Archers thread #185: Some farming would be nice. 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, 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.)

Over to you!

I know what you mean but when they’re so connected as characters, I thought they meant Mick but realised if didn’t make sense in the context but had forgotten a character as fleeting as Nick, who we’ve not even met.

Yes, I had a sort of 'that can't be Mick' moment until the mental filing worked it out. Wasn't William's late wife a Nick too? (I HAD four Davids - I am not a teacher...).

I agree on Nick/mick

how close is Rochelle allowed to be?

Yes, Mike would have been easier to distinguish than Nick, even though it's technically the same as Mick.

She wasn't digging them up (aka "lifting") but "earthing" them up, which is dragging soil around the stalks.

I was impressed at a bit of gardening mentioned at the appropriate time.

As I say from time to time, I grieve the loss of our chance to have a household comprising Ben, Beth, and Bess.

But I love the idea of Jill's cottage being left to her daughters - Shula bringing her missionary zeal back closer to home and having to share a compact living space with an exiled-from-Lower Loxley Elizabeth would be comedy gold.

Thanks for the gardening jargon but my post was tongue in cheek.

it was nice to hear Alan and Usha but Joy still needed a name drop

I know - her bloody peonies!

Rex puzzles me. Was he a professional rugby player and/or a high flyer in finance before he and Toby came to Ambridge to raise geese?

Now he lives on a ropey boat and has to drive a cab to supplement his earnings from pig rearing and re-wilding. Far from being his own boss, he can't even afford the time off to play cricket. No wife and the nearest he's come to a snog in years is loony Rochelle.

Do you think he's content with his rural life?

It didn’t even have to be joys peonies - they could have picked another character.

the sw seem obsessed with joy

Nowhere near as obsessed with her as this thread is!

He surely can't be can he? It can't be how he imagined his life would turn out, he should be having a great life in his prime.
But he's such a total drip, he doesn't seem to have any ambition or get up and go, so that must be how he's ended up like this.

Rex puzzles me

Can there be a human on the planet who isn’t completely bewildered by Rex?

Yes, he was the rugby player (and Toby worked in the City). I don’t know if he’s ever said so or not, but I have the impression the Fairfather was probably a bit brutal when Rex had to give up rugby through injury - so Rex is determined to forge a path of his own. Even though he seems to lack any specific skill. (It must have been far more excruciating than the SWs showed, for Toby to make such a success of his gin business while Rex was struggling.) And he probably only took up with the rewilding venture because of Pip. Who then left. Now he’s stuck with this ridiculous hodgepodge of occupations that the SWs struggle (or don’t bother to struggle) to keep track of. Meanwhile Toby is swanning off all over Europe, swigging wine on the paternal dollar.

It’s ridiculous. I can’t imagine many women would find his set up encouraging; and he’s prickly and proud and needy and poor … 🤷‍♀️

I do think he has ambition and get up and go. But he needs collaborators - he’s good at starting projects but incapable of building on them.

But that’s because the sw are obsessed!!

I am hoping for a nice bit of archers family strife over the will or maybe the funeral readings

Superb post @TottersBlithely - re inheritance and the gradual erasure of Ambridge properties. The various locations are as key as the characters in setting the scene for the listener so it feels like we're peeking over hedge or in through a window rather than listening to something recorded in a radio studio. Peggy's death offers the possibility of some real Ambridge drama - her final roll of the dice as a controlling matriarch with the distribution of the spoils (if indeed there's much left to be distributed - certainly it will have to be split a lot of ways if it includes all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren). Back to Rochelle (which unfortunately always seems to be the case these days) - I still still don't fully understand why she moved back in with her (allegedly) toxic mother after so many years away. Was it because she knew Vince Casey had connections to the village and she wanted to weasle her way in with him or did she only have the idea after she met him in the shop? If Joy knew what she was like (warning Rex off from the start) why is is she now so sympathetic to Rochelle's plight? Why are Joy and Rochelle suddenly thick as thieves after years of estrangement? There's too much backstory that we know nothing about - it's Jolene and the Wolverhampton incident all over again. Unpicking Peggy's will, will at least be plucking at strands sewn into the fabric of The Archers over the years (unless the SW suddenly invent an illegitimate child she left on a doorstep before she met Jack who is set to inherit the lot!).
Lily is great - the huge silver spoon in her mouth completely blinding her to the fact that Rex might need to work for a living and her fierce, unswerving loyalty to her twin. She is who she is - at least she's consistent and when we hear her in those scenes we are also drawing on all the substrata of small detail laid down over the years which have gone into making her the monster she is today. We know why she behaves as she behaves, it doesn't feel like someone is making her up on a whim.

And another superb post @TottersBlithely re Rex.

Living where I do, I happen to encounter quite a few former rugby players (same age kids etc). Most of them have lucrative little sidelines in the media/coaching/after dinner speaking etc. as well as being well enough connected with the corporate clients who can help them get started with a variety of business ventures. The "before we went professional" tended to be local professionals or had continuing employment with understanding employers. The downfall of Rex Fairbrother doesn't really make sense; he was hoping to marry that equine vet a few years ago and now we are to believe that he loves a vegan-culty peri-menopausal meatpacker.

It seems really odd for Toby not to care. I thought Toby still had some sort of home in Ambridge so that he could see fat Rosie when not travelling. Surely Rex could live there (hey, he could do a diploma at internationally renowned Felpersham Uni)!

thought Toby still had some sort of home in Ambridge so that he could see fat Rosie when not travelling. Surely Rex could live there

Toby used to live with Pip, at Rickyard. Platonically latterly, except when she utilised him for a calibration fuck pre Stella.

Thank god that didn’t lead to pregnancy

Calibration fuck

Top phrase. Should be an MN acronym. Though Cheeky Fucker has stole a march there,.

Stolen FFS!!

I can't believe noone has commented on Natasha speaking in Welsh to the twins (well admittedly it was only one word!)
It was 2 words, @LillianGish

I suspect that her daughter Ena Sharpclaws may object if she tries that.

The downfall of Rex Fairbrother doesn't really make sense; he was hoping to marry that equine vet a few years ago and now we are to believe that he loves a vegan-culty peri-menopausal meatpacker

😂

Oh god imagine Rex as an after dinner speak. What would he talk about ...

"I was hopelessly in love with the mother of my brother's love child"

"My real dad is Anthony Head"

Rex does have a lovely voice.

😂😂😂

Thank you @BeatriceBatchelor!

I mean, it’s a thread about The Archers and she’s in most episodes, so…