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!

In real life, I would consult my diary! Lowfield is a sort of diary for all the Archers characters, I suppose.

There some compilations of old TA episodes. They are currently available on cassette on Amazon under the title Vintage Archers.

I'd be tempted to buy them as, although I have been listening for 70 years, I was only really listening in the sense of being present in the room when TA was on in the early years and I don't have a clear memory of the SLs. I started listening actively at university in the early 1970s.

Unfortunately I don't have anything to play cassettes on.

Yes I do have one of those vintage sets but afair they're random important episodes and not ones I heard live.

Thank you @HotCrossBunplease and @TottersBlanklyIntoThePhysicGarden !

Oh my word! I don't mind actor photos, despite them rarely matching up to my mind's eye, but never in a million years would I have pictured Will looking like a member of a boyband

I drop in rarely to these threads, due to lack of time really. Have read all of this one. Have missed some episodes over the summer though. Just wanted to share a couple of thoughts / questions.

Does anyone else think Harrison is going to get into trouble for not investigating the crash properly, because he took Alice's culpability for granted? Presumably a witness statement was taken from George at least. Or was Harrison not involved as too close to home?

I'm disappointed and a bit shocked to find Brad at Felpersham. With Oliver's help, summer schools etc he was supposed to get a place at a good university. Though I recognise he's part of the demographic for whom loans are terrifying and who would play safe by staying at home. Felpersham though, I thought that was more of an FE college than a university. Will he receive the level of teaching necessary to challenge him and propel him to postgrad work elsewhere?

Tree surgery business - why didn't Ed and Emma seek advice from established local tree surgeon Jamie Perks?! Total deja vu for landless locals looking for a good rural trade to land on tree surgery. Though really I think it's a young person's game and Ed and Em are too old to last at it.

Maybe the fact that Will looks like Brian Cox and Ed is somewhat challenged in the hair department explains some of the tensions between them over the years.

Hello, Lottie! I thought it was odd that Jamie Perks wasn't mentioned either. He isn't local now, though. He moved away, possibly to the Welsh borders - not all that far, but not in Borsetshire anyway. So just about plausible that Ed'n'Em turned to a never-mentioned-before local tree surgeon instead.

The University of Felpersham seems to be whatever the SWs decide is necessary at the time. Lily is doing a degree there at the moment. I'm not sure we've been told exactly what it is, but it sounds like Events Management. She enrolled there after dropping out of Manchester where she was reading English. She has excellent A levels so like Brad could have done much better. This is a long-established Ambridge trend, though.

Brenda Tucker - top A level grades, didn't go to university, went to the BBC instead as a trainee journalist. Eventually went to an unnamed university (almost certainly Bournemouth) to do a degree in radio journalism, but dropped out within months because of her mother's death. Enrolled at (you've guessed it) Felpersham to study Marketing.

Roy Tucker - good A level grades, studied Business Management at Felpersham while working his way up at Grey Gables through a succession of part-time jobs leading to a management trainee position when he graduated. That was reasonably plausible.

Kate Madikane - dropped out of her A level course at Borchester FE College very soon after starting it and ran away. As far as we know she never got any academic qualifications higher than her very indifferent GCSEs. On the strength of having cobbled together a handbook for volunteers at the orphanage where she volunteered/worked, she got a place on a Postgraduate Certificate or Diploma course in International Development - guess where! Not sure she ever properly completed this. Brian bankrolled it.

Alice Carter - top A level grades, good first degree in Engineering from Southampton. Could have got an excellent job or Master's place anywhere in the world. Already married to Chris, though, so came back to Ambridge and did her Master's at Felpersham.

We know it has an English department too, because Debbie's husband Simon taught American literature there.

For all we know, the production team imagine Felpersham to be somewhere of the stature and size of Warwick, which is one of the top universities in the UK to study Maths. Or it could be modelled more on Coventry, which started life as a polytechnic and is lower down in the rankings, but is a huge place (fourth largest university in the UK, apparently). Or it could be totally unrelated to reality.

ahem

Debbie's husband Simon taught Canadian literature

Harrison wasn't involved in investigating the crash due to his wife being involved.

I distinctly remember Jamie Perks being mentioned in the context of the tree surgery business. I'm pretty sure EdnEm took advice from him, and possibly did more. Is anyone else's memory clearer?

Yes, they went on an away day to talk to him

Alice did an engineering masters at felpersham? It really is all things to all people

yes I thought they did a day trip to visit Jamie and we all rejoiced that the sw had remembered after we’d been banging on about it for weeks

Oh, Jamie was mentioned? That's great. My sense has been that he and Cathy had been unceremoniously dumped without explanation by the producers. Cathy faded into the background at Grey Gables, out of Pat's life, then was never mentioned again.

Felpersham is where Simon worked? Ok, then it's a more established university than I'd realised. I'm trying to make the comparison with Worcestershire, where I don't know but imagine Worcester is an ex-poly or enhanced FE college. Then what in smaller towns, agricultural colleges maybe?

My sense of Simon's university was that it was an ex-poly sort of place.

She did her masters there, her first degree was at Southampton.

Felpersham must be one of the best universities in the country. Just because you've never seen it in the league tables etc, don't assume it isn't!

@lottiegarbanzo As I understand it, Felpersham is a proper university, though not in the MN sense, where anything which started life as a poly or teacher training college is not really a university.

I think Brad was scared off by an open day at (we think) Durham, where the students he met were middle class and confident and he felt out of place. So not just financial. Though, given that accommodation costs have risen to absorb the entire loan, it is difficult for students whose family can’t financially support them.

Maybe the fact that Will looks like Brian Cox and Ed is somewhat challenged in the hair department explains some of the tensions between them over the years. Oh! I assumed they were the other way round!

Simon Gerrard and Debbie met when he was her lecturer at Exeter. He moved to Felpersham because of geographical convenience to Ambridge.

Yes by Simon's university I mean the one he ended up at near Ambridge,

@lottiegarbanzo Worcester uni is an ex teaching college. You can now study law and even medicine but it doesn't do engineering.

I sit corrected! Also re forgetting that Jamie Perks has indeed been mentioned. Ah well.

I assume it's going to be Sunday in Ambridge this evening? 48 hrs minimum for the hot news to spread through the village. Surely the entire Archer/Aldridge clan must know by now, and Harrison certainly will. Please let it not be an episode of litter-picking!

Jack getting a needle stick injury picking litter could be this generation's Adam being bitten by an adder (the first Adam story I remember).

Also a reminder why in Ireland Tidy Towns group insurance doesn't cover children - I suspect the same is true in the UK.

I hope we don’t have to hear every relevant character finding out about George

hopefully tonight we will have Chris raging at his family - although he’s going to be conflicted too.

I hadn't thought about insurance for litter-picking groups. If Jack gets stabbed or otherwise deaded before he comes of age, I wonder what the terms of Rob's will/the trust were. Did he think of this possibility and arrange for the land to revert to his estate/Miles, or will it bounce up to Helen?

I quite like the idea of Rob spinning in his grave/urn.

Am really shocked at the idea up-thread that Rochelle might be dead. Have always thought there'd been some falling out / drift / excessive career focus / maybe R blames Joy for something from the past (what do we know about R's dad?).

I don't think Joy has enough guile to lie about a death. She's too open. And there's always been a sense of hope and disappointment in Joy's remarks about Rochelle - especially early on.

Jack hasn't said a word yet has he? He is always upstairs playing on the play station eating that chocolate torte cake that Joy made, so how can he tell anyone how to litter pick.

Opps ignore my last post. Im getting my Jack and Henrys mixed up, but even so why are they letting a kid run the litter pick.