Archers thread #179: Beavers, livestock, ferrets, but nododo! 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 be happy sharing a hot tub with Mucky Mick, 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.)

The title started life with @JanglyBeads, whose autocorrect turned 'Oh no, nor do I!' into 'Oh no, nododo I!' on the last thread. For reasons of cowardice/prudence/lack of inspiration and the character limit, I haven't included @BeaLola's even more mysterious autocorrect - her phone had her asking Abdul if he'd always wanted children instead of Neil. Perhaps one of the mooted beavers can be Abdul.

For the first time ever I've added a poll to the OP. Over to you!

Agreed re the utterly random insertion of the previously unknown back story for Neil.

The series is more like a GCSE writing assignment by the day.

Yes, maybe Rochelle is Richard. Whatever she is, she’s very annoying and I have no idea why a minor character’s daughter is getting so much airtime with so little realism. Where’s her money coming from? (Where is Joy’s for that matter?) Would she really be organising random pointless events a couple of weeks after arriving somewhere? Does bullying someone into a date work in real life? Grrr!

I wondered how Neil thought he could trace his birth mother when he was abandoned. No birth certificate with mother's name etc. But then I thought maybe with DNA testing it is possible. Not something I've looked into but maybe somebody can enlighten me

Beavers are banned

maybe Justin is a closet Labour sympathiser

Oh that’s excellent. They will have written it into the scripts that Justin agrees and the process will have started…

Sat navs probably helped fix that, but I occasionally get delivery riders attempting to give me food, which is a bit strange as they are usually for a slightly different postcode. I have a unique postcode. But deliveries still go to the next street, even though there is no house of the same number there.

Look at the confusion we have here, Willow Farm vs Willow Cottage for example

I've got a horrible feeling Neil is about to try to trace his real mother - despite the subject never having been raised before as long as I've been listening

Oh please don’t say that…she’d be pretty elderly but it’s very possible she’s still around. What a bore. We have a plethora of elderly women knocking around at the moment - both on-air and silent - so I am not sure we need another one to add to the mix. But may be this will be one last major SL for Neil before the actor retires…

Did I hear the sound of change in the background at the shop last night?

Oh I actually came on here to record my disappointment at not hearing Brian being taught how to count up his points in a hand of Bridge.

I don't mean to be rude but door numbers took up a lot of space and I just strolled on by, but there must be more exciting stuff to talk about. Oh! I’ve found it fascinating. I’ve found out more about the “rules” of numbering, I’ve learnt about numbering and codes in Ireland, I’ve been prompted to consider whether the apparent invisibility of our house might by a problem now I’m getting older, and there have been amusing anecdotes on the way.

I enjoyed the door number convo!

I like the fact this thread goes off on a tangent sometimes. If it doesn’t interest me I just scroll on by

Where was Neil born? And grew up? Will there be a shock revelation that he's biologically related to a family in the village?
I'm not v keen on them just suddenly creating a back story for him that's never been previously mentioned in all the years he's been in Ambridge. Surely he's mentioned his family before although there did used to be a more of a stigma attached to being adopted, so I can imagine he has just never made it common knowledge...do his children even know? There's so many complexities to this that I think they will struggle to just drop it in like this and do it any justice.

There is a very interesting wiki piece about house numbering around the world, which I encountered whilst failing to establish how to spell "boustrophedon".

Her you go, Bruiser: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_numbering#United_Kingdom

I don't remember Neil arriving in Ambridge as a teenage apprentice, so I've never given much thought to no previous mentions of family. Presumably he'll do a DNA test and find that he is related to some "characters" who will turn up for a week's worth of episodes and then disappear.

Pru and Tom Forrest started in 1961 to foster two boys, Johnny Martin and Peter Stevens, who would have been much of an age with Neil when he arrived in Ambridge in 1973. He had lodgings with Martha Woodford, who was the Ambridge Intelligencer before Susan became Radio Ambridge, and if he'd given the least hint of having been fostered she'd have been on it like a ferret up a drainpipe and introducing him to Johnny and Peter and embarrassing the bejazus out of all of them. Instead, she encouraged Neil to write home to his mother.

I knew a brother and sister foundling. Probably around 60 now. They found one another through a fluke newspaper report when they were much younger. So they must have kept their original names (? I can't quite remember the story now). He was 3 when he was left on a step and his sister was a baby. They were fostered separately.

He says it never leaves you. In fact dp's alcoholic father left them when he was 3 - a terrible man - and still dp (who is not a person to talk sentimentally) says the same - you always feel like you weren't good enough, and it never leaves you.

The fallout would be quite entertaining if Neil turned out to be Susan's half-brother.

What a stupid reason. This new government never passes up an opportunity to disappoint.

There might be nothing in it. The whole story comes from 'sources', not even specifying whether they were government sources, civil service sources, random bloke down the pub sources. And the government response is 'this story is categorically untrue.'

Since the Editorial team are reinventing the past, maybe we'll discover that Jack Woolley had an affair around the time that his first wife died and the unmarried young mother gave Neil Carter up for adoption. Knowing our luck Sykesey will turn out to be involved.

A few days behind again but the whole Tom-and-Helen-Move-In-Together thing is giving me a twitch already. Helen will be possessive over "her" house (and no doubt she and The Boys will be shunted into the smaller rooms). Tom will attempt to be The All-Knowing Man Of The House when it comes to parenting The Boys as well as his own children, which will go down like a cup of cold sick with Helen. And there will be regular complaints that Joy and Mick are breathing too heavily at 7.01pm while Seren and Dippity ( to whoever coined that) scream the place down morning, noon and night during which Tom and Natasha dismiss the din as "kids will be kids" before going back to their phones.

It will be enjoyably awful!

You should listen to the “The Gift” series on BBC Sounds. Covers pretty much all the scenarios that can emerge through DNA testing. Will Neil discover his father is a murderer in the run? That his birth mother was actually his sister etc.
Unlikely that the Archer’s format will be able to do justice to all the complexities that can arise from reconnecting with a hidden past. And why a foundling story line rather than the much more common closed adoption scenario.?

6.50pm and a neighbour is doing DIY (some kind of eletric saw/dril?).... wouldn't normally notice but now I can't but help think of the children!!!!! (Tongue very much in cheek)

I really can’t bear Miranda’s voice and character. She’s starting to ruin Brian for me.

and I can only forgive having to listen to Justin as at least the beaver sl has a little bit of merit

so is that Rochelle still harassing Rex? Maybe her ex has a restraining order against her

He says it never leaves you. In fact dp's alcoholic father left them when he was 3 - a terrible man - and still dp (who is not a person to talk sentimentally) says the same - you always feel like you weren't good enough, and it never leaves you.

My DS17 (adopted) says similar - even from when small (he was in Foster Care for 4 years) - he would say I love you Mummy & Daddy and I'm glad you're my parents but why didn't they "biological parents" want me - he would even comment on other foster kids being "chosen" before him and wonder why he wasn't "good enough" - his words not mine

yep! Well done!

Justin was, and I really hate saying this, really rather splendid tonight.