Archers thread #186: Eavesdropping on a home for the terminally confused. Discuss The Archers here.

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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.

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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 assume it is the physical serving of alcohol so she should be ok as receptionist (although she may have to take room service orders and given the place is run on a shoe string she may have to mow the lawn/work in the restaurant/change lightbulbs/move boxes of booze to the bar)

I assume the restaurant she delivers for doesn’t sell alcohol

No it isn't. My mother died when I was 32 and it was dreadful. I'm 62 now and still miss her.

How many years in the slammer did Kirsty’s husband get? He has been in jail for about 4 years now and the mighty google suggests that he was given an 8 year sentence. I am still cross that we didn’t hear a trial.

Kirsty ought to be on that dating app too (Ideally teaming up with a widowed dad of a couple of pre-teens who love the countryside).

Re Lily and university, I have the impression not much happens these days for most undergraduates after May - two semesters rather than three terms? It was different when I was a student in the early 1980s. Our exams were mostly in June and we got the results by mid-July.

It depends on the course I think. My grandson doing Mech Eng has 9 to 5 lectures all week except Wednesday pm and seems to work all the time. My grandson doing history and politics has more free time (for reading etc) but both are still there and don't finish for a few weeks.

DD is hopefully off to Uni in the Autumn, so I am paying attention to all things Uni. The two semester thing is getting more popular and a lot of the "arty" kids seem to have finished face to face lectures at Easter. There are a small minority who even seem to have done their exams by virtual of lots of continual assessment modules. I'd feel a bit miffed if I'd shelled out for 40+ weeks of university accommodation.

There still seem to be plenty of kids on the Uni buses here so they are presumably not just heading up to Uni to play tennis/swim etc.

I took my undergraduate degree at the beginning of this century and we had two semesters spread over three terms, but there was a reasonably long study gap between them and we were still working and having tutorials and seminars and lectures during May. And essays. And it is still May, not June or July!

As I recall, her message, that Brian relayed, was that she thought there'd been "a mistake". So she could have inherited, say, a million. Have we heard from her since?

Also, haven't any of them asked about/discussed the weird sum that Peggy left each of them?

Oh please don’t tell me Lillian and Naomi are going to become besties. I don’t think I can bear another new character

the hotel was only renovated recently so what kind of shit lift did they get. Only time I’ve been stuck in a lift was in a rather dodgy hotel in Istanbul

zainab started quick - but if someone called you and said they were stuck in a lift would you witter on or get into action mode. Surely the answer was to go and find dean or call him if she didn’t know what to do. And then it mysteriously fixes before the engineer arrives. What kind of high end hotel is this!!! I know it was contrived to get ed’n’em talking but 🙄

No, Lillian, no! Not just as I’ve started to like you.

Dean / Dane / Darren - are they the same person? Run, Helen. Run for the hills. Again.

At least there were only the two of them in the lift. Can you imagine the Tripadvisor reviews if there had been a real hotel guest stuck in there with them?

I was not being serious when I wondered earlier (possibly at the end of the last thread) if Naomi and Darren were going to become permanent characters. I couldn't believe we were going to have any more new characters foisted on us. Now it is looking horribly likely that Naomi at least is here to stay.

I'm not clear how old she is. Possible love interest for Freddie or Rex - anyone would be better than Rochelle I suppose.

Oh bore, bore, bore. The Maliks are back. Why on earth was Pa Malik pointlessly turning up with a packed lunch?

I quite enjoyed Naomi and Lilian and Kenton.

Same here.

Does everyone on this thread live in the sort of place that hates outsiders? I know I do - around here, if you haven't been inbreeding for 10 generations you're shunned - but I don't consider that normal. Or is the idea that there are enough characters already and that nobody who hasn't been in Ambridge for 30+ years should be allowed to pollute its "specialness"?

I think the sw have ruined it with scam week/the random MP/panto dame/the random thug/the abattoir dude who was sacked/ - it just feels like the budget is going on pop up SL rather than driving forward the main sl

and dont get me started on the domination of Joy…

It's that there are more than enough characters and long established characters disappear.

Ian and Oliver are back ( although seemingly for no purpose than inserting Dane and Zainab into the plot) but major characters like Ruth, Adam and Will haven't been heard from for ages. Pip and Josh are awol too. And Alice.

Mid -range characters like Alastair and Jim have barely been heard (and the last time Alastair spoke he was just a prop for the Lynda and Khalil Doolittle llama drama). Paul was around for the panto. Hannah has disappeared.

There was a lot of Fallon and Harrison but not even a peep about how they're getting on

Stella and Denise have disappeared too.

I have only been stuck in a lift once. It was around 40 years ago but the details are still etched in my mind.

It was in a Government building and I was on my own in a little used lift when it stopped between floors 8 and 9. I remained calm and used the lift's phone to ring the 'in case of emergency' number shown. It was engaged. It remained engaged during repeated attempts while I became steadily less calm.

No mobile phones then of course and the only phone number I could remember was my own (in my office in the same building) so I used the lift's phone to ring that. However, as I was stuck in the lift, my office was empty and so naturally no one answered.

The lift juddered from time to time and I was convinced I was about to plummet down to the basement nine floors below. I was trying to remember whether you are supposed to lie on the floor or stand up and jump as the lift hits the ground in this situation.

By this time, other people had fortunately noticed that the lift was not working and summoned help. A reassuring voice spoke to me on the lift's phone for half an hour. They couldn't get the lift to move so eventually they prised the doors open. As I was between floors, I couldn't just step out and I had to be hauled up in a very undignified manner by two extremely good looking firemen. I may have been gibbering a bit by this time so it was not one of my finest moments.

I was told the lift had probably malfunctioned because it had just been serviced because HM Queen was due to visit later that week and would have used that lift. (Yes, I've never understood why being serviced should cause a lift to breakdown either.) I gather the Queen used a different lift when she came so I had done everyone a good turn.

I’m glad you survived your ordeal!!

I got trapped in a lift wearing my wedding guest finery in a hotel in Istanbul. Between floors and I hadn’t time to fully consider what to do when the doors were opened and a startled chap took my hand and helped me out with me saying a very English thank you.

I think the lift had been broken and the engineer called earlier and so he probably thought I’d been stuck in it for quite some time. He probably went home and told his family about the unruffled English woman who stepped out as if she’d only been in a moment!!

Getting stuck in the lift at work with one of my less favoured colleagues is my biggest nightmare

I think the sw have ruined it with scam week/the random MP/panto dame/the random thug/the abattoir dude who was sacked ...

Oh, I agree with that (though I don't even remember the random MP). I'd query the failure to drive forward "the main SL", though. What is the main SL? Currently it's presumably Peggy's bizarre legacies and the ghastly prospect of a family holiday. They've long since lost interest in farming.

Yes that’s the problem! They’ve lost their way

(we met the MP so they could ask for George to move prisons - nothing came of it)

oh and there was the lady mayor to embarrass Fallon with her implausible sex outfit

I don’t know if anyone has the statistics but it does feel like the number of random characters has increased. I do feel like the sw think ambridge is a borough of London sometimes

Have we established if Pa Malik works? He seems to be at a loose end a lot during the day.

Pa Malik's a plumber, isn't he? Or perhaps runs a plumbing business.

A new manager at GG makes sense but the Great Dane is ghastly. The manager of an up- market country house hotel should sound more like Russ.