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!

We don't know all the evidence, though. There may well be evidence that he was driving too fast, for instance, or was on the wrong side of the road.

Thanks, @mossylog

Note:
Early on, Neil suffered leptospirosis – Weil’s disease. It’s a liver disease I think, because he turned very yellow. He was in hospital and he was very close to losing his life. Like all good dramas, we carried it through to the point –is he going to live, is he going to die? I lived – thank you (laughs), so that was quite interesting to play.

The Ambridge health fairy waved her wand as usual. Doesn't sound as if Neil's present difficulties are related, though.

I guess if he ever wants to pack it in they could hire a replacement.

I wouldn’t have thought the Writers would be planning for Emma to lose her pa at this point, surely?!

Eddie was born in March 1951, and Trevor Harrison in March 1957.

Might serve as the "life changing" forecast that was being trailed at the start of this. We thought it would be Alice going on a downward spiral but it might be Neil paying for his good intentions

I've had a quote running around in my head since Lilian and Kenton's gloating about George's sentence. I've finally located it: "The villagers had said justice had been done, and she'd lost patience and told them to go home, then, and pray to whatever gods they believed in that it was never done to them. The smug mask of virtue triumphant could be almost as horrible as the face of wickedness revealed." (Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum)

I'm finding Emma's self-pitying stance rather tiresome listening though.

You won't be surprised to hear I think Terry Pratchett was a very great writer indeed. So badly missed.

Recasting Neil? Noooooooooooooooooooo! 😱

I knew the thread mother would approve @moggerhanger

Me too; I love Granny Weatherwax.

I haven't been around here much lately so apologies if someone has made this point already. But: in what real rural village would 3 different people get prison sentences within the space of a few years? (George, Helen, Freddie, possibly not in that order).

Hardly anyone actually escapes from prison these days (in the sense of going over the wall or otherwise breaking out of a closed prison). I think there was only one escape in the last year.
What does happen is that prisoners fail to return after being let out on day release from a closed prison (typically from a Cat C) or just walk out of an open prison. Theoretically they should be low risk prisoners, but some do commit serious offences while AWOL.

Helen didn't (she was on remand and cleared at her trial) and Freddie doesn't live in Ambridge, though.

I didn't like Neil saying he could rest when he was dead. It sounded ominous.

SQUEAK.
IYKYK

Ah, I mis-remembered. Thanks for clearing that up.

Yes @SabrinaThwaite, although I imagine Lilian’s hair as slightly more extravagant than Sheila Hancock’s.

Noooooo that's not Neil

worried about him now

This is not new. When I started my OU degree in 2011 it was a section of our opening social sciences module

I hope Neil's symptoms turn out to be the (very understandable) result of stress, rather than some underlying physical problem. I mean, even disregarding the fact that George is his grandson, the current family drama must take him back to Sooosan going to prison, plus there's the Chris vs. Emma business. Also, he's reached pension age and may not have his job much longer. In his boots, I'd be feeling the pressure.

plus there's the Chris vs. Emma business

I suppose it’s more problematic within a relatively small community, but as a general thing having adult siblings not on speakers is probably rather less stressful for a parent than tweens/teens who genuinely hate one another’s guts.

It may be my failing because I'm not (forgive me) a hopeless addict, but TBH I find it quite hard to remind myself that Chris is Emmur's brother. They seem to exist on separate planes.
Have I missed all the conflict there? I often miss a lot of TA so that wouldn't surprise me.

I really thought Elizabeth could have shown a bit more compassion, if not for George then for them as parents.

She’s sort George out, he’d not dare stray from the straight and narrow under Granny’s watchful glare.

Granny is my heroine 💕

Have I missed all the conflict there?

When Chris found out about George, and particularly that Emma had known for a while, he was apoplectic. Neil had to intervene.

We haven't heard a lot (anything?) from Chris since then, but there's certainly been no indication that he's changed his mind and softened towards Emma. He very firmly took Alice (and Martha)'s side.

The conflict between Chris (as Alice's ex-husband, apparently still unaccountably devoted to her) and Emma (as George's doting mother) arose because the cover-up meant that Alice was facing prosecution as the driver. This was obviously very wrong. It's also annoying, because if George had fessed up then he wouldn't be in prison,

In my dreams, a blood test for some random medical purpose reveals that Martha is not, in fact, Chris's child. Let the sparks fly!