth's insistence, with Ruth wishing she were not there except for her conveniently doing the housework and cooking.

WorriedRelative
Joe acquired Bartleby to maintain his independence when he gave up driving.

Joe didn't "acquire" Bartleby! He sank into the depths of gloom over having been such a bad farmer (he called it having been unlucky, and oppressed by the Archers) that he and his son went bankrupt and lost the farm his family had been renting for at least three generations, so Shula arranged for someone to lend him a pony to give him an interest in life.

The Alice being as small as a Borrower @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
and the George being used to pig handling @CaptainMyCaptain
gave me a laugh, thank you both

George likes to show off his muscles and throws hay bales around for fun, so imagine he is fairly strong, but that must have been serious manhandling of his aunt at each end of the journey, plus making comments about getting her leg over seemed questionable.

Alice was described as 'only little' IIRC.

If George is quite tall and muscly, Alice might have seemed 'only little' despite being tall(ish).

If she had passed out, she was probably easier to move than a pig.

Plus I imagine a pig would make one hell of a mess of your car if you forcibly tried to drag it from the drivers to the passenger seat and then back again.