Archers thread #181: Panto Week's behind you! Was that the nadir? 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 enjoy playing badminton with Derek Fletcher, 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.)

Will it be onwards and upwards for TA now, or do we fear even more of these special weeks (Martin and a Christmas Carol, Scam Week, Panto Week) and sudden reinventions of long-established characters (Neil)? I for one have had enough of all that. I want a quiet period of change counting in the village shop, farming talk with suitable sound effects and village gossip over coffee at Terum or a pint in The Bull. Slowly developing storylines featuring the full cast, not a subset for a few weeks with no mention of the others, and all behaving in character. Not holding my breath we'll get any of that, though!

Over to you.

Yes I think they were saying it was coming up through the toilets and plug holes in the shower so it's sounds like there must be a major blockage in a main sewer line somewhere. Bit odd it happening the day after the Bridge farm disaster though. Wouldn't have been more likey that it was all happening at the same time?

Bruisername
I assumed the sewage was coming up through the pipes

I don't think the inflow water pipes and the outflow lavatory pipes intersect; in fact I feel sure it would be illegal for them to do so. So if we thought we heard someone say it was coming out of the shower, they can't have meant the shower-head; it can only have been the outflow pipe. Which is horrible but not quite as serious.

Yes, coming out of the plugholes sounds like a major blockage downhill, pouring out of the brook sounds like an issue uphill. As on the night of the Ambridge Bridge Terror Nightmare I am left confused by the local geography (and sympathising with the Mustardlander suggesting it was designed by Escher).

Yes that’s what I meant

it is odd it happened when it did unless the company tried to contain the bridge farm mess and ended up messing up further away

and why so much? I had it happen once when we lived in a first floor flat and we had it come up the kitchen sink and the floor was maybe an inch deep and we stopped it escaping with towels. Was grim but not massive poonamis.

Edit to add it was blocked sewage pipe what done it. Fixed within the day

I have a septic tank, not access to a treatment plant, but when we had problems caused by a blockage in the pipe the tiny brown patch round the downstairs shower drain was cured as soon as I got my trusty rods out, opened the access cover, and pushed though the pipe between the access hole and the tank. Gurgle gurgle, all gone, flush with hot water then cold.

Not fun, but satisfactory in its own way.

I didn't bother running around flapping hands saying woe is me because it wouldn't have helped, but I could have phoned someone with a tanker and a suction hose.

These people live on farms. They OWN tankers with suction hoses. They have a poo lagoon. They know how to deal with the smelly stuff. I know they have to be very careful with human effluent and are unlicensed, but surely, in an emergency someone would demonstrate some sense.

If the lavatories near the top of the hill are overflowing with raw sewage from the untreatment plant which is siphoning back out of the pipes, what about the ones further down towards the village: Brookfield, for instance? The Sawyers Farm business units? Heydon Farm? The Stables?

As far as the map goes there are no houses further up the hill than Bridge Farm on that road, with Beechwood just downhill from them, so any effluent in the pipes at that point will be from nineteen houses not the entire village, I would have thought.

Re the house business, I rather hope they have exchanged contracts but can't complete (for whatever reason) so that Kirsty gets to keep their deposit. That cat needs setting among the pigeons there!

Why on earth are Helen and Tom Tit doing the clean-up?

They should have been straight on to the insurers who could arrange emergency industrial cleaning.

The sw blew all their budget on Laurence and the Dame so they can’t afford a clean up squad

About a million years ago I did an MA, half of which was linguistics and the early accent of the late Queen was called marked RP.
An example would be "a backet of send".

Amazingly this was exactly how we were made to speak poetry at my very northern, very working class primary school in the 60s. By teachers who were also northern.

I don’t think Kirsty will want to keep all the deposits.

I should have clarified - that was a bucket of sand. Basically the flat "a" became "e" and "u", usually given its full value became "a".

Don't get me started on "buke".

@IHaveAlwaysLivedintheCastle ... insurers? I expect they cancelled the insurance when the premiums went up after John's tractor-rolling incident.

Sigh, why is everyone so useless?Joy, having at least realised she has insurance, doesn't know she can ask/ tell her insurance company to find accomodation. Even if they can't do that immediately nothing we know about Joy suggests that she can't afford a couple of nights in a hotel.

Mick- also started off quite sensibly but seems to have forgotten he works for the softest touch in Borsetshire; who runs a hotel.

Azra- same - but it's the landlord's insurance who has to find accomodation.

Insurance doesn’t exist in ambridge
The village will and together and help each other out. Zainab will end up sleeping at Brookfield to keep that SL going o doubt

Very good! 👏 😂

Strewth.

https://www.dssmith.com/recycling/insights/blogs/2016/1/pouring-milk-down-the-drain-is-a-criminal-offence-for-businesses

Tom is in serious, erm, shit for this if he gets caught.

(I don't suppose this occurred to Naylah Ahmed, who wrote this week's scripts.)

Does anyone know what Azra and her mum were talking about at the end? Where they might have to go? In an "Oh no not there" kind of way?
It would taken so few seconds for them to say to each other "I've called the insurance company and they're putting us up in Grey Gables". Of course in real life it would have been a crap hotel in the local town, but as faithful listeners we would have put up with it being a little bit unbelievable but still vaguely possible.
But the complete lack of any kind of sensible normal behaviour is so annoying - and it does feel new(ish). Like when Jolene gave the pub kitchen job to Tracey rather than immediately thinking of Fallon. Her daughter.
Or recently when they were wanging on about pastry and I couldn't understand why Jolene didn't just say "Why don't you email your dad and ask for his pie recipe?" He's on a cruise ship with WiFi, he's not in outer space for god's sake!
It's like the people writing it think Ambridge is some kind of alien planet.

Sorry I've got my names confused haven't I... Azra is the mum? Anyway, my point stands.

Ambridge is not on some other planet. It's in some sort of Escher-space, which goes some way to explain the, erm, malleable geography of the place. And which also makes perfect sense of poonamis seemingly defying the laws of physics applicable to normal space.

I’m guessing Azra and Zainab were talking about having to stay at the Ambridge Hall B&B - under the roof of the enemy that is Lynda Snell …

Could be wrong, of course!

Has the farming advisor been fired? Sorry meant to quote AskingQuestionsAllTheTime's
very informative post about milk disposal.

Disposal of milk

Arf! I realised about 20 minutes ago that I'd been posting despite having forgotten to listen to tonight's episode. Having now listened, I doubt if it made any difference.

That was my guess.

Will Helen reflect sufficiently to wonder if being mired in effluent is poetic justice for perforating her late (ex) husband’s bowel? (Because naturally it must be all about her; everything is.)