Archers thread #174: God it's lame! But it still limps on. 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 think Ben-meets-Zainab is on a par with Elizabeth-meets-Darcy, 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.)

Thanks to @Bruisername for the title inspiration. She said God it's lame and that seemed to strike a chord with many, for some reason.

I am terrified of wasps and live in fear of encountering a hornet, so that was a tricky episode. I hope that's the last we're going to hear of them, except for confirmation that they've been nuked. [shudder]

So what do we reckon - custodial or suspended sentence for George? Will Clarrie return from Great Yarmouth or will she realise that actually life as a carer for her (presumably disabled) sister is easier than the endless and thankless drudgery at Grange Farm? Will any more tables collapse at the Village Hall?

Over to you!

As soon as azra discovered her neighbour had a similarly he’d child at the same child she would have been round there like a shot introducing them surely

I wouldn't expect cycle lanes coming out of a village you'd be lucky if there were pavements.

Yes! And she knows Helen already, doesn't she? As a patient.

It is four miles to Borchester from Ambridge if you go directly, but that is on the lanes which they certainly have round Ambridge, rather than via the bypass. I have never encountered a country lane which had cycle lanes; they simply are not wide enough.

We know that he was told by Azra to go to Brookfield and apologise "straight off the school bus".

Glad you could read the spelling error!!

she also met Helen and Joy on the estate didn’t she? And azra made some comment about being warned about a nosey neighbour

Yes, I'm fairly sure it was Azra Helen went to with her eating disorder, back when Jim had the mysterious spot on his hand which hasn't been mentioned since.

An alternative explanation is that, having met Helen, Azra has warned Khalil to have nothing to do with her and her family. I think a lot of listeners wouldn't blame her.

This new chap is clearly an animal whisperer. So -how will that play?

Linda is almost parody now. I mean, she used to be great as the local snob with a decent heart, a woman who worked hard to build community. But now, she has become a kind of bossy, busy body. I preferred the other iteration.

Anyone who lives, or has lived, in small farming communities knows that class differences, money, and bloodline play very strongly. And class often means bloodline rather than money. The SW miss a lot of that I feel.They play on it with the Grundys, the underdogs with a proud heritage of fighting on.
However, they do not really play it out on the other end of the scale, where the richer and more privileged would most certainly disapprove of certain relations because of class difference - Vince and Elizabeth for example. It would be tricky to manage, but worthy of a story line or three.
After all, in a country with a King it is pretty entrenched. :) 😁

I love the idea of cycle lanes. If the Ambridge area is anything like the rural area where I live, there will not be pavements, let alone cycle lanes.

Our local station is in the middle of nowhere (not even in a village). There are no taxis and you need to order one two days in advance. It always amuses me when young people from London get off the train and realise to their horror that not only are there no taxis, there is no Uber either. I have often given lifts to these poor lost souls.

No anti townie bias here btw. I grew up in an even more rural area but I spent most of my adult life and my whole working life in London and brought my DC up there. I love London and would move back there tomorrow if I could afford it.

Every time I'm in a bus on the island stuck behind a pack of MAMILs labouring up one of the many hills I can hear my Dad's voice saying what a menace they are.

Our local station is in the middle of nowhere (not even in a village). There are no taxis and you need to order one two days in advance. It always amuses me when young people from London get off the train and realise to their horror that not only are there no taxis, there is no Uber either. I have often given lifts to these poor lost souls.

I live in London. Last summer I went to visit a hamlet/ historic site in Italy (it is tiny and not much visited, but important to me because of a personal connection). The train from the city is slow - anything that stops somewhere this small stops everywhere - and infrequent. I got the first train of the day and arrived to find I had missed the only bus of the day (no online timetable). There were no taxis. The train station had an adjoining bar and nothing else in sight. So I bought a coffee and walked the 5km uphill to get to the site. If I'd been in London, I'd have complained about waiting over 5 minutes for a tube, but when in Rome ... (or, more precisely, when a couple of hours away from Rome in rural Lazio).

That sounds lovely @Fink

First proper offence 😅

it’s nice of Brad to offer to help but I bet he’s doubly desperate for him to get a suspended sentence now!!

sorry but I really don’t understand why working in the cafe is so hard for Adam and why driving the tractor was so hard for will. It’s almost like it’s all done for plot purposes. I’m finding the whole terum stuff daft.

no doubt Fallon is going to blame her marital problems on George in her personal statement

Gosh, Brad and George were lovely together …

They were very sweet and I'm so glad the cultured women got proper sandwiches, well done Adam.

What was Fallon even thinking? Women need sustenance.

I'll give Adam the benefit of the doubt over the coffee machine. My one at home is nowhere near as complicated as a full café version but still no-one but me knows how to use it. And I don't even mean adjusting the grind or anything, just getting it to produce a shot and froth some milk.

The sandwiches thing I think both were wrong. Fallon was wrong that naice women's groups want dainty sandwiches, but Adam should surely have been able to compute that crusts off implies small and delicate. And either of them could just have used their words to talk to each other and check what was wanted.

Adam, having grown up with a woman who was constantly catering for groups, many of them probably cultured, knowing Jenny, probably took one look at the group and took an executive decision. His burger van experience may also have stood him in good stead.

So this is Adam’s lot now - doing odds and ends at Bridge Farm and being farmed out by Tom as a general dogsbody. JD will be rolling in her grave.

Can someone help me out with these victim impact statements for George's sentencing? This is for the offence of perverting the course of justice, so surely his only victim could be Alice, who was on track to be tried on the basis of evidence that George interfered with. Fallon is not a victim of that offence, only any criminality around how Alice's car was being driven, which George is not on trial for, is he?

I think he's also charged with careless driving.

He is also being done for dangerous driving, so we get to enjoy Fallon’s account of not being drownded.

It’s very different from Borsetshire. I wouldn’t have expected her to have arrived with the consciousness of the rural/urban divide

so we will have ‘Also, I found out I was pregnant and shortly after I miscarried. This cause great distress to my husband and problems in my marriage’

but not ‘I found out I was pregnant with n unwanted pregnancy and miscarried shortly after. It is not clear if the pregnancy was viable though. The doctor decided to tell me about the pregnancy on front of my idiot husband who was then all excited despite the fact we had discussed not having kids. The resulting loss turned him into a mopey arse and highlighted the cracks in our marriage’

I thought the Brad and George bit was lovely, especially the part where Brad said do you want to kiss me now and they both laughed. In the past, George would not have seen this as funny at all.

Lynda a racist? A boy she doesn't know feeds her llama and gives her lip when she takes him up? Sounds reasonable to me.
There have been other opportunities for her demonstrate racism with the invisible Gills, Adil, Ezra, Nolly, Sipho and Usha. But she hasn't.

I was very annoyed by Fallon. I'm a very nice woman who does cultured stuff. Now I like a dainty afternoon tea as much as the next person - but it's a leisurely affair in beautiful surroundings.

If I just want to be fed, then doorsteps and a mug of soup is ideal.