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!

But we don’t know whether the response is to the opening post or to a later one.

Agreed long quotes are irritating, but easy enough to scroll past.

MereDintofPandiculation
Agreed long quotes are irritating, but easy enough to scroll past.

Easy enough to avoid, too. When it is a long post making forty'leven points, quoting only the part your reply is about seems simply sensible. Also less confusing and easy for other people to follow.

Can you explain re the short stories please?

Yes I think it's the inconsistent writing of Brad, him opting for Felpersham is supposed to denote his neurodivergent character.
I think Mia's 'irrelevant to me' response was simply supposed to show that her head was still in the preceding conversations and thoughts, re leaving Her Village and Her Man.

It’s not the short stories, it’s the Alice Munro, @JanglyBeads. Google - there’s a Guardian article from July this year.

(Definitely not something likely to come up in The Archers any time soon.)

(I don’t have any concrete view on relating a writer’s output to their perceived character - but it might have been better if the BBC could have at least postponed the reading of her work for a while.)

given some of her works are clearly inspired by her actions I don’t agree. I assume the bbc won’t choose those….

yes they don’t seem to be able to decide if Brad is ND, a genius, a blithering idiot a la Manuel, an emotionally connected boyfriend etc etc

Why now more than at any other time? Is the abuse of children ever acceptable?

Just read wiki, will look up guardian, wow. BBC will get complaints.

Because the revelations have only recently been widely shared, as far as I’m aware, @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime. So it might seem particularly provoking to have her on the radio right now.

I haven’t read anything of hers for many years, @Bruisername, and don’t remember what I read - so can’t really comment on how reflective the stories might be of her real life.

Oh, right. I think I must have known for ages: it came as no surprise to me when her daughter finally blew the lid off recently. In any event there was a court case ages ago in which the stepfather pleaded guilty to child sex abuse, so Munro stayed married to him when she must have known what he'd done,and we've had that information available all this century, more or less.

And there it is! Well done Joy, shame it took you so long.

Oh, about bloody time!

Also, I suspect I am with Adam.in currently wanting to stifle Ian.

I’m finding the SL even more ludicrous tbh. Is everyone in the village going to figure it out before Clive gets to announce it. Just put us out of our misery!!!

(on Alice Munro I believe it wasn’t covered in her biography and was quite heavily censored under laws to protect the victim despite the victim not agreeing. So It wasn’t quite as public as you would expect)

Here is a penny Sooozan. Watch it drop

It didn't "take so long". Why would Joy even have known there was cider in the car?

Who is to say Alice didn’t have a bottle of cider under her sink from some other binge and she drank it on the way to the shop. They’re all connecting the right dots very easily

And the dialogue was pretty clunky there in the final 2 mins I heard

Oh, it's the home straight now on that SL. TG. Ok, there may be a few tight bends, but we're getting there.

Meanwhile, why is Clive in temporary frozen storage again?

And watch out for homophobia on the Sheep Gate WhatsApp.

Agree absolutely. But I haven’t found a way of quoting only a part of the post using the quote button (I haven’t actually looked), and I think some people aren’t aware of the “copy and paste and put it between asterisks” method. Which is a lot of faff compared with hitting “quote”

It's a George VI shilling...

That’s not a penny. That’s a half crown.

you can make out the word “crown”, and it’s half crown that has that shield, the crown is different.

you can see it’s George VI by blinking quickly in synch with the turns.

Who is to say Alice didn’t have a bottle of cider under her sink from some other binge and she drank it on the way to the shop.

I suppose because there's no reason for cider to be under her sink if she doesn't drink cider?

And in any case, if the cider had been under her sink she'd have drunk it long ago.

All valid points but I still think they are jumping to the right conclusions pretty deftly

Not a penny! That is either a half-crown or a crown, look at the reverse. It's not a shilling, those had heraldic animals on them.