Archers thread #172: Come on, Clive! Spill the beans and put us all out of our misery. 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 Clive sounds deeply misunderstood, 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.)

Fete over, cricket season over - can the Flower and Produce show be far behind? I don't think I've heard a mention of it this year. Have I not been paying attention?

In any real village, preparations for the Christmas show would already be under way, but not in Ambridge, of course. I am probably in a minority of one in regretting this.

With any luck, though, by Christmas this incredibly protracted tale of Alice, George and the crash will be behind us at last. Do we think Clive's really gone? I don't believe it. We won't be rid of him that easily. Will he go to the police himself? Will he attempt to blackmail his family or extort money from the Aldridges in return for information that would secure Alice's acquittal? Do we care? I find I don't really, unfortunately. I did enjoy hearing Clive for those few brief exchanges but I've had enough now. Unrelieved nastiness is not really what I want from TA.

Over to you!

I raised an eyebrow at carbonara for a special meal too, surely it's the epitome of a 'can't be arsed to cook' dinner?

Or did I hear wrong, I'm so deaf it is quite possible.

I shall be distinctly grumpy if the SWs don't have Brad doing work experience in the next two or three years that actually uses his maths skills.

Perhaps the plan is for him to become a lecturer at Felpersham.

My grandson (also a maths whizz) decided not to pursue a relationship with a woman he'd met on a similar financial basis.

I heard carbonara too but didn't hear that it was a special meal more that it was 'we always have it on Wednesday '. I was busy cooking and the air fryer was on though so I could well have misheard.

I thought I heard that they always had caterpillar cake, not sure always what, whether Wednesdays or always on the day one of them started school.

Still, very dull, we didn't want that, we wanted the shaming of George and the vindication of Alice.

If you travel on Avanti often enough, the full refunds are a help. I've always got there in the end, but at least three times in the last year I've had my entire journey refunded because of a 2 hour plus delay. The transport system in the UK needs a good shake up, outside London anyway.

I hear you, Gasp. There was a R4 programme about Avanti the other day, with the reporter travelling on a delayed, overheated train that then picked up an entire trainload of passengers from another train that had been terminated. Most of the passengers he talked to had spent well over £100 for their tickets, several in excess of £200. Many were captive regular London-Manchester commuters and the delays attracted so many refunds that one man had paid for his daughter's wedding dress with the extra money.

I used to travel regularly on the Liverpool service when Virgin had the franchise and while not perfect, it was generally fine and you could sometimes pick up a First Class ticket as cheap as £30 or so one way. I can’t get my head around the explosion in fare prices and utter plummeting of standards. And don’t get me started on Seat Frog and being asked to bid for a seat upgrade for £££ …..

What fresh hell is Seat Frog? Probably best I don't know.

I heard that programme. Felt so sorry for the commuters. At least I've got a degree of flexibility.

Here you go. Standard supermarket birthday cake type available from all UK supermarkets. https://www.goodto.com/food/best-supermarket-caterpillar-cakes

I think the idea was they always have it for a family birthday, not every Wednesday. Main meal was definitely carbonara. Maybe that's all Adam can cook, or maybe it's Ian's favourite, or both.

I do find think it's out of character for Susan not to have already said something to Joy weeks ago along the lines of "Christifurr's got it into his head that something's not quite right because there was Cider in the car and Alice doesn't drink Cider.."

Obviously she hadn't made a comment like that since this week was the first time Joy mentioned the cider but I find it odd. They chat regularly and Joy is a sympathetic ear so I would have thought Susan would have been filling her in on everything.

No, you don’t want to know about Seat Frog, Gasp! (But it’s an app, the only way to upgrade to 1st Class now - you have to enter an online auction, bid your maximum price….it's all unnecessarily complicated. Sometimes the train 'manager' does say you can go and sit in 'Standard Premium' and pay extra, but First Class is yet more and done through the app. And of course they dreamed up this lovely wheeze of making it like an airline, bumping it up to 2 'luxury' classes (ha!) and fleecing yet more from people…)

But was it a birthday Gasp0de? I started off thinking it was, with a classic Ambridge Special Birthday tea, then I heard carbonara and thought no, obviously not.

I heard the Avanti programme. I’d say it was astonishing - but I’m unfortunately another expert on that line, so the only surprise was that people are now getting their refunds. A handful of years ago when I was commuting for an MA, it would have taken weeks of exponentially increasing energy and fury to get a penny out of them. As I recall, you needed to provide actual blood, and a full written justification for your maternal grandmother’s activities on a specific day in 1947, all referenced in triplicate by Isambard Kingdom Brunel - and even then …

In happier times, decades ago as an undergrad with a boyfriend in another city, I spent seemingly half my life on the coach between Cambridge and Oxford. (Friday afternoon supervisions were beautifully placed just across the road from the coach station.) Though I never could understand why there was no easy train route between the two.

Poor Mia must be badly regretting Brad’s ‘logical’ brain this morning.

It was Ian’s low-key birthday.

Though I never could understand why there was no easy train route between the two

There was, once - the 'Varsity Line'. There are plans underway now to reinstate it.

We are regulars on the London - Manchester train.

My DD got the train from Kings Cross to Darlington last week and was overwhelmed at what a lovely experience it was.

No waiting for the platform to be announced two minutes before departure, clean and 7 minutes early.

Ambridge
"Though I never could understand why there was no easy train route between the two"
There was, once - the 'Varsity Line'. There are plans underway now to reinstate it.

Didn't that stop at Bletchley, most convenient during the war?

Dammit, I clicked to get rid of the quote and it didn't go away!

Susan nearly ruined a batch of yogurt so she must be really anxious.

BTW, whenever I hear about the dairy I feel rather sorry that Susan's experiment with kefir came to nothing, seeing how popular the stuff is these days.

@ExitPursuedByABare yup! And it used to be just the Euston end that began with the vile sprint down the platform. Manchester was always chilled. Until the last time … On my way to the station an alert saying my train was cancelled, get the next one. Ok. Wandered about, then settled into coffee and croissants, with my copious luggage spread around me. 12.27 (say) another alert - Great news, your train is running after all! At 12.29. At the other end of the station. Naturally I jumped up in haste, ready to abandon all comestibles. Then imagined the inevitable hot sweaty breathless wailing and gnashing of teeth that would occur when I missed it by seconds, and sat down again. (Apologies for length - still sore about it. The multiple texts to the friend meeting me at the other end made me look so ridiculously disorganised.)

And I’m always amazed by the space, and availability of sockets at every seat on other train lines. No fighting for a table …

@WagnersFourthSymphony , me too. You can make it at home, so I don't know what they were doing wrong.
There will be a lot of tears in the next batch of yogurt.

I think they stopped making kefir at the Bridge Farm dairy because it was Tom's personal idea and he lost interest. Either that or he resented Susan and Clarrie having got on with it while he was off on a jaunt somewhere. I've forgotten the details. I think Natasha may have been involved in some way.

I would love it if they had caterpillar cake every Wednesday.

I had trouble picturing the peach roulade. At first I thought it must be homemade and wondered why they were selling it in the shop. But presumably it was ready made. I don’t entirely believe that Neil and Susan would enjoy bought peach roulade. It sounds like something that ought to be as fresh as possible. Although as a child I loved M&S apricot Swiss roll, which my grandparents used to have from time to time.

I do pay for the upgrade to Standard Premium. I am too old and too ample around the middle to squash into the Standard seats.

Why does nobody in Ambridge travel anywhere by train? There must be commuters living in the village. Plenty of stories they could be involved in.

The nearest stations are at Hollerton Junction and Felpersham, not really very convenient, and there is no railway at Borchester at all.

Norhing wrong with Carbonara as nice birthday tea if someone made it for me. Dont fancy colin the caterpiller cake though, rather have the shop brought roulade.