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!

Tiny cafe, inadequate seating, vegan. If there's a convenience store or any other alternative source of refreshments Fallon will go bust in weeks.

And it will serve her right for not listening to her mother.

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

I have high hopes for the cruise. He could go overboard and fake his death; or he could go overboard and die leaving Lilian bereaved and having to deal with the trail of evidence of a Maxwell-style embezzlement behind. Or Lilian could go overboard leaving Justin bereaved and he could go back to London. The options are endless with a cruise…

Poor Fallon. When I first met her in around 2014 she was quite the entrepreneur. Now she seems so inexperienced she would be well-suited to appearing in The Apprentice.

Yes, Fallon has suffered a bad case of character erosion by the tides of different scriptwriters.

And right no, Harrison is being flagged up as a concern, isn't he? Kenton and Jolene both mentioned him and Fallon's blithe assertion that things between them are better than ever dum de dum de dum de dum was a heavy bit of dramatic irony. So he's been laying into scrotes at a riot, has he, or what? It seemed that Kenton knew more than Fallon. Friday's cliffhanger, I bet.

The charging station, in my mind, is somewhere a Greggs would do well. Not a vegan cafe.

all the electric car drivers I know are middle aged men who have them for tax purposes, not environmental reasons.

It seemed that Kenton knew more than Fallon

Kenton does know more. Harrison had told him he was struggling with work - neither of them has told Fallon.

I know Ireland is different but places with forecourt fuel pumps usually also have convenience stores with good deli counters, and tea and coffee on tap.

In some hypothetical future, if I'm waiting around for a short time, and there is some outside seating, and the choice is between a breakfast roll and tea with regular milk OR something vegan and tea with oat milk, I know what I'll choose every time.

In our family service stations are for a guilty pleasure! So junk food and sweets!!

Breakfast rolls are certainly pleasurable (or were, back when I could eat wheat). Guilt? What's a few hundred fat-laden salty carb-rich calories between friends?

Yep - a slice of carrot cake is just not unhealthy enough!!

I really can’t be bothered to listen at the moment

The whole vegan cafe thing is ridiculous. Fallon would be alienating a large proportion of people in a location where it appears she is the only food option. Unless of course the SW think her food will be so amazing that she will become a destination venue in itself drawing people far and wide who will just charge their cars as an added extra.

I’m afraid I’d be joining the queue for the unrepentantly-dairy-laden coffee + pastry at the takeaway place, should one appear to rival Fallon's vegan establishment (and it will - I can’t remember the term for it now but there’s a name for the fact that similar shops always open/move to be close to each other).

Going back to Justin and Brad - I think the thing I find so repellent about Phlegmy is his eagerness to exploit a young, naive teen and trick him into giving 'the best deal', ie the one that actively disadvantages him and makes the pathetic Justin feel he’s WINNING. It’s more than eagerness, actually, he's practically rubbing his thighs à la Vic Reeves, and it’s so distasteful. What a horrible man he is. And what a crap judge of character Fagash is to have thought this was her best bet as a life partner.

Edit to add: the shop thing is called the Nash Equilibrium, so the internet reminds me.

i quite like a lot of vegan cakes, but i can't stand all the milk substitutes. So in the morning i'd be a (proper full-fat milk) cappuccino and a breadcake at the greggs or whatever, but afternoon evening might be a black coffee or tea and a piece of vegan cake. Lovely.

But why are they making her so stupid. one month's free rent does not make up for a mix up when you are paying the old rent on the other place. No sane person would put up with that. But Fallon has her heart set on a vegan cafe, so there it is.

Our blissful rescue from the "me darlin's" has died a swift death. Unfortunately. (How do Jolene and Fallon have such different accents? I speak SSB and my DH is from Boro with an accent to match. Our DCs speak with my accent not his)

How do Jolene and Fallon have such different accents? I speak SSB and my DH is from Boro with an accent to match. Our DCs speak with my accent not his

Children are more likely to develop the accent of the place they grow up. My accent is mostly Dorset, unlike my parents.

However, I'm not complaining about people with different voices on TA. There are enough confusing ones.

But where did Fallon grow up? IME (i have long studied bilingual children) they speak with their mother's accent then adopt a local one where they grow up. Birmingham for Fallon?

it is a vague irritant for me but way down on the list of other things.

Children are more likely to develop the accent of the place they grow up. My accent is mostly Dorset, unlike my parents. Absolutely. I’m RP, DC2 is Yorkshire. We moved to yorkshire when he was 18months, just beginning to speak.

I grew up going to international schools with a northern father and a foreign mother. I’ve always been RP and my sister picked up the strongest accent at school

i also know kids where one has picked up the parents non English accent despite living here all her life and the other has a local accent

fascinating things accents!!

It certainly sounds as though bad things are imminently coming down the track for both Fallon and Harrison. The heavy-handed signposting could hardly be clearer. After all this I shall be seriously annoyed if their lives now take a turn for the better with Harrison winning a gallantry award and being promoted to Chief Constable and Fallon's vegan café becoming such a success that people all over Borsetshire start switching to EVs just so they can queue outside her concrete box for an acquafaba enriched croissant.
The SWs have form for teasing us like this though. We were all looking forward to the Borsetshire Chainsaw Massacre but that little treat seems to have been cruelly snatched away and Ed and Emma now seem more likely to win Health and Safety Couple of the Year. (We were all looking forward to the accident weren't we? I know I watch too much Helicopter ER with my elderly mother but surely it wasn't just me?)

It wasn't (and isn't) just you.

Harrison is deserving of more misery and Fallon is so pathetic these days she doesn’t deserve much better!!

still plenty of time for a chainsaw massacre!!

@Ambridge Edit to add: the shop thing is called the Nash Equilibrium, so the internet reminds me.

I was going to suggest a stampede!

Definitely not just you, @Godesstobe ! I’m still hopeful. George might be released to attend the funeral, handcuffed to a PO of course.

Speaking as an EV driver, I’m not a middle-aged man but I definitely wouldn’t thank you for oatmilk coffee, I can’t stand it. Truthfully, if I had a choice, it would be Greggs as they do great coffee (and who doesn’t love a vegan sausage roll, although I am an omnivore). The main thing I want when I’m charging is a loo. I’m not usually there long enough for a coffee to cool down enough to drink.

spoilers for Sunday to Tuesday 29 Oct episodes

i like that this fan podcast can point out crap storylines. You won't get that on Emma Freud

Has anyone been listening to the podcast?

Everything I’ve heard from her so far has made me think she’s a smug, out of touch luvvie

Not a trace of Brummie in Fallon. I imagine that she is supposed to speak Mummerset, but the actress has always adopted a very soft version.

Fallon could get layout ideas from this place.