Archers thread #182: The Shit hits the Am! 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 delighted to oblige your employer by cleaning up sewage spills without proper training or equipment in place of your normal duties, 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.)

Credit for the title goes to @echt. Can't think of anything much to say about current storylines. Credulity is strained to its limit on many fronts, unfortunately, but there are a few nuggets in the slurry. I did enjoy hearing Natasha's outrage that Fallon is doing obvious, sensible things at The Bull even though it might hit Terum. I thought Natasha was supposed to be an entrepreneur!

Over to you!

I've had a lightbulb moment listening to that jaw-droppingly stupid exchange between Helen and her parents. Nobody, but nobody, running a business would leave it for several weeks after a disaster to look at their insurance cover and wonder if perhaps they might get some financial help in return for the eyewatering sums they pay in business insurance. If they did, they deserve to go under. This is so ludicrous that I've realised the production team must be utterly devoid not just of experience in, but also curiosity about, running a business. This explains a great deal of the weird stuff we've had inflicted on us in recent times, e.g. the Grey Gables redevelopment.

Years ago I read about Richard Feynman's invention of the term Cargo Cult Science and I often think about it when I come across some new bonkers theory being pushed as fact, regardless of the underlying evidence.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call Cargo Cult Science. In the South Seas there is a Cargo Cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he’s the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm

I now realise the production team of The Archers are writing Cargo Cult Business Administration. They know that some things happen in business, e.g. businesses pay insurance premiums, so they mention them, but unfortunately not in a way that demonstrates any genuine understanding of how businesses work. And this leads them to write in nonsensical stuff such as the employer compelling employees to clean up raw sewage with mops and buckets instead of getting straight onto the insurers, sorting out what will and won't be covered by insurance, and having the premises cleaned promptly and thoroughly by professionally trained and equipped specialist cleaners.

It's dispiriting. I don't think they got things so badly wrong decades ago. Perhaps they were better at avoiding things they didn't know anything about.

Yep, it’s absolutely baffling and as you say, dispiriting.

Top analysis, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g.

Yes, as in George will rope an unwitting Henry in.

Did you see the itv drama ‘Out There’? That had similarities - ‘good’ farmer’s son, older ne’er do well boy very low down in a county lines drug gang. Drama and tragedy ensue. It’s worth watching for the performance of the main character (son of the wonderful Lorraine Ashbourne and Andy Serkis) but god it’s depressing. It also features Martin Clunes doing a pretty dodgy Welsh accent! 😆

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g yes! It applies to so much of The Archers, every time they refer to anything equine I have an overwhelming urge to bang my head against a brick wall.

And tonnes of other stuff related to rural / village life too, they urgently need some SW’s with either first hand experience or a means of gaining insight.

I quite "enjoyed" watching "Out There"; I would probably have missed it were it not for all the advertising at Liverpool St station a few months ago. We've had ketamine and Freddie dealing, but I suppose that was a while ago.

Thank you to Gaspode for reminding me about Feynman. I've a long train journey this week and "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman" might ease the tedium.

The question is why do the SWs lack basic commonsense and normal life experience? They are not all 15 year olds, some of them are pretty old. So why do they appear to have no understanding of how the world works?

You'd think it would make sense for the production team to have made friends with someone in NFU insurance, which would give them:

• knowledge about what you can cover (I know my father was glad he decided to opt in for foot&mouth cover in 2001, though even more relieved we didn't need it in the end,)
• what happens when you try to claim, which is surely high up on the things you do whenever you have an accident or disaster to deal with.
• potential for storyline when they hear about different types of claims.
• compare and contrast stories from things like flooding and people having opted for different levels of cover.

Seems a no-brainer to me...

(I have never known anyone in farming not use NFU Mutual, but I assume there are other providers who cover rural stuff.)

(EtA didn't mean to quote, sorry.)

Gosh didn't realise Clarrie was quite that age PassivAgressivHaus. Given the way TA stretches credibility, it's a minor example of it that she's working full-time.

Fabulous analysis Gaspode. TA - long form, mundane, realist - doesn't lend itself at all to impressionistic stuff. I know they once had a farming expert advisor, they need one for business and just life in this setting. Does anyone research the story topics? But absolutely Goddesstobe why so little common sense?

I have never known anyone in farming not use NFU Mutual.

Same here - and often organised by a local broker

There must be 1000's of people every year, business and private who intimate claims without having their paperwork to hand.

They're talking about the Ramadan story on Feedback now. Some quite racist comments from listeners rather than the objections about the lecturing tone posted on this thread. The word 'woke' has come up many times. I'm quite horrified tbh.

Just seen that Feedback (on now) is addressing Lynda’s Ramadan participation! I’m a bit late so catching up. First comment is Whataboutery … And the third. Fourth is BBC imposing wokeness …. As if TA has never once mentioned Lent in 74 years.

I’m not sure some Archers listeners are terribly nice people …

My reaction exactly.

One woman asked if Lynda would be taking part in Yom Kippur.

Missing the point entirely but I LOVED Hywel Bennett in 'Malice Aforethought'.

There’s lots more - Cara Courage (Academic Archers), the presenter putting our general lecturing point, and the BBC not appearing but sending a statement. Well worth listening.

I haven't posted on one of these threads for ages and am a fairly intermittent listener these days but I've just heard a bit of Feedback in the car on the school run.

I don't believe any of the people objecting really listen to the Archers. If they did they would know that this is absolutely in character for Lynda. It just is SO LYNDA. She's fundamentally a very kind person, and also has a tendency to a fascination with other ways of life that might at times tip over into a sort of exoticism.

When I first heard a bit of this storyline I wondered about the possibility Muslim listeners feeling uncomfortable with someone picking up and putting down a Ramadan practise as if it's a thing you can opt in an out of. (I don't know whether this is something a devout Muslim might object to but I know other cultures/faiths might do).

And if Lynda had a Jewish family in the guest house long term she would absolutely be doing a similar thing. I don't know how feasible it is for someone who's not Jewish to participate in Yom Kippur but I bet her Friday night dinners would be fantastic.

I'm just listening to Feedback on catch-up, omg "the Islamisation of the Archers proceeds apace" & "Lynda sitting down to a Ramadan meal and prayers was a real low for me" 😂😂😂 these people are HORRIBLE! Bet they weren't upset when Lent got an equally light mention in previous years!

Ramadan kareem folks! I shall be having some lovely mazafati dates tonight (I'm not Muslim, they're just very good dates).

Have there ever been Jewish people in the Archers?

Agapornis
Have there ever been Jewish people in the Archers?

It has been rumoured on various noticeboards that Jack Woolley had a Jewish friend called Sir Sidney Goodman, but I don't think it was ever stated on air that he was Jewish. And of course there has been speculation about Ruth's father being called Solly, short presumably for Solomon, and Ruth having spent time on a kibbutz in Israel before college, raising the possibility that her family was at least partly Jewish, though not observant, as did her having sons called Joshua and Benjamin (conveniently ignoring her daughter Philippa).

There are other farmers' unions.

It's a Jewish fasting day today.
I hear Feedback, and the speakers were verging on racist, but presumably they were the broadcastable opinions.

@muddyford , me too.

@JustAMiddleAgedDirtBagBaby , enjoy your dates! You are quite correct - it was so Lynda.

The listeners on Feedback were objectionable.

I always thought it was absolutely idiotic to try to claim that choosing the names Josh and Ben indicated that Ruth had some never-mentioned Jewish heritage. Those are two of the most popular boys' names of the last 30 years! I bet many of those naming their children Josh and Ben have never even clocked that they are Biblical names.

Feedback - oh dear. How many years on the trot have we heard about what various characters are giving up for Lent? I did not grow up with that tradition (Scottish Presyberian) and as an atheist in adult life it's not something I have anything to do with either. So what? Others do. I have no problem with Ramadan or any other religious observance being mentioned in TA. I did think the way it was handled was clunky, but that's how things are at the moment in most storylines. I also think it's absurd to think that people of the age of Lynda and Robert are trying to go from sunrise to sunset with no water as well as not eating. Surely medically qualified Dr Malik should be pointing this out? But of course Feedback highlights objections from people who seem to think Islam should not even be mentioned, instead of getting down and dirty with the minutiae as we do here. Harrumph.

I'm glad it was t just me who had that reaction to Feedback.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g
I always thought it was absolutely idiotic to try to claim that choosing the names Josh and Ben indicated that Ruth had some never-mentioned Jewish heritage. Those are two of the most popular boys' names of the last 30 years! I bet many of those naming their children Josh and Ben have never even clocked that they are Biblical names.

Oh, me too, but I was simply reporting what people had said in various places while trying to make claims about... well, what is it? Ethnicity? Race? Um? In any case, cobblers because Ruth's mother Heather didn't have a Jewish name and Judaism is matrilineal.

It is also Hola Mohalla this weekend Maybe the Gills are celebrating.

Josh Archer was born in 1997. Joshua was the 5th most popular name at the time.
Ben was born in 2002, and Benjamin was the 6th most popular name at the time.

Do we know the Gills are Sikhs?

They haven't been used for educational purposes.