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!

Was loitering around the Ashmolean earlier today - TottersBlanklyAround TheAshmolean (oh come on - you have to do it!!) It is a sentence only topped by I was in the Army stopping the Soviet Army rolling their tanks over the north German plain at that age. I do love this thread (more than The Archers quite a lot of the time).

I do love the Ashmolean @TottersBlanklyTopplesOver. I'm wondering if @EBearhug's Gwen John was in the Barber Institute (possibly my favourite gallery of all).

Arf! My mother (born 1925) joined the ATS as soon as she could, so possibly at 18. She married my father in 1949 and never worked outside the home again. I left home and moved to London the day after my A-level results arrived, so I would have been about 18-and-3-weeks (late July birthday). I had organised a job over the phone and stayed in the Pimlico YWCA for a few days until I found a bedsit. This was perfectly normal!

I seem to have failed to marry or reproduce, but that's fine.

And what an excellent job you did, thank you.

Yes, it was, I think, because there's not much to see at BMAG at the moment, though I did also go there.

I went to a Gwen John exhibition at Pallant House last year some time, I think. <looks vague>

@EBearhug & @LillianGish - I adore the Barber Inst. Just a staggering collection for its size. Haven’t been for a while but I’ve rarely been so impressed anywhere.

I went for Scent and the Pre-Raphaelites, which was interesting, though I didn't agree with their choices of scent (except the incense,) but still good to get a different perspective on it.

I wonder what has been happening at the LL gallery since Russ went? (See how I remain on topic.)

I’ve rarely been so impressed anywhere me neither @TottersBlanklyTopplesOver and I live in a city full of heart-stopping museums and galleries. It is just so perfectly formed and beautifully laid out, rarely crowded (in fact often I've had the place to myself) and you actually feel as if you have time to carefully study each exhibit without hurrying. I was in there a couple of weeks ago while dropping off DS for his final year. (TottersBlanklyAroundThe BarberInstitute perhaps?)

That session was painful. Honestly the sooner we get rid of Lottie the better

surprised police HR moves that quickly to get him working full time. He’s totally having a full on break down

i think its clear George doesn’t want to see Emma because he doesn’t want to worry her

it’s a good lesson for Brad to visit George in prison

i think its clear George doesn’t want to see Emma because he doesn’t want to worry her

Yes, he's not coping and he doesn't want her to see. But I don't know why Emma didn't think of that. Why did she jump to the much less likely scenario that he doesn't want her (after having asked her to come to court with him, and called her from prison)?

I wonder how far away this prison is. Do Jazzer and Tracy still run Jim's old classic car?

I wonder if George needs drugs smuggled in!

What on earth is the point of Lottie?

it’s a good lesson for Brad to visit George in prison

Why’s that, @Bruisername? Genuine question. He doesn’t strike me as in much danger of embarking on a life of crime off his own bat.

I think it’s a good lesson for any young person tbh!! And I think it could give Brad some oomf. He strikes me as the kind of person who would take the rap for someone as he’s easily manipulated

@Fink Why did she jump to the much less likely scenario that he doesn't want her (after having asked her to come to court with him, and called her from prison)?

Possibly guilt, which she needs to get over. I agree that he doesn't want her to know just how very nasty it is.

I don't think Lottie is that bad - let's face it, she has a great deal of competition from Pip. She is pointless, though, unless (as was speculated years back, though possibly not on MN) it turns out that Toe-Bee is her child's father.

Goodness knows. And the PITA rolls on and on and on.

I liked hearing Alice and Emma together.

Perhaps, rather than getting involved in smuggling drugs as I feared, Brad will be so appalled by conditions that he starts campaigning for prison reform? We've already had plenty of hints that it's pretty grim. I'd always imagined it would be too political for TA but they can BBC-both-sides it with the older Archers pontificating that anyone who goes to prison gets everything they deserve. Anyway, HMG does seem to be creeping towards some kind of reform.

I suspect Lottie will be some kind of depth charge because at the moment she just seems to be an excuse for Ian to talk without Adam. And incredibly boring.

I’m all for balance but will we need Justin talking about how prison is too cushy and they should be fed gruel whilst doing hard labour. Preferably on his businesses. For free.

I was just thinking the SWs deserve a BOOP for the way George’s imprisonment has so improbably brought Emma and Alice closer than they’ve ever been before. The tentative gentleness with which they’re treating each other right now is a wonder to listen to.

Also loving the way Keira has leapt several rungs of the class ladder and joined the horsey set. Should be fabulous once she reaches her mid-teens!

I note that Trinny and Susannah’s daughters are all over Tatler atm. Wonder if Gymkhana Keira will soon be hanging out with Basti’s kids, and the offspring of all Alice’s now middle aged horsey friends. (Are they ex-friends? She didn’t seem to have carried them into her mature adulthood; in fact she doesn’t currently seem to have any non-Ambridge connections. Except her sponsor. And the Chilcott.)

@TottersBlanklyTopplesOver The tentative gentleness with which they’re treating each other right now is a wonder to listen to.

It is indeed a wonder, though more of a wondering why. In Alice's case I assume she's (mis-)taken on board some sort of AA business and wrongly assumes that apologising means that people will forgive you. I suspect Emma is having to bite her tongue.

I think the two are walking carefully around two things: Emma feels very guilty about George's behaviour, whereas Alice feels very grateful that (unlike George) Emma voluntarily took action to keep Alice out of prison and even out of court.

The PTA will have a lot to say about the PiTA volunteering to run the Spooky Disco and then failing to actually turn up for it. He has made such a show of ‘getting involved’ that I can imagine lots of tutting going on behind the scenes.

I’d be very pleased if Ian went silent. There is absolutely no point to him at all. He could quietly run the GG kitchen without anyone ever having to speak to him again.

Ian is intensely annoying. Is Lottie straight or gay? Is she being lined up as another potential love interest for someone?