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 ...

Ah, but the "Grundy code" means they can't turn on one of their own despite how stupid it is to allow him to invent nonsense stories.

Christ. Bloody Linda Snell

Will is a prize chump. Quite how he'd squared it with himself that it was all fine to set up an innocent person to take the rap on the grounds that "this could ruin the rest of George's life" escapes me. Why was it acceptable to risk ruining Harry's life instead?

They are very quickly running out of time not to be up on a conspiring to pervert the course of justice charge, to go with George's charges of perverting the course of justice, TWOCing, driving without insurance etc. etc.

Borchester Crown Court will need a larger dock at this rate. Perhaps they could open a new bit and call it The Grundy Wing.

I suppose criminals often are extremely stupid. Thank goodness for that, but in this particular case I'm losing patience. We need resolution!

Gaspode, I think the pace is speeding up now. I am savouring the downfall of George as - much as I think he initially made a silly mistake by driving Alice which is arguably down to youth - he's shown himself to be a nasty little piece of work along the way. Enjoying seeing Alice in a state, trying to manipulate her into lending him her car, dumping her in the drivers' seat, threatening his mother, dragging innocent people into it. The little scrote deserves everything he gets!

No I don't get Will these days. But maybe he's never recovered from what Emmur did to him?

When George seemed to be lumping him and Alice and Harry together in relation to the crash, almost as if they were all culpable. It was nice to hear Emma point out to him that it was not Alice or Harry that did it, it was him.

She desperately wants George to understand he was responsible and must take responsibility.

he seems to be turning into Joe. Joe, but without the low cunning.

Perhaps they could open a new bit and call it The Grundy Wing.

Peeps are on fire today!

Has anyone else got ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ running through their head? ‘ but now I’ve gone and thrown it all away …. ‘

’ he’s just a poor boy from a poor family …’

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening me …

Rather than Bohemian Rhapsody, I think the Queen song that comes to mind is Under Pressure.

Google tells me that these are lyrics of the first verse:

Pressure
Pushing down on me
Pressing down on you
No man ask for
Under pressure
That burns a building down
Splits a family in two
Puts people on streets

There are times when the Queen song that comes to mind when listening to TA is Radio Gaga.

I think we’re going to get Execrable George locked up for a while, and then when he comes back we’re going to have a proper villain on our hands.

We haven’t had one since Matt!

I'd say George is worse than Matt. His great-uncle Clive was the nastiest piece of work ever heard on TA. Of course, Rob was awful too, but in a different way.

If we're dedicating Queen songs, how about Death on Two Legs?

On Chickweed:

The average fruit production is about 240 capsules per plant, but on one very large plant 1153 capsules were counted. One could expect a mean output of nearly 2500 seeds. Since three generations in one year would not be abnormal, the potential offspring over a period of 12 months, if most were to survive, could be over 15,000 million plants - a progeny, on a moderate estimate of their average size, sufficient to clothe with vegetation an area nearly thee times that of the Isle of Wight.

Sir Edward Salisbury, Weeds and Aliens, Collins New Naturalists, 1961, page 191

I love that book so much (it changed my life, in a good way), and that is one of the many many choice bits. though I fear it raises slightly excessive hopes wrt domestic chickweed production (it is a fine addition to soup or salads).

And always fun to see an Isle of Wight measuring scale in the wild.

We know Alice isn't guilty but no one else does- including Alice, so I thought her chirpy bouncing around and being the face of the stables on Chundering Up Day was completely tone deaf and lacking in self- awareness.

Yes, Justin is a dick but not actually wrong about the 'optics'.

I dislike Fagash more than Phlemgy so can cope with Phlemgy being right about Alice.

Our original Riley had a bench seat at the front. Leather, though, so the smell brought on car sickness in about 20mins flat, countered by Kwells which put me to sleep. When we did our annual trip to a caravan in Devon, DM solved part of the luggage problem by using most of the sheets and a cushion to make me a bed along the back seat. I can’t imagine many MNs remember a time when that was acceptable.

I love that book so much (it changed my life, in a good way)

Tell. (If possible!)

Possible, but maybe dull for everyone else - it expanded my understanding, specifically of the ways plants propagate themselves, and changed the way I see the world around me for ever. It also left me a little inclined to snarl at the gardeners' definition of weeds as 'plants growing in the wrong place' and to send me off on a discourse about roots and seeds, archaeophyte species and glacial survivors, arable ground and riverbanks, and on and on as people gradually edge away from me . . .

People are really weird that way.

I think that in life your wife being unfaithful with your brother is a horrible thing to happen, but losing your young wife and mother of your very young child and 2 young step children in a sudden and shocking way is much, much worse, and that would surely have made Emma’s betrayal feel like a forgotten footnote -after all, nobody died from that (though Ed did almost kill her in his car I suppose).

Can anyone remind me what was known about Nic and Matt Crawford when she died? I have in my mind that they only found out it was her after she died, and so that was the obvious reason why they never told anyone. Don’t she confess to Joe on her deathbed or something? Or did Will know all along and help cover it up?

I can.

I think Nic told Joe on her deathbed. I can’t remember if he told anyone.

Will knew all along and he told Ed some time after Nic died. I think he told Ed that Nic was driving home late in the evening, one of the kids was sick in the back of the car and she became distracted and hit Matt. He helped cover it all up. The storyline was quite convoluted and I never really understood the point of it unless it was to show that Saint Nic was not as perfect as everyone thought (although we already knew that when she physically assaulted a young George).