Archers thread #171: Harvest's nearly over – but will George ever reap what he has sown? 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 have been delighted with a hand-painted squirrel tray for your 40th, as shown below, 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/radio_addicts/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/radio_addicts/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.)

All I have to say about current storylines for now is that I want the George Alice crash stuff to come to a resolution, sooner rather than later, and I also want to hear very little indeed of Alistair, Denise and Paul maundering on. More of Jakob would be very welcome. His brother can come back any time too.

I now declare this thread open for business!

JanglyBeads
Oh yes, Horse Slasher Clive as well.

Well yes you'd have thought George would remember his uncle from when he set fire to a barn which children might have been playing in and nearly harmed his mum. ....It'll be interesting to hear if Clive's script has a discreet line in misogyny as well.

The uncle (great uncle, in fact) who set fire to the barn with George possibly inside it was Keith, not Clive.

(It was the middle of the night and George and Josh were with a cow that was calving, so they weren't exactly playing in the barn. When they realised there was a fire, they got the cow out to safety in a nearby field and carried on tending to her.)

Don't we deserve these stories? (sad face mutter mutter sulk)

Ah sorry, I mixed up Weasley Horridbins. As I said earlier, I only have very vague recollections of Keith.

*weasley. (Autocorrect!)

weaselly?

The only real importance of Keith was that he gave Chelsea and Brad a pet rat each in 2012. These rodents vanished from the programme even faster than Holly's guinea-pig, which shows how sensible they were.

Regarding the extra marital affair(s) - does anyone say anything to the people involved, or to their partners, though? Perhaps they don’t realise that anyone else knows.

I think in real life it may be more a question of whether anyone else cares enough to mention it.

Or maybe they just don't want to spoil the fun...

Elderly people, with or without hearing problems, are not the BBC’s target audience.

The one I described didn’t have enough fire power to set anything alight. But you don’t need to worry, we haven’t used it for at least 20 years.

Whatever the Radio 4's target audience is, it surely isn't anyone who listens to the radio.

They may be fantasising that they're drawing in a young audience to listen to Radio 4, but I don't think they are. I'd be interested to know the average age on this thread ...

ok but it's seriously off topic.
We are in a small village. There are lots of farms and 2 sets of stables. One of the stables had 3 lovely little Shetland ponies. Friendly little fatties who live in a field behind the kindergarten. You often see the little kids feeding them pony nuts. (under supervision)

There was a balloon release quite a way away, in a town, for someone's wedding. And it appears that the baby cow ate a balloon with its string and died. A few months later there was another balloon release for a kid's birthday. and one of the ponies swallowed the balloon but the string and the attached card was hanging out of it's mouth. The Vet saved the pony. And the owner sent the card back saying "congrats your balloon got this far. Here's a photo of the pony that ate it. And please see attached my bank details so you can transfer the vet's fee." (no, they didn't pay)

So when the village kindergarten decided to do a balloon release for the kids going up to proper school - luckily someone else found out before the lady with the Shetland ponies found out, and put the kindergarten Very Straight About Not Doing Stupid Things.

@Brefugee , it might be a good idea to start a thread about that in Chat or AIBU?, if you haven't already. Could you, please?

I don't mind the PSA SL.
🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴🐴

He said he wanted to live with her but was worried about leaving Jim. He perked up at Jim’s suggestion that he redecorate the house so it’s more welcoming for Denise and talked about buying a two seater sofa...

We love a Lentil and Sweet Potato curry in this house. It’s meant to be a vegetarian dish but it’s often accompanied by Chorizo sprinkled on top.

Mia is vegetarian. I assume the lentils and garam masala are ingredients she uses

Clive making a lentil dahl was way too random for me. At a push I can see an annoying family member who hasn’t been around for years clattering about making toast after his journey but the dahl was the SWs over-thinking the scene.

I lived off lentil dahl for a year and half eating it everyday for lunch and supper to save money and pay off my £2k overdraft many years ago.
Very nutritious, cheap and tasty but I can't stomach it now sadly, think my body says not this again!

Not being aware of Clive's background, he didn't come across as intimidating to me. Wish Will had chucked him out. His threat to tell everyone what George had done was an empty one really ... that's exactly what Will & Emma want - for it to be out in the open.

Will and Emma don’t want it coming from Clive though!

yes to the sw overthinking. It’s like they were trying to find a food that would make it sound like he had changed but also that would signal to Emma and will he was planning to stay. Wasn’t really necessary

Though we’re not necessarily an unbiased sample of TA listeners.

Rather the reverse, I'd say! Plenty of biases on display.

ISTR it's hardly the first time a room makeover has solved relationship problems in TA. Didn't Shula and Alistair redecorate the bedroom? The idea maybe came to Shula as she was lying back looking at the hopeless ceiling of her opportunities with a gambling husband. Perhaps Alistair remembers that?

BTW, does Denise know about Alistair's gambling past?

I don’t think we’ve heard him tell her about the gambling but I have zoned out of a lot of their scenes. I do remember he said something to her during one of their dates about having made unwise financial decisions in the past. If he hasn’t told her she will no doubt find out from one of the villagers who will let it slip. Cue more Denise wailing and angst. I must say she took the news about the room at Roy’s falling through very well.

‘Thank you. You may go.’

Love that! Such an unlikely phrase from your boss, unless the SW were having fun with Alistair saying it was like being sent to see the headmaster.