Archers thread #187: Send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for Peggy. 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 like Harrison to hasten home, 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.)

Thanks to John Donne for the title inspiration. The funeral of the century beckons. How much of it do we think we will hear? Kate confirmed tonight that Shula, Debbie, Noli and Sipho are all coming. If we hear one peep from any of them I'll be amazed. Bets on Hazel turning up?

Over to you!

Also .. do we need any more new characters?! ( to be said in the voice of Chandler Bing)

hopefully Amber will last as long as scam week and be as quickly forgotten

Jolene gets more pirate the more she speaks. I really really want her and Kenton to throw in the towel and move far far away.

I've never watched it, was she as bad an actor as she is coming over as Amber?

@Buxusmortus Pretty much. Lots of pouting and staring into the distance. Which obviously wouldn’t come across on radio 🤔

Was she killed off?

No. She left in a taxi for the airport having shafted someone out of some money.

Didn’t cross paths with Harrison.

Amber said she was the year below him at school.

O, I could easily imagine Amber, in her "career" as an "influencer" as having lip filler and doing lots of selfies while pouting and staring into the distance.
Though I'm not sure if it was the bad acting or terrible script that made her seem like a caricature rather than a character.

She’s supposed to be 19!?!?!?

Brads year?

Amber (acting her true age, not a teenager) and Will dating and falling in love while George was locked up WOULD have been a good storyline. We’d have her parents disapproving, Mia and George and Poppy facing the prospect of having a stepmum, Amber struggling to help turn George’s life around Amber getting pally with Oliver and having skills that made her employable at Grey Gables…. It could all be done as a slow burn, spanning months, not days!

So presumably George hasn’t seen what Amber is writing on social media about him? And Ed and Emma will find out and have to wrangle with how to tell him. They will first have to pretend they are too old to work Instagram and TikTok- or social meeeeeedia as Ruth puts it. Which of course they are nowhere near too old. I am much older than them and love both.

Did anyone see the wonderful TV series the Outlaws, where a bunch of petty criminals were doing community service and got involved inadvertently in crime? There was the upper class influencer called Lady Gaby, played by Eleanor thingy from Poldark, that's who Amber reminds me of, only even more shallow and less fun.

Lady Gabriella?

Outlaws was great. I would be happy to sit through a 4th series.

Of course, Clare Perkins (“Denise” in the Archers, but “Myrna” in this) was in it.

Denise seems to have vanished, without trace, from Ambridge. Presumably she is busy.

Outlaws was flippin' amazing. Brilliant. Up there with Detectorists.

Ooh I’ll have to watch it then. Detectorists is my all time comfort blanket.

i mean it's a lot more raucous than Detectorists, Christopher Walken is in it, so ... but i love it.

Could someone explain the Marky storyline please.

No; because it made no sense.

When was the last time Jill, or Kenton, or David, (or even Shula) was at Lower Loxley? In the past, one or other of them was always hanging out with Elizabeth, scoffing tea and biscuits or kitchen suppers in the stately flat. Now - it would probably be news to a new listener to discover that Elizabeth is related to Archers at all. Instead of LL being another crucial familial hub, providing rest and relaxation and gossip for the inhabitants of Brookfield and The Bull, it’s become almost nothing: a bed and a coffee pot for Elizabeth (and occasionally Vince), somewhere Freddie passes through, stricken with embarrassment and humiliation, a vague outpost of the distant theme park surrounding it.

It’s a crying shame …

@TottersBlanklyIntoThePhysicGarden i was catching up with the thread and i enjoyed your comment about Will previously being a ‘careful, professional gamekeeper’ - we never hear much about anyone’s livelihood lately do we? Or people being good at their jobs?

To play devils advocate - Stella is good at her job and Lucy Speed is excellent but lots of her airtime is about her relationship with Pip. Hannah and Neil and Jazzer used to get lots of time discussing the pigs but not lately. Even the BL board stuff has been about Martin and Justin and Brian all having what in my industry we call ‘come to Jesus’ moments - not really about proper farming.

goes off into a idyllic haze about farming

I wonder if this Markie malarkey is going to lead to Kenton and Jolene retiring and Fallon and Harrison taking over the pub. I have a feeling Harrison won't be leaving Ambridge for good.

And <borrows the 🔮 > I predict Harrison has had or is going to have a fling which results in a baybee and Fallon forgives him and let's him stay with her whilst co-parenting with his fling. Bit like Dave Grohl.

Hopefully, someone with a better memory than me will fill in the gaps but in the meantime ...

Markey and his mates turned up at the pub and were being loud but good natured and Jolene recognised M and started acting weird. Then Kenton asked them to quieten down for the pub quiz.

When they were locking up, K noticed some vans in the pub car park, went to ask them to leave and was savaged by a dog. It was harrowing to listen to.

K was badly injured. J remembered meeting M when she was touring with her band. Someone upthread thought he'd been arrested in relation to dealing nicked meat from Casey Meets. Now the police want K to identify one of the gang who came into the pub with M as they suspect they are involved in illegal dog trading 😔 😢 but poor K has got PTSD and made a hash of the identification.

K is married to a woman who identifies as a pirate.

I think everyone else identifies her as a pirate, rather than Jolene herself.

They will have to work hard to convince me that Amber isn't a 30-year old former teaching assistant and fantasist. They often try to mislead us. I hope we'll hear Brad on the subject.

Though they succeeded with Chris Carter, for decades I was happy that he was one of Neil's piglings, dressed up to make Susan feel better after she dropped her baby in the sty that time. But in recent years he has seemed to be human.