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!

I'm sure doctors get better at taking blood over the years, but in my limited experience nurses and phlebotomists are a lot better at it than doctors because they've had far more practice. I once took part in a research study where I had blood taken about eight times in a day on three separate occasions. The phlebotomist was a fomer paramedic. He was brilliant at finding veins.

In any generation there will have been youngsters who've left home at a young age, by choice or force of circumstances, to go into the forces, or to take up apprenticeships or other jobs, or to go to university or training college (rarely until recently), or to emigrate. They'd have been very much in the minority, though, before the 1960s at a guess (excluding the two world wars). Most people never moved far from the area where they grew up and lived with or very close to family until they married, and often afterwards. I think it's the post-war generation that's unusual in this respect. Far more of us have moved away and lived independently, and now economics mean we're going back to how things were.

In any generation there will have been youngsters who've left home at a young age, by choice or force of circumstances, to go into the forces, or to take up apprenticeships or other jobs, or to go to university or training college (rarely until recently), or to emigrate. They'd have been very much in the minority, though, before the 1960s at a guess (excluding the two world wars). Most people never moved far from the area where they grew up and lived with or very close to family until they married, and often afterwards. I think it's the post-war generation that's unusual in this respect.
Funnily enough, in my family my parents (born 1925) moved away from their home area - my Dad aged 18 first RAF and then his job, my Mum on marriage. I barely knew my grandparents or cousins. My Dad's family had always moved around the country for work. My daughter, though, after short spells elsewhere lives close to me. Two of the grandsons are at university so who knows where they will end up.

Not dissimilar in my family, but I think we're unusual. (Could be wrong! I often am.) My grandfather did his gardening apprenticeship close to home and then the head gardener found him a job 100 miles away. He met my grandmother and not long after they married he was moved to another of his employer's estates. That was very remote so they left. He changed jobs several times during my Mum's childhood, some of which was because of the war. (He was conscripted into the Fire Brigade.)

My Dad's family stayed put and he grew up near both sets of grandparents.

Farming families are always going to be different. We have those in my Mum's family on both sides and they are the ones who've stayed put where they grew up.

My worst needles experience was having to jab my poor mother with heparin every day for the last year or so of her life - oral anticoagulants were leaving her dangerously anaemic. She was so patient about it, even when I left her black and blue.

That sounds grim, Dean.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g GA50PDE?
I don't need a car but have one but if I had my real name in a car reg, I would need to swap syllables around, but it would make the same meaning (BelAnna for Annabel type swap). I'd also need to get a much newer car. A relative has the registration that is his first name and surname initials (e.g. JA50NDA for Jason D'Arcy)

@JoelenesParrot , isn't it paracetamol, the pill or anti-depressants, while you're saying 'but I only came in about my ingrowing toenail'.

The Life Scientific is fascinating. DID is OK but when it has already been on twice earlier in the year, I'm not likely to listen again. (Chances are I didn't listen the first time). I avoid the 6.30 slot.

tying up to conversational topics here - all my family moved far away for work. My parents grew up in London and Sheffield and both ended up in the forces in Singapore where they met.

I joined up right after school and - here we tie in the second topic - we all lined up with sleeves on both arms rolled up and were jabbed and prodded and tested all in one go. One girl fainted. The rest of us hit the NAAFI bar later.

My son is away at university (in the UK so a different country to us) and spent last year living in Berlin. He’s perfectly independent and able to take care of himself in multiple languages, but I’d still be beside myself if he was sent to prison. I wouldn’t be able to think - oh well he’s old enough to look after himself - I’d be just like Emma. I find it quite touching that he’s trying to protect his mum - and also understand that talking to her might make him feel even worse than he already does (a bit like DS who says he never really gets homesick except occasionally after we’ve talked on the phone and he wonders what we’re all doing). At that age they are so grown up - they think they know everything - but you don’t have to scratch the surface very hard to find the boy underneath.

this man is festooned with red flags.

Rhea said that 'it happens all the time' and that Elliot gets fed up of being accused of stuff he hasn't done. So either he's got form for criminal behaviour or the police et al are profiling him for some other reason - I would guess either the company he keeps or a combination of age/class/race. It certainly sounds like there's more to it than a one-off push anyway.

When I lived in the UK, I avoided DID (I hadn't heard of most of the people on it, and couldn't care less about their musical tastes), Front Row (felt very self-congratulatory and self-indulgent much of the time), and The Listening Project (just wasn't interested in the people they had on most of the time). The 6:30 slot sometimes has really funny things on it, and sometimes, I find it tedious.

Loose ends is the worst. It’s so lovey and self congratulatory

Plus, bloody Clive Anderson!

Thanks. I didn’t know why I didn’t like it. I assumed it was because my lack of an arts education meant I was an uncultured Philistine. I wish they had better programmes to put each side of TA. Even Cabin Fever on repeat would do.

Old Harry’s game was good fun

Loose Ends excelled itself tonight by having a guest whose life story revolved around Desert Island Discs (she had an otherwise interesting life story, including summitting Everest and swimming the Channel, but it all came back to DID). It was truly Radio 4 so far up itself that it was magnificent to hear.

🏅for sitting through. I switch off immediately!!

Another PSA was David pulling over when Ruth rang and he was in the car was Ben. Surely he would just get Ben to answer it - 'its me Mum, Dad's driving'.

I love that Old Harry's Game is almost permanently available on Sounds. It's my go-to programme for when life gets a bit too much.

I just assumed he was black.

Blimey that episode was a game of two halves wasn’t it. The Brad/George exchanges were really good and Emma/Fallon also and then there was George/Rhea 😬 Good for that student winning the bursary but I thought it was Alice and then Lottie like others have said. The script didn’t match up with delivery at all, so it sounded so fake. After reading comments on here it makes sense that perhaps we were supposed to infer he was being racially profiled by bouncers etc, but she made it sound more like he’s been picked on due to being Quite Posh. Either way all we really know about Elliot is that he’s angry and a similar age to George.

Ditto, @Choccyp1g

yep, i had the same thought.

Yes - it’s all so clunky

Glad to hear it's not just me. I thought Fridays episode was so badly written. It didn't feel like TA and it was confusing.

I’d assumed that too. The only friends of mine that get “randomly” stopped by the police, particularly late at night with a requirement to prove that this nice car is theirs, are black or Asian.