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!

Coruscations
I've been to a few outside catering events recently that were all vegan. I'm sure the thinking is that everyone can eat vegan so it's one-size-fits-all, and if the food is tasty enough no-one will complain.

Everyone can eat vegan unless they are unfortunate enough to be allergic one or more vegetable....

Coruscations
The trouble in my experience is that tasty tends to mean liberal use of sesame, leaving sesame allergics like me short-changed.

Just so!

There are a surprisingly large number of allergies to vegetables of one sort and another: the most annoying to have is probably wheat, but there are also peanuts, soybeans, peas and chickpeas, tree nuts (walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans, cashews, pistachios and Brazil nuts), onions and that entire family, cauliflower, brassicas in general (which includes pak choi, broccoli, cabbage, choy sum, kohlrabi, napa cabbage, rutabaga and turnip).

But you can be allergic to any type of food, including celery, mustard (which is a brassica but not everyone knows it is), sesame seeds (and there you are) and the lupin flour found in some baked goods.

The least common allergy seems to be to meat, according to the NHS, though this may be because it is generally cooked fairly thoroughly.

My dad had a colleague allergic to meat (not sure what in it) and it was a total nightmare in the 80s when he knew him.

They had no need for the money at all, and when they did get it they seemed to have no idea what to do with it. I mean that quite literally: Tom and Helen floated ideas for a while, none of which came to anything. It has now been forgotten, so I hope it's sitting in a private account belonging to Tony and one day he will use it to get a bungalow on the south coast somewhere, abandon his entire bullying family and vanish for some peace and quiet in his old age.

Peggy had changed her will back to leaving everything to be split three ways between her children instead of left to Tom, with Helen getting the Lodge, well before Rob left; she had a change of heart when Tony nearly died of being knelt on by Otto-the-Bull. Rob was absolutely furious when Peggy told him and Helen that Helen would no longer be getting the Lodge. So that was not what was holding Helen back from buying somewhere for her and the boys to live in. And she definitely was given the option on the Beechwood house, by Kirsty, so her never having thought of it before is a simple case of Swamnesia, or possibly just CRAP (Character-Related Amnesia Problem) writing.

Interesting - I remember the will change

so what was the point of selling off the land? Would have made sense to use the money to build Tom and Helen houses!

when Helen was in prison was Henry living with Pat and Tony in the farmhouse?

If he was allergic it will have been the protein, I think: otherwise it tends to be called a food intolerance. But that might have been someone simplifying it for me. And yes, a nightmare; but a very rare one!

There was absolutely no point in selling the land. It was just Tom getting £ signs in his eyes; I think Justin suggested it.

When Helen was on remand, Henry was living with Rob and Ursula, who refused to allow Pat and Tony access to him once Rob came out of hospital: Ursula simply didn't give him back to them after he'd been with her for a day, and they (being only grandparents, whereas Rob had Parental Authority) had no recourse to do anything about it.

I didn’t realise he had parental authority. That was dumb

I once had my legs threaded in a hair salon in a rural part of Turkey about 40 years ago. They spoke no English and I spoke no Turkish, so we got by with sign language. I was under the impression I had asked to have my legs waxed so it was a bit of a surprise when I was asked to stand up and a mother and daughter knelt at my feet and started threading. I assume they didn't normally cater to outsiders as various neighbours came in to see me being depilated and laughed like drains. I don't know if they thought I was excessively hairy. I didn't think I was a particularly hirsute person when I went but I came out feeling like a gorilla after all the hilarity. The threading worked brilliantly though.

I did actually use the wrong word: not authority but responsibility. Sorry!

Rob was planning to adopt Henry, and told Henry so – and Henry spread this around the village – but he discovered that there were all sorts of qualifying hoops he would have to jump through for that, and it took a while, whereas the alternative was less binding and was comparatively quick and easy. So he went for the quick and easy, and Helen went along with his decision.

It was the day that Helen's pregnancy was confirmed, so she was no longer besotted; she was the victim of psychological (and physical) abuse. Lowfield says "Rob has more news: next week he will complete a step-parental responsibility agreement." and the BBC says "Rob shares some other news - he's going to complete a step-parental responsibility agreement for Henry - so they're on the way to having their own complete, perfect little family."

Oh yes I remember that now you mention it! Crazy

Just watching Romancing the Stone with my elderly mother. There's a scene where a small child steals a car and moves the unconscious female driver into the passenger seat. I immediately thought of George and Alice. They made it look easy in the film.

Should've checked if Henna tattoos cause allergies...

My thought too, and even if a person doesn't react to the Henna tattoo they are then much more vulnerable to suffering a reaction to hair dye.

Hence the advice always to do a test 24 hours before, which Chelsea must have had drilled into her. I will be very cross indeed if they kill Chelsea.

They can do. I had one in Morocco that came up in blisters.

I will also be cross if they kill Brad, but at he's less likely to use hair dye.

TA has never cared about tests for allergies or mixed reaction; an example is how Carol Tregorran went around giving her herbal remedies to people without ever once checking if they were on any proprietary medication, and refused to say what was in the concoctions she pretty-much forced on them. Jill for instance is on thyroid medication (she suffered from myxoedama and was hospitalised, and must have been being given treatment for hypothyroidism ever since) and some herbal preparations don't mix well with either T3 or T4, but Carol cheerfully didn't ask before dosing Jill with herbal tea.

A child did have a bad reaction to face painting at the fete once, possibly because it was being done on the cheap. Someone else will know.

Wasn't it Pip and face-painting for Halloween? I can't remember who the child was, though.

Hair-dye allergies are odd. Hairdressers always insist on a skin test for new customers, and I've never had a reaction to one until about 6 months ago. It was a very sunny day, and as the salon in question was in a village with buses once an hour I walked about a mile and a half with the sun on the back of my neck. Cue furious itching!

<on edit> ... I'd had my hair cut very short and the test was in the usual place, behind an ear. Anyway, I just let it grow out and after the next cut it turned out to look as though I have silver highlights ... which is fine and saving me a fortune. 😄

It was the woman I overheard telling her friend about being in the salon, letting the dye do its thing, and then waking up in ICU two days later who made me vow to do the tests as advised in future.

That was before they discovered the henna tattoos link.

It would distract the villagers wonderfully from the vendetta against anyone related to George Grundy if someone who'd been given a henna tattoo went into anaphylactic shock and they were all flapping about when he or she would come out of hospital, but it won't happen because, as we have had rammed home to us on air, Zainab is "Asian" and therefore cannot have a negative storyline involving her.

I once I employed a tree surgeon who had had to have extensive plastic surgery on his arm as a result of a henna tattoo he had done in Morocco.

I have never had (or wanted) a tattoo. There was a young woman locally who had her legs covered in pastel-coloured cartoon characters - Winnie the Pooh, I think. It was not a look I would have chosen. Yes, I know that sounds judgey. That's because it is.

And stroppy

The thing about that though is that Chelsea's bright and resourceful character counters the sort of expectations her 'nasal and thick' (!) delivery might arouse. Good! Let Chelsea be Chelsea. She may sometimes be wayward and annoying but she's certainly not thick. She's being very annoying right now with her attempts at matchmaking.