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!

BOOP for David and Ben, having a chat. Sometimes I have chats with my dad like that - not about his mental health but I might actually get him to chat about something he wouldn’t discuss in the same way with other family members. It’s nice and I cherish it.

Because if you use a smiley to mock or belittle another poster it's there for all to see. If it were being used in a nasty way other posters could comment on it, if it were inappropriate.

The laughing emoji was only seen by the person being laughed at.

Tbh I don't like most of the laughing/smiling emojis. They're mainly used to mock another poster without going to the effort of posting a counter argument.

I don’t use them that way

i I use thanks if someone has answered a question because I don’t want to jam the thread with a reply

and if someone writes a really good post and I have nothing to add I will use agree

and if someone shares something sad or moving I will use the heart to show I’ve read it and acknowledge it’s tough

i did use the laughing as ‘I found your post funny’ but can see how it could be used negatively

Same here.

I wish we could hear from entrepreneur Josh planning to build his empire rather than earnest Ben and his visualisation techniques.

I hope we get "closure" with a scene in which Harrison tells Fallon he wimped out of his 40th birthday bash because he's found a laydee willing to have his baybee.

I think they've really fudged it with Peggy's will - the silly requirement that they all go on holiday and the random sum left to each family member (why not a more rounded up or down figure, with the residue going to the charity? We still have no idea how much money she had. There was no need to hear from Arthur - the Laurels dementia man touched by the Ambridge health fairy. Also, if Lillian was visiting her mum daily - so much so she now can't even bear to drive past The Laurels - then why had she never met or even heard of Arthur? Peggy's will has been used in so many stories, the time she was going to leave the Lodge to Helen, the time she changed her will to leave it all to her kids, it seems unlikely she would have made another change without mentioning it ("I've met this marvellous man in the Laurels, you wouldn't even know he has dementia" etc etc) Whatever happened to the starry window? So much fuss and palaver and tactical window smashing and now nothing. Leaving the church a sum of money and stipulating it be spent on that would have been more believable than the holiday requirement. It feels as if the story has been written by people who have never listened the The Archers.

That's how I was using them. I have the impression that in some rather heated threads someone would post a long reply from which it would be plain that they were upset about something or had had a difficult experience and another person would reply with a laugh reaction, which of course only the original poster (and MN) could see. Stupid behaviour, but unfortunately every single system ever devised is abused in some way or other.

Well, he doesn't run it. He's a beneficiary of its services. And seems remarkably aware of, and yet very calm about, his condition 🤔

So - Arthur is going to be a tediously unreliable narrator about how much money Peggy left the dementia charity, isn't he?

OK. He was representing the charity.

Yes. He is a dementia sufferer who sits there and says "I have dementia". And if there's one thing that dementia sufferers are very well known for, its having insight into their condition 😬

The whole David thing really bugs me. He was recently in an extremely stressful. Potentially dangerous, situation. And yet it never occurs to his wife that it's affecting him? Pish

Peggy's will? No. Especially the silly amounts to family. Gah. The writers really hate the show.

It's not that simple, though. My in-house dementia sufferer is perfectly aware that he has dementia ... though not of much else! He's also capable of having a sensible conversation with neighbours, for example, or health-care professionals. But if I ask him five minutes later what his son said on the phone, or to remind me what neighbour Fred/Doctor Spock said about whatever, he just looks blank. Did he speak to them? He can't remember.

Sorry to hear that, @Gonners. What a horrible condition it is.

That's interesting. I guess I have more experience with frontotemporal/ behavioural dementia. Those sufferers deffo have no insight! But do remember who people are, for instance.

It's all grim 😨 But either way, I wouldn't be taking the word of someone with dementia about anything.

It was deeply offensive to a lot of people when they said something they felt strongly about and some clown who'd been being unpleasant to and about them all thread started laughing at them. And of course once this had been pointed out lots of other clowns started to do the same thing.

I did blow my top at one and tell her that I could do without her cowardly use of the emoji as a personal dig at me.... But of course it was not possible to report the person being snide to MN because there was no way to report an emoji.

I think perhaps people who'd been jeered at in this way may have got hold of a MN email address and complained to that.

but if you report a post, you can click "other" and explain in the text box? I mostly have to do that if i report a post, because it's generally more nuanced than someone calling names.

Over the years Peggy has always made a big thing about changing her will.

I am trying to decide whether or not it was a SW cop-out (I fear it was) or whether some of the former beneficiaries might try to argue that she was coerced into signing away her wealth/was not of sound mind/will was not validly witnessed.

It is odd for her not to have written the family a posthumous letter explaining her wishes (they just had emails from the accountant, didn't they?). It all seems very "un-Peggy".

You know, I hadn't thought of that? Shows how little reporting of posts I do, really! It's a bit late now, but thanks.

Can’t believe Justin is being taken in by “Arthur”. I was hoping he’d play old cynic to Lilian’s Pollyanna.

And another thing about little shops, in Ireland and presumably elsewhere on the planet where owners want to make money they don't buy in pre-wrapped sandwiches, they have deli counters and make up filled rolls and sandwiches to order from the stuff available. If it's late and the things from the supply van have run out they can raid their own shelves for sliced bread, cheese, tomato, whatever.

That keeps customers coming back. Not mallets.

Surely most people, when they realise they are a grown-up, buy a mallet to go with their sharp knife, their big saucepan, their radiator key, and their screwdriver to demonstrate their adult status to themselves and the world. They don't need to wander around buying them randomly in middle age.

A solid wooden rolling pin is useful too, particularly if you temporarily mislay your mallet.

just saying

Sadly, this does not work so well in reverse. Don’t ask.

I laughed at Mr Azra buying a mallet. I'm sure that, as a plumber, he has more mallets than you can shake a pipe wrench at and that this was just a gesture of goodwill.

But then I like the Maliks ... strangely human for Ambridge.

I'm bored by everyone going on about Peggy being wonderful.

And for goodness sake Lillian of course you can go on a long holiday. She's so annoying. I feel sorry for Justin having to put up with the silly woman.

Perhaps if Alice cant manage her job without being propped up by a woman in her late seventies who might die at any time and certainly ought to be expected to retire imminently, Alice ought not to be in that job. Just a thought.