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 ...

Turns out she wasn’t wrong about George though, was she? 😉

Thanks for the backstory, I’d totally forgotten Will knew all along.

Me too. In fact my father had to sell the Riley when my little sister was born because the carrycot wouldn't fit in the back. We were all very sad and I don't know if my brother has ever forgiven her.

from the BBC write up on this …

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4zdzL7W9GvtgMDywpWlG9qT/matts-hit-and-run-the-full-story-of-what-happened-that-night

Nic had left her shift at The Bull early to go and collect Poppy who was feeling unwell. With Poppy in the back seat, Nic drove quickly to get her home, but when Poppy threw up Nic instinctively turned around, taking her eyes off the road. That’s when it happened. Nic stopped the car but it was dark and her phone wouldn't work so she drove home.

Will goes on to tell Ed that Nic arrived home in tears, "she wasn't making sense" and his first thought was that she must have hit a deer so he went back to the lane to see what had happened. There was an ambulance and several police cars there already. He panicked and returned home where he washed and fixed up the car.

Nic had wanted to confess, he told Ed, but Will talked her out of it, she “always said that if anyone got charged she would confess."

i spend ages on the gardening thread pushing the “plant where you don’t want it” definition. Seems infinitely preferable to the alternative. A red mist rises when I see “is this a plant or a weed?”, just made worse by the chorus of “weed” that follows. I just give them the facts “bindweed, rapid climber, big white flowers, close relative of morning glory” and leave them to decide whether they want it. People must get very bored of me

My neighbour has both.

I am rather fed up with the fruitless bramble suckers trying to take over the mulberry tree and having too be removed with great difficulty at least once a month, whether they are a weed or not. I am reasonably fond of that mulberry, and I unlove the prickly bramble suckers.

I’ve not yet been forgiven for my carrycot not fitting in the back of my parents MGB either.

Can’t edit, but had better specify it was an MGBGT or I’ll be hunted down and shot. In a very unique colour apparently…

If you have brambles round the base, how do you pick them? I let mine fall on to the grass then gather them up, couldn't do that with a bramble repository

?

Brambles, as opposed to blackberries. I have not seen a single fruit on the wretched things during the five years or so during which they have been coming through the fence from next door.

Brambles are what we call blackberries in Scotland. They have fruit.
Is the expression used in England to mean something else?

Brambles are the spiky stems and leaves, blackberries are the fruits. I think they fruit on 2nd year stems, so if you're always removing them, they won't get to that point. Unfortunately, they don't seem to get to the point of death, either.

I suspect my carrycot would have not fitted in my father's duck-egg blue convertible, were it not for the fact my mother wrote it off in a West Dorset lane before my arrival, an event which was brought up every now and then (crashing the car, rather than my arrival.) But they did put the back seat down in the Hillman Superminx estate that we had for much of my childhood, and put down blankets over the luggage for us to sleep on en route to our holiday destination in the '80s.

Well, blackberries are what you call the fruits. As I said, we call the fruits brambles in Scotland.

My parents had a Morris Traveller and my younger sister was put in the back, behind the rear seats when grandparents were with us! If we had had a shunt from behind she would have been badly hurt. But no one thought like that then!

Yep, siblings used to fight over who got to ride in the boot of the estate car …. but then there were no seatbelts anyway 🙄

32 pages and the thread’s only two weeks old, what a talkative lot we are.

No, not just you, I’ve never given it any thought.

Truly, @iratepirate? I can’t imagine listening without forming an impression of how characters look; their clothes, gestures, facial expressions, body language, the texture of their skin, even how they might smell - coming in from a night of lambing or dressed up to go out in Borchester or whatever.

But I realise we all listen differently!

I do. Also children in the luggage area of an estate car.

Bramble jelly is made from the fruit, I assume.

@CaptainMyCaptain , you mean that isn't the children area? Who knew?

That's what my father got when he sold the Riley. And yes, the carry cot went in the luggage compartment and my brother & I sat on the back seat.

Wasn't it Dame Edna who called them a half-timbered car?

Truly, @TottersBlanklyIntoThePhysicGarden !
I remember mentioning this several threads ago and being scoffed at. But I genuinely couldn’t tell you my supposed hair colour, height, features of any character.

Just caught up on threads and episodes after a week away.

I have vague ideas - blonde, brunette etc and build but it doesn’t go much further than that. Sometimes I see well-known actors in my head, not the actual Archers ones but faces I’ve seen on TV that would sort of match the voice and character.

It’s invariably a shock to see the real actor so I actively avoid that information.