Archers thread #176: In which Ian puts the I in PTA. 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 you'd like to hear more from Wesley the ashtray collector, 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.)

Thanks to @DeanElderberry for the pithy phrase in the thread title and @CaptainMyCaptain for suggesting it should go in there. At least we've got the spooky disco out of the way for now. Plenty of wooden dialogue in the last few episodes that could go on the village bonfire next week. It's all been too dispiriting to discuss in greater depth. I'll just say that I don't hold out any great hopes that the production team will make a good job of reflecting concern in the farming community about the changes announced in the Budget to inheritance tax for farms. So often they get an expert to talk them through stuff like this but instead of ending up with a realistic storyline they pick out the bits they like the sound of and cobble them together in a totally unrealistic way. Maybe I'll be proved wrong this time. I hope so.

Over to you!

It does make it stupider. I quite agree.

I’m worried that listening to the archers is making me stupider

I assumed the apparent AI conversation was conducted by Robert sitting at his computer with headphones on, listening to Justin's and typing the replies into some sort of text-to-speech system.

I'm starting to hope that Justin is in a coma and that everything we've heard from him since the mysterious breakdown of the car has been a dream.

I think I'd stop listening altogether if not for these threads.

I tend to agree. It's not for the programme itself any more; it's the people trying to make sense of it that are interesting.

What is the point of her other than to have been Justin’s ghost of Xmas present - that was her sole purpose. And the SWs couldn’t even be bothered to remember that since bring jilted by Tom Kirsty has been pregnant by Tom, had a late miscarriage and grieved with him, been married to slaver Phillip and divorced him - the jilting is very much ancient history now and both parties have more than moved on. Just too lame for words - all of it. Like one of those excruciating afternoon theatre dramas that come onnafter The Archers at 2.15!

Where is this sl going to end, I wonder? Justin's clearly going to have some sort of Damascene conversion, but to what extent?

Perhaps he'll liquidise all his assets, buy up all the land he can, make it over to the rewilding project in perpetuity and set up a massive trust fund to keep it going.

He can then head north on foot, dressed in a rough woollen robe, to help Shula minister to the huddled masses.

Jobs for life for Kirsty and Rex and Lilian left fuming

They’ll need a new nasty businessman character. Azras husband?

They could bring back Tiger!

Or develop one of the young 'uns - Josh? George?

They need to have money to use to bait people though

so maybe not Azras husband. But I feel he must be a bit of an arse given he’s abandoned them fir so long and has just left her to deal with everything at home

I see no reason for the existence of Azra’s husband away from home other than for him to return and make their happy household unhappy.

And he may well have money …

Yes true.

no doubt the sw will introduce him as if he hasn’t been away for the last however many months

I thought either that, or it was all in Justin's imagination. That was actually what I expected when it cut to Rex saying the beta version was up - I thought he was going to reveal that it was all still a work in progress and nothing had yet been made, making it obvious that Justin had been dreaming it all.

But even Robert being able to listen in to Justin's speech, assuming Justin was at home/in the office (i.e. anywhere where Robert wasn't physically close enough to overhear him) is pretty sophisticated. It's not like he was logging in via Zoom or something; they've made a website complete with drone footage from Brad The Drone Crasher Horrobin, an AI voice cloned from one of their actual employees, a virtual tour of the site (video? at least photographic), and up-to-date information about what's going on that day, AND it can listen in to voice commands. So even if the AI isn't operational enough to actually give the answers that it supposedly did yesterday, the rest of it is still fairly improbable.

I'm ashamed of myself for engaging with it to the extent of trying to work out what was going on (Robert listening in/ world-beating AI technology/ a dream). It was clearly all so much tripe that it doesn't deserve the energy of questioning the details.

I have occasionally burst into spontaneous laughter today remembering Justin’s pained splutterings 😂

Same here. It’s why I’m enjoying The Cider Shed podcast - very funny, especially the fake adverts

I'm currently in the throes of training an AI. Anyone got Robert's number?

Did I miss a discussion about 'signature bakes' moving from tea room to EV charging station? Have Natasha and Fallon talked about this yet?

No. Helen mentioned it to someone - Kirsty? Harrison? Can't remember.

Everyone else went, "what signature bikes?" I suppose if they do cheese scones with Sterling Gold or something, but it's not like we've ever heard anyone raving that they must go to the Terum because only the Montbelliard shaped biscuits will do.

I don't think there was any AI involved. It was more like the equivalent of me talking to MrG's son on Skype, when my headphones were okay but my mic wasn't working. He spoke to me and I typed my responses. If I'd had a text-to-speech button I could have used that to broadcast it to him.

That would make sense except that Rex would have had to pre-record enough onto a database to make it possible for ‘his’ voice to say anything anyone typed in (which is how ordinary old TTS works), or for Robert to have used AI to clone his voice somehow and programme it for the same purpose. I mean they may have gone to those lengths but it all seems a lot of effort to pursue a frankly preposterous storyline.

It wasn't the (almost certainly bogus) 'AI' that bothered me, it was the idea that Justin cared even slightly about people or butterflies. Since when?

Would have been so much better if

But what happens to Kirsty? Tell me what happens to Kirsty?

she dies Justin. She dies.

cue Justin wailing and running out

how old is Kirsty?

She's 43.

Well, I've listened. Ambridge says Has TA gone meta? I've got another suggestion. It's gone mental.

(It wasn't as bad as I was expecting, tbh. I laughed.)

Thanks. Same age as me pretty much and I wouldn’t have thought so!!

to me she’s a very beige character and it would be great if she hijacked the combine to disrupt the BL board.