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!

That woman's voice was so Alice/Lottie/Ambridge young female. Do they listen to the people they are casting?

It reminds me of Jilly Cooper's observation of people in Ambridge always greeting each other with full name as 'hello Joe Grundy, oh hello Phil Archer' which becomes necessary of the voices have no individual character.

Oh dear, I'm doomed, I have finally told the spellchecker to add Ambridge to the dictionary. No going back from that.

Well, here’s an Archers storyline just waiting to happen:

The Guardian

At least, it’s not something I can recall having befallen Helen. Trying to remember if any of the farms have been the victim of this sort of scam.

I do feel sad for the cheese producers here - as well as worried for Neal’s Yard themselves.

Is the partner of the woman Brad met on the prison visit (Ria?) going to have some connection to George? Either his cell mate, the photo thief or his aggressor? It feels like she was given a speaking role with a chance to briefly outline her history for a reason, otherwise why have Brad - not one of life's natural chatters - fall into conversation with her both on the way in and on the way out?

Thanks @Fink !

Can someone remind me what George's drone business is and if Brad has the skills to keep it going?

I just thought it was a natural conversation in the circumstances with nothing more than that.

Brad is so inconsistently written but he sounded like a human being, and a nice one , in yesterday's episode. I enjoyed it.

Do you get sent to prison for "pushing a security guard" - especially if it's a first offence?

No. I don't think so but it would be natural that Rhea(?) Wouldn't want to tell Brad the full details.

It seems they do - but maybe not with a TA listeners ears? Stiff competition for even a tiny part like ‘Rhea’:

https://www.bcu.ac.uk/conservatoire/about-us/news/voice-acting-job-news-story-15-03-2024

This is exactly what I was thinking.

Brad = naive

Rhea = needy

Disaster waiting to happen.

I was reminded of the woman who battened on to Neil while Susan was in prison (Although Rhea wasn’t presented as someone with any evil intent.)

The BBC is spelling Brad's prison acquaintance "Rhea", which I think of as a big flightless bird.

Shreya Lallu (Rhea) is now in the Radio Drama Company. My understanding is that the actors in the RDC get slotted into all sorts of roles which (a) gives them varied experience and (b) saves the BBC time and money auditioning hundreds of hopefuls for small roles here and there. We could just as easily have had one of the other two winners.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2dJMjhvmjlvP5Gtpl0LHPDx/2024-chba-winners

I also thought Brad was lovely in last night's episode, and I really felt for Emma. Jazzer was very good with Brad. I suppose they're right not to tell Emma what's going on. Very grim about the photos. George was right to worry. I had to switch off the news last night.

I think now it has been established that George has got off on the wrong foot with everyone inside (has the boy watched no prison/ police dramas?) it is more likely he will try to ingratiate himself by volunteering his drone. Rhea will no doubt supply whatever needs to be smuggled in, we’ve already established Brad is a useless drone pilot et voila!

Rhea was the daughter of Gaia and Ouranos, i.e. the Greek gods personifying Earth and Sky. The Greek gods were an incestuous lot. Ouranos was Gaia's son as well as her consort. Rhea was married to her brother Cronus and had five children: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Poseidon and Zeus. Cronus ate all Rhea's children as soon as they were born to prevent one of them overthrowing him, as he had done to Ouranos. Rhea eventually outwitted him by giving him a rock to swallow instead and saved Zeus, who rescued the rest and got rid of Cronus. Hera and Zeus were married too and had issue. No wonder the Greek Gods behaved so irrationally.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Depends if “He pushed a security guard” is the whole sentence. If it continues “…under a bus” or “…then he hit his head on the kerb when he fell and had a serious head injury” then yes, I could imagine a prison sentence resulting.

She started by minimising what he'd done but then let slip that he'd lost his rag. She was very angry, with reason, that he would do that when she was six months pregnant. Not excusable at any time, but to leave his long-term girlfriend alone just before the birth of their first child suggests this man is festooned with red flags.

Rhea Perlman (Carla in Cheers) or as Gaspode explains, one of the pre Olympian deities.

Rhea from Butterflies

That was Ria.
Butterflies g.co/kgs/83zQKNj

My feelings exactly @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g. But I also think the fact that Brad has been made to promise not to tell anyone what is really going on also points to a very frustrating scenario where we will be shouting at the radio: "Don't do it Brad - talk to Jazzer, Emma anyone!!" and of course he won't 😥The thing I found hardest to listen to last night was Brad telling Emma that George had been working out, going to the gym and buying some shower gel. And the fact that Emma went straight round to see Brad - she literally couldn't wait to have news of her boy. I could not bear to think of it if it was my own, similarly aged son.

I used to be petrified of needles but by the time I’d had two DC I’d had so much medical messing around there seemed little point in worrying. And most elderlies get an annual MOT which involves blood tests, as well as annual flu jabs, so we’re pretty used to it by now

And compared to a hospital doctor trying to take blood from a vein, a competent nurse giving a vaccination into muscle is painless.

By the time my son was nineteen he'd effectively left home (university and then the forces) so I simply had to trust that he knew how to handle himself if things went bad. I also had to accept that I wouldn't be able to help him deal with the stuff he was likely to meet. This is why I find the home-babies of Ambridge so hard to understand: they are still living at home when they are forty and fifty, or in some way relying on their parents to house them and validate them and baby them? Give me patience!

George uses a drone, we are led to believe, to take advertising photos/videos for his clients. Brad has none of the skills to keep it going.