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 ...

I like Lynda and Joy together.

I like Lynda and Joy together

I really don’t like Lynda and Joy together as I don’t like Lynda with anyone. I think Joy is far too tolerant and bullies like Lynda shouldn’t be indulged in this day and age.

I can’t bear joy tbh and Lynda when organising is unbearable too! So together they are unlistenable

amazing how big businessman Justin is happy to use George for the promos. The inconsistency of character is irritating

Bruisername
amazing how big businessman Justin is happy to use George for the promos. The inconsistency of character is irritating

When he first arrived he was too busy and important to run Damara himself, but he has descended, via running a pig farm and being ousted from that by one of his subordinates, to interfering in the running of a local riding stable. He did this via volunteering in a village because he had so much time on his hands.

His is clearly losing his grip, slowly but surely.

I fear it is the sw losing their grip

I wasn't going to say that; mostly because it is not fair to blame any individual scriptwriter when such character and plot decisions are made by an editorial team led by the Editor, not by one scriptwriter operating solo. They ALL share the blame.

And this week's SW has only ever written one week of scripts for the programme before this one, so I can't really tell whether his work is deteriorating or not....

Was the garlic significant. Were the squirrels on the tray a portent.
Where is the crystal ball?

This is one of my major bugbears with the show, and why I don't like hearing from Justin. And then it turned out that he was only volunteering in the village shop so that he could get cred for some local award. I'm sure that will impress all his Bilderberg friends when they see it hanging on the wall of his chalet in Gstaad.

He was volunteering in the shop to get inside info on the injections to the charging station so another layer of ridiculous

good shout on the hypnosis pp - knew it would be Kate!

Good for Lily with Kieran.

I didn't entirely like the fact that Kieron (that is how the BBC has him spelt in the cast-list: looks faintly wrong to me, but hey) was only persuaded to leave when Ben came back to support Lily; I would rather she'd managed to get rid of him herself.

And where was Josh in all this?

Yes. By “go through” I didn’t mean to imply “and come out the other side unscathed”. I have tooth problems that my dentist ascribed to measles damage.

seems to me that the tooth internal urge to be a maverick, one who sees through conventional wisdom, causes a lot of harm, whether alerting society to non-existent dangers of vaccines, simplistic child abuse indicators that cause children to be torn from innocent parents, taking scepticism to the lengths of automatically disbelief in established media, science, government as we've seen in the rise of “populism” and the recent riots.

Josh had gone to bed early.

Thanks. I missed that.

Kieron seems a very odd spelling, but perhaps it's a totally new name unrelated to Kieran or Ciaran.

Hypnosis for Alice will be interesting to listen to but I am finding the hole that George has dug (and just doubled in size) for himself and his family painful to listen to.

BTW who is Kieron? I wasn't really paying much attention to that bit but he did not sound a very nice person.

Kieron is a known spelling. I think it's from Ciaran (fada needed but CBA). A bit like Sean (fada needed), Shaun, Shawn.

Anything with Paul in is tedious if not annoying.
Apologies to any Irish people or pedants about my lack of fadas on previous posts.

Kieron would have been Paul's one night stand picked up on the night out, if Paul hadn't been too drunk to do anything and Lily hadn't chucked him out.

I worked with a Kieron, known as Ron.

The Lily, Josh and Paul trio doesn't work that well for me. Only Josh is not unpleasant. Note I didn't say pleasant.
I like Ben.

I can't find it in even my cold, dead heart to dislike Josh. This may be (a) because he's not as awful as his sister or as pious as his brother or (b) because he has no discernible personality. He just keeps his head down and sells eggs.

I can’t hate Josh. Because of how his family treat him. I hope he ends up with a happy and successful life while Pip messes everything up

I don't dislike him. He seems to be the overlooked middle child. Ben seems OK but a bit wet. Pip would be OK if she wasn't Pip. She's not unpleasant like Lily but she doesn't have any redeeming features.

@ClickyHeels Pip would be OK if she wasn't Pip.

Spot on there! Of course, this holds true for almost all the other characters ... and IRL some might say the same of me. (I was going to write "of any of us", but thought better of it.)

He’s also an absolute arsehole. If a member of staff had caught my horse’s colic early - knowing full well just how life-threatening colic can be, not to mention incredibly painful - I’d have been down on my knees with gratitude proffering wine/flowers/chocolates/all three as a thank you. NOT kvetching that I didn’t have to observe basic civilities because she was “just doing her job”.

<Grumbles that in her groom days we all knew - and loathed - people like that>