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!

Oh dear. I have clearly hit a nerve @MereDintofPandiculation.

I was a Civil Servant for more than 40 years and most of my colleagues were conscientious and hard working. But I am not going to lie. In every area I worked there was always a percentage of people who took advantage and who were deeply resented by their colleagues who had to pick up their work. It was particularly annoying in the case of senior colleagues and peers. I also know as a manager how incredibly difficult it was to tackle even serious poor performance and attendance and how little support we received from HR even when it was very damaging to team morale. I loved the work and found it incredibly rewarding but one of the things I really haven't missed since retirement in 2022 is struggling to manage poor performers.

I could easily go into a lot of detail and I am very tempted to do so, but I am not going to because I come to this thread for good tempered entertainment and not for arguments. I don't want to spoil the thread for others so I will be more careful in future to avoid saying anything that might be controversial and I am sorry I have upset you.

I have no doubt that many older people are good at tech (i've worked with them.) We've just never had the slightest hint of it from Bert, not even an exasperated Tracy, "Dad, you're as bad as the kids, always on your flippin' phone - can't you just put it down so we can be on time for your optician's appointment?"

where was he doing his radar? Did he stay in the field after WWII.

I’m surprised they didn’t get him some advice before he went in, even from his own family.

He went into the Met Office which used Radar and Sonar and was part of the Ministryof Defence. I'm not suggesting he was unique there were lots of people of his age using the technology of the time particularly the women at Bletchley and so on.

I don't know the details of where he used the Radar in the war as it was TOP SECRET as he told all the nurses and anyone within hearing when he was high on drugs after a heart op in 2010. He was involved with the whirly Radar thing on the roof of the Met Office HQ which used to feature on the BBC weather.

@Godesstobe , everywhere I worked had people like that. I worked for a very large accountancy practice which (at that time, anyway) sometimes got rid of poor performers quite fast but not always. I then worked for a small listed company which was utterly ruthless in that respect. If you did your job to a reasonable standard, you were fine, but if you didn't, you were called in for a meeting and left immediately. It happened to close colleagues twice while I was there. Then I worked in the public sector and it was quite the reverse. Latterly it felt very much as if conspicuous ability was seen as threatening by many of the very mediocre managers I encountered. I had a brilliant colleague who should have been fast tracked to the top but wasn't. Their loss.

I can't say I miss the world of work.

Sunny Ormonde is 77 and acts Lil as older than that.

Lilian was born on 8th July 1947, so she is the same age as Sunny Ormonde.

But the only woman I knew who did that always-on raucous flirtatiousness was a LOT older than that - would be over 90 by now.

No, I just wondered whether he'd have bumped into my Dad, who was in defence radar (although I did come across a paper of his on a prototype for met office rain radar)

I am sorry I have upset you. It's not that you have upset me. It's that there has for many years been a sustained attack on the Civil Service in the right wing press, and sweeping statements about what is a very varied organisation make it so much easier for decisions to be made that affect real people's lives.

They might have met then. I know he was in Burma, as it was, during the war and afterwards in Germany and India. Unlike the stereotype of ex-servicemen of his era he had great sympathy with non-Nazi Germans and was later involved with a twin town in Germany. He also loved India and the thought the people were treated appallingly by the British Upper Class. Apologies for the digression

The cat should obviously be called MeDarlin

Whether it should be or not, it will be!

Did anyone else think Rex sounded different tonight? Posher, maybe? It’s been ages since we’ve heard from him. I didn’t realise who Kirsty was speaking to at first.

Yes completely! Were it not for the fact his actor was in the cast list I would have thought they’d changed actor.

So fallon's cafe is tiny with hardly any seating?

Secondly, producing and editing videos is time consuming and quite tricky. Especially if you don't know how to do it. How on earth is Brad supposed to do that?

@stilldumdedumming ...producing and editing videos is time consuming and quite tricky. Especially if you don't know how to do it. How on earth is Brad supposed to do that?

It comes to something, doesn't it, when you can't tell whether it's the character or the SW who doesn't know what they're talking about!

I think to be fair to the SWs their problem is that they have to come up with scripts to fit into a pre-ordained storyline which the editor controls. I don't know how much input they have into those, but if you are told to produce a script for a "hilarious" story involving the sale of old Shires crockery by The Bull, I can well imagine you will struggle.

Talking of which, I have a depressing feeling that we are due for another "hilarious" story where Brad flies the drone into Justin's expensive car. I hope Lill tells him it's his own stupid fault for not leaving the publicity to BL's no doubt well-paid marketing team, and trying to get the video done on the cheap.

And, for more depressing SLs, we're definitely going to have Justin trying to pull a fast one on the rewilding land, aren't we?

The yoyo they do with Justin is bad.

He was supposed to be a very high flying business man with major finances. The pathetic little schemes he gets into are Grundy level and badly thought out.

He ends up being reprimanded by Lillian.

I wish they would position him and stick with it.

Grim,

I wish they’d kill him off, him and Lilian!

If there isn’t much seating in fallons unit then vegan is an even worse idea

So Fallon has been shafted again on the business front 🙄

The thing with Fallon was odd. She had successfully run her own business before Tom and Natasha forcibly bought her out. So she should be able to handle things like negotiating rent proportionate to the size of the unit, deciding whether she'd have a viable business plan on a smaller unit etc. But also, she'd know that Jolene's concerns were valid and appreciate having someone else to bounce ideas off and help her plan. Why was she being painted as naively gullible and unwilling to listen to any negative feedback, determined to push ahead no matter what?