Archers thread #175: Crime, punishment and kittens. 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 your current highlight is the kitten naming, 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.)

As I am posting this on Sunday morning at a point where some omnibus listeners won't have caught up with this week's events, I've kept the title less spoilerish than I might have done. Below this point, everything broadcast to date is of course fair game, so be warned!

Of course the main interest for most us at the moment is indeed the kitten naming competition. Isn't it? No?

Oh well, since you insist ...

How do we think George is going to cope now? Whither the Grundy and Horrobin clan? Will Lilian choke on her G&T (please)? Will Kenton get septicaemia from a kitten scratch? Will Alice die of sanctimoniousness? Will Fallon spend the rest of her life with the appalling Harrison and his unfulfulled longing for a behbeh? Will Adam and Will come to blows in the Bridge Farm packing shed?

Over to you!

My house is in danger of falling down from all the spider-made cobwebs, I know they can be beautiful but they wouldn't be my first food choice. particularly around Halloween which for me is all about barm brack, toasted or not, with real non-vegan butter.

Actually, thinking about it, they'd probably have to pass on the glitter and sparkles as they are likely to be made with shellac, which as we all know is made of the crushed bodies of tiny insects.)

Not proper edible glitter, which usually uses mica.

@mossylog agree with you, except for the fact that I don’t yet have a clear idea of where this charging station is in my mind. I know others have alluded to a service station set up, in which case yes I agree about it being Greggs and BK and WHSmith, but where is the charging station in Ambridge? And is a normal service station a good equivalent? I dint know anyone with an EV so no idea what they look like IRL.

@Devilsadvocat I hope you won’t leave the thread entirely. I only dip in and out when I can listen in and don’t post as much as others and I agree that sometimes posters don’t always agree with one another, and I’ve certainly made my feelings known at times, but I think it’s generally a good natured place with consideration for different views, so I hope you’ll post again as I have always been interested in your perspective.

also hope @Voxpop is still lurking and will come back soon too, I haven’t seen them post for a bit.

I don’t yet have a clear idea of where this charging station me neither. I’m not expecting it to be attached to a petrol station though - I’m expecting something more in keeping with rural surroundings. Like a French motorway air maybe - except with a couple of retail units. Maybe it will even have somewhere that kids can runaround which could attract the yoga mum clientele to the cafe (thinking of the sort of cafes attached to garden centers etc that I would take my mum to when in the UK - based mainly on pleasant ambience and parking possibilities) or where dog walkers might congregate (another huge clientele round my mum’s way). I do think to have any chance of attracting the latter (including my mum and her pensioner friends) she would have to be able to provide proper tea with real milk though.

@CameronStrike , I do find it irritating that Azra pronounces Khalil with the strongly Urdu inflection on the Kh. By her accent she's British born and every British born Pakistani/arabic parent I know has been mindful of giving a name thats easy to pronounce in the local accent and avoided Kh sounds.

It's how the name is pronounced. Maybe the Urdu-speaking parents liked the name.
I commented on the previous thread about subtle racism on this thread, and this is an example of it IMO.

My comment about racism was IMO dismissed by
"BeatriceBatchelor · 13/10/2024 19:09

There's frequently some really nasty bullying and pile ons on MN but not on The Archers threads. So let's not make out there is.
Ditto racism."

Some of the posts on this thread may not have been meant to be nasty, but they can come across as being that way.

I also picture most vegans as sensible, hair shirt type people. While I would welcome the opportunity to pick up a decadent pastry, dripping with butter, cream and chocolate, en route, I imagine the vegans will have dutifully packed their own home made snacks for the journey and wouldn't be tempted by Fallon's offerings. Are they really going to be queueing up for Fallon's frivolous Halloween cakes with green glitter and sparkles? The only vegan I know well is a fashion conscious financial analyst. His approach is simply to go in and find what vegan option they have.

All the electric car drivers I know are company cars as I think their work can get better tax breaks

Most of the vegans I know are mostly professional people with 'normal' office jobs some decribe themsrlf as 'plant based' rather than vegan (though I do know one hippy type) most you wouldn't know they were to look at (they don't go on about being vegan)

And green glittery cobweb cakes reminds me of kids' partys but I do love trashy sweet food

We hired a couple of electric cars for a recent holiday in Scotland (which was a bit of a baptism of fire). Having had to sit in the forecourt of a Shell garage for 30 minutes, fast-charging the battery prior to returning one of the cars (scoffing meal deal lunches), I can see the attraction of a coffee shop/picnic area in a charging station. I seem to remember that Justin was building something new, rather than taking over an existing petrol station so it could easily turn out to be a mini farm shop/cafe combo with a few bits of playground (they seem to be popping up all over the place in Somerset).

I expect I'll get criticised for this, but I also picture most vegans as sensible, hair shirt type people. While I would welcome the opportunity to pick up a decadent pastry, dripping with butter, cream and chocolate, en route, I imagine the vegans will have dutifully packed their own home made snacks for the journey and wouldn't be tempted by Fallon's offerings. Are they really going to be queueing up for Fallon's frivolous Halloween cakes with green glitter and sparkles?

I'm not strictly vegan but I happily eat lots of vegan food. I'd guess at least 75% of what we cook at home is vegan. I mainly post on the Style and Beauty forum, often about extravagant and expensive to very expensive non- high street brands. For which I regularly get criticised for being frivolous.

@IHaveNeverLivedintheCastle might wear a hair shirt but it will gave been woven from the hair of humanely-reared unicorn foals.

BoreOfWhabylon
Didn't Adam work with goats in Namibia or wherever he was before he returned to Ambridge?

Yes, I think he did work with goats, but I think he was mostly in Kenya (and he and his boyfriend were mysteriously immune to the rampant and legalised homophobia there; as Wikipedia has it, "Sodomy is a felony per Section 162 of the Kenyan Penal Code, punishable by 21 years' imprisonment, and any sexual practices (termed "gross indecency") are a felony under section 165 of the same statute, punishable by five years' imprisonment. ").

Bruisername
do we know how big the charging station is though? I assume it will have a smiths at a minimum. Maybe a franchisee for McDonald’s!!

On 25th November, 2022, we learned that
"Brookfield has had a serious cash offer from a buyer, according to the land agent: someone who wants two acres for a horse paddock and is therefore prepared to pay a higher price."

So apparently it is a two-acre site. Not all that big. And a fair amount of that would need to be parking with a charger, not retail units.

muddyford
I have never heard a male boat called a buck though. Ours were all billies.

Me neither, and a male goat is indeed a billy-goat in my llfe (usually Gruff) introduced into the herd so the nannies would stay in milk and there would be more little kids, but we mustn't forget that at Bridge Farm they harvest potatoes by digging them rather than lifting them.

I knew an archaeozoologist once who used to refer to 'buck goats'.

Yardbird
I don’t yet have a clear idea of where this charging station is in my mind. I know others have alluded to a service station set up, in which case yes I agree about it being Greggs and BK and WHSmith, but where is the charging station in Ambridge?

It is at Hollowtree, which is on a back lane off the road through a village between nowhere much and nowhere else to speak of, on a road too small to have even a B number on the map. I have never encountered a service station (as opposed to an in--town fuel stop, which are obviously smaller where space is at a premium) two acres in size; ten is more like it when one has allowed for all the parking that is needed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers/wallpaper/ambridge_1024.shtml

@AlanFranksDiary Some of the posts on this thread may not have been meant to be nasty, but they can come across as being that way.

Similarly some of the posts can come across as goady.

@Gonners , indeed. Good to seeing you owning up to it.

When I was younger one could cause what were then known as "Women's Libbers" to get really quite unpleasant by using some commonplace phrase like "separate the men from the boys" which they instantly assumed to be a slur aimed at women, even if the person using it had neither intention of, nor interest in, saying anything demeaning about women at all. It has always been possible for people to take offence when nobody was giving it.

But separate the men from the boys implies that women are an inferior or excluded category.

Not to me it doesn't; it suggests that men and boys are an inferior category and women are above that sort of silliness. It's possible that offence, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder.

We live in a society where offence is taken at the slightest thing and people’s motives are always pre judged. Given it’s supposed to be the ‘be kind’ generation it is anything but. Discussion is better than shouting someone down

if we all agreed on this thread it would be a very dull place. Mostly we are discussing fictional characters and intentions of fiction writers

No it fucking doesn’t

My comment about racism was IMO dismissed by
"BeatriceBatchelor · 13/10/2024 19:09
There's frequently some really nasty bullying and pile ons on MN but not on The Archers threads. So let's not make out there is.
Ditto racism."
Some of the posts on this thread may not have been meant to be nasty, but they can come across as being that way.

Oh give it a rest! I don't see racism on The Archers threads, just posters who seek out ways to be offended. Why else would someone drag a post over from the dying embers of the last thread?

So ... is Natasha going to try to persuade Fallon to stay at The Terum. Now how could she do that, I wonder .. how about letting her take over the lease and run it her way!

I don't take offence at the slightest thing or pre-judge people's motives, but I do take offence at bullying, sexism, racism, and others being dismissive of someone saying that they found it offensive.

More than one of us are saying this.

As regards other threads, ones that aren't about The Archers, I've seen what seems like posters being truly nasty to a poster in a way that looked like they wanted to hound the user from the threads.

One or two of the affected posters might be on here. I might roll my eyes at their posts but they are probably only trying to be helpful.

Braaaaaaaaaaaad!

😸😸😸😸😸😸😸

Oo Brad!

I really roollll my eyes at the way Adam creaks towards the closing credits, you can almost hear the final words before he says them, so laboured.

Blimey this is tripe of the highest order.

Brad always sounds so creepy when he's eyeing up women.

I can't remember Azra's daughter's name but she's vile.