Archers thread #186: Eavesdropping on a home for the terminally confused. 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 swipe right on Dane, the new Grey Gables manager, 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/radioaddicts/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/radioaddicts/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 @WitcheryDivine for the title inspiration. Over to you!

i lived in a village on the border between Germany and The Netherlands (on the German side) and the first village over the border (NL side) was Echt...

I am enjoying the village shop survey chat and even the Susan/Joy interaction (albeit because Susan carried the scenes). It is rare that I enjoy anything with Joy at the moment but I mention it here for reasons of balance.

Not keen on dogs in shops at all but am aware that times are changing. The problem is that while a lot of dogs are nicely-behaved and very clean, this is not true of all dogs. This means seeing the hound of the Baskervilles leap up into the fridge in the meat aisle to grab a pack of sausages does not seem at all unlikely if all dogs not just guide dogs (which are semi-human anyway) are allowed…

@Bruisername

Love to hear more on your dog’s brain freeze.

About the village shop: how does Susan get to lay down the law? Surely as a volunteer shop there must be management and processes.

For me, no dogs except service animals.

No doubt Alice will have an appointment with the doctor by tomorrow evening and after a PSA about the causes and effects of FAS, Alice will be reassured she has nothing to worry about and that will be that. What I find particularly irritating is that a potential storyline that has been years in the making and has been gradually built up over Alice's lifetime will likely be dispatched and put to bed in ten minutes while instead we are forced to endure hours and hours of exposition about Rochelle and Joy and events which took place years ago, out of Ambridge and which I couldn't care less about. @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g nails it with this comment about the old recordings: There's time for the characters to develop because a lot of the time they're not saying very much, so it's more like getting to know people in real time. There's a far stronger sense of place too. This is exactly what I used to love about the programme - it repaid regular listening (and it used to be much harder to do so in those days before the advent of BBC Sounds). Trying to rewrite history with Neil the foundling - and to a certain extent with Rochelle and Joy, although I accept there's not really any history to rewrite there as they have been parachuted in - is a total turn off because I'm just left thinking what's the point?

We took him for doggy afternoon tea for his birthday (for the kids benefit rather than his!) and his dessert was ice cream - he had about half before he suddenly stopped, sat and just stared forward - the kids immediately identified his look as brain freeze. He hasn’t had ice cream since!!

I actually think a FAS SL could be really powerful but I don’t think the current crop of sw are capable - as pp said they seem desperate to wrap things up (like Rob - that would have been so much better if he had been left to dip in and out and for Jack to abandon his mother for him and then come back etc etc)

The thing with Martha and the FAS, surely surely surely this must have been a (quiet) concern for Chris, Brian, Kate, Adam, Susan, Neil.... everyone, since she was born?

I have never been happy with the Alice recovery story, because it is being presented as too easy (IME - having been through it with a family member) and everyone really tiptoeing around it instead of being factual and pragmatic. So the lack of engagement on this topic by any of Alice's family is sadly par for the course.

Am sick of the shop thing. The survey is too long. It should have been on one page, and really not much space for people to add things - they need to concentrate on feedback first, then concentrate on the areas where they are lacking.

I want Susan to either be struck by lightning or win the lottery and push off out of Ambridge forever. she is far far far too annoying.

@Brefugee I want Susan to either be struck by lightning or win the lottery and push off out of Ambridge forever. she is far far far too annoying.

The former, please. I find it difficult to understand why people hate Joy so much when Susan exists.

susan feels like a real person - however irritating. Like Helen - couldn’t bear to know her in real life but she seems real

joy is just constantly there and doesn’t seem like she belongs

Susan feels like a real person - however irritating. Exactly this. We have known her for years, we understand where she comes from, her desire to better herself and rise above her Horribin roots, her ambition for her husband, his love for her, her delight in becoming a home owner, her shame at her prison sentence, her distress when her son was born with a cleft palate, her pride at him marrying into the Aldridge family and her disappointment in how that worked out. We've been shown it all and we've seen how each event has shaped her character and her relationships with other characters. This is what Joy lacks - and instead of giving her time to bed in so we can see her character gradually unfolding over the years (à la Lynda Snell for example), the SWs in their wisdom have decided to foist an enormously complicated backstory on her which long predates her time in Ambridge and requires a huge amount of exposition. In a nutshell it's showing versus telling and there's absolutely no competition for which is more powerful.

In a nutshell it's showing versus telling and there's absolutely no competition for which is more powerful.

this is exactly it - same with the foundling SL. The current sw tell

If it wasn't for Susan, how would we hear any gossip?
Let no harm come to her, and if she wins the lottery she could buy her children houses in Ambridge.

Wasn’t it Susan and Neil who won (a modest amount) on either the Lottery or Premium Bonds and were able to have a lovely holiday in … maybe South America? Plus small money gifts to their offspring? Years ago.

Tell me I’m not mis-remembering …

It was £5k. The ticket was almost thrown away. And I think you’re right that it was South America.

Why do the volunteers in the local village shop care so much about competition from another shop? They aren't being paid, they aren't shareholders and it seems unlikely that the new shop being out of town will replace the local convenience store.

Is Susan the only one paid - is that for shop as well as post office?

Edited to delete point that's already been discussed. Sorry!

The thing with Martha and the FAS, surely surely surely this must have been a (quiet) concern for Chris, Brian, Kate, Adam, Susan, Neil.... everyone, since she was born?

Exactly! The notion that Alice is the only one who's ever heard of FAS is ludicrous. Plus, if she's been worrying about it since Martha was born, why has she waited so long to check it out, and why has it suddenly become so urgent that she must see a doctor within hours?

Also agree about the village shop. If I volunteered there, I'd just put a sign up saying something to the effect of "Use it or lose it" - and if locals choose to vote with their feet and use Underwoods, I'd probably welcome the chance to pack in volunteering there and have more free time.

Being bullied into filling in a three page questionnaire would put me off using the shop for certain.

There is, and it was suggested that they should be consulted, but Susan vetoed the idea.

The thing with Martha and the FAS, surely surely surely this must have been a (quiet) concern for Chris, Brian, Kate, Adam, Susan, Neil.... everyone, since she was born?

I think the only person who will have thought about it is Emma. The rest will have stuck their heads in the sand and/or never thought about it and/or have been reassured because , as far as we know, there are no visible facial markers. The paper I linked to showed that even doctors make the assumption that FASD always shows that way, which it definitely doesn't.

Emma is the most likely to have looked into this but will have said nothing because of her history of not liking Alice much and no-one else will want to hear.

Given how hard it is to get a next day GP appointment then Alice is also being spectacularly selfish

wonder if she’s spoken to her sponsor

When I had my daughter (albeit over 10 years ago), I’m pretty certain she had a Health Visitor until she went to school (who was good at procuring emergency appts when nursery said she had a rash or something).

I’m pretty certain they weighed her and checked height etc for a good couple of years.

I’m listening to the omnibus and the stuff around the date and them having to “rescue” Helen is ridiculous.

Helen was not at all pleased when Adam tried to "rescue" her under the impression she'd signalled for help rather than simply dropping her napkin.

I think it was probably supposed to be humour.