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!

The wheels fall off when SWs try to do drama. Dog fight clubs. Vegan gangs etc. These are out-of-the-ordinary events which get crowbarred in and then the SWs are left floundering as, for instance, they don’t really know how real criminals/activists speak and behave, nor how people really react to things like that. They only really have their research of things like Scooby Doo and the Famous Five to inform their writing. If only they would stick to change-counting and farming we would all be ok and I could stop having to write to Feedback every five minutes.

I thought marky was arrested during the abattoir stealing sl

also, I thought all the workers hated Freddie after that - how did that all get resolved?

Are we due a "Celeb" appearance? If Dross are struggling for numbers, what's the betting that Mick can phone his old pals Matt & Luke Goss and get them to make an emergency appearance?

I vote for Kylie!

Surely the reformed band will be called Joy Division?

Joys Dross would be a good renaming of the archers atm

🤪

i can hear her warbling "love will tear us apart..."

but then they can split again and we can have New Order singing Temptation and I'll be happy.

Brilliant!

Nobody?

I know that was a very unpleasant episode with 2 very unpleasant people but at least Brian and Stella are speaking again.

Was on the other thread!

That was quite the introduction - so I imagine we’re seeing the future? (Though I couldn’t help thinking of Shirley Henderson in Happy Valley. It’s hard to understand how these things … evolve in such a situation.)

Oh my god that Amber woman is annoying. Please don’t let her be a regular. Between her and Joy I don’t think I could listen anymore. Not just the attitude but the voice and the giggle.

Definitely going down the eastenders route with her. Ragebait.

does Justin have a behaviour altering brain tumour?

It's sort of "well you moaned about Joy/Lynda/Rochelle/the Maliks/Jolene/ Harrison/ Mick/ Helen/Tom/Lee/Justin- ha take that ! "

so come on then: how has male, (and proto incel!) Inmate Will acquired a girlfriend??

Prison groupie

And re yesterday’s convo - remember Vince volunteered to help Jolene shake off her fears, and he traced markie or something didn’t he?

You mean George, not Will.

(It puzzles me how Will has not acquired a girlfriend since Nic died …)

I can't remember Will's job now, other than the pottery evening classes? It's a pity there's not a gamekeeper amongst the characters any more, it was an interesting view of the turning seasons and wild and preserved animals, as well as for the script a potential source of storylines about beaters, accidents, incomers, shoots for corporate guests etc.

Delivery driver for Bridge Farm.

I’ve been trying to puzzle this one out. George said they’d been talking a lot so the possibilities I can think of:

• he has an illegal phone and has been online dating
• she’s a prison officer and is breaking the law (sadly not)
• she’s from something very religious eg Alpha Course and has been in to convert the heathen and is now dating him. Maybe she’s the chaplain 😂
• she’s some kind of teacher eg literacy
• she is related to another prisoner

I don’t know what you thought but her voice didn’t seem to match the things she was actually saying at the beginning.

I was reading a couple of threads on mumsnet earlier this week where posters had mentioned that they and their partners had been working very long hours hay making. It made me think about how TA no longer moves to the rhythm of the agricultural year and how little the lives of the characters are influenced by it. The cricket team wasn't scratching around trying to find a substitute players because one of them had to be on the farm silage making while the weather held, for example. They all behave as if they've got 9 to 5 jobs with evenings and weekends off so they can play cricket. Wombatcowgirl's post made me think similar about the shoot: No game keeper, nobody earning a bit extra as a beater - surely Ed & Em would be all over that, no shooting parties, no vegan animal right protesters releasing birds from their pens.

They don't have to be huge story lines, just mentions woven in now and again to remind us of time and place: the Bull being very noisy because an exuberant shooting party had retired there after a day's shooting, Pip telling Stella all she wanted was a long bath after 2 straight days sitting for 10 hours in a tractor cab.

It's the same with the ridiculous holiday idea. No worry about what would be a convenient time of year to leave the farm and how long they could "afford" to be away for. These are still family farms that depend on family members to cover during holidays etc. Peggy wasn't a farmer but she will know how farming life works and how animals cant just be stuck in a field and left for a week, but need care 365 days of the year. She would know that it's usually family members and neighbours who step in to cover. She was a sensible, practical woman so why would she concoct such a silly idea? It's almost as if the SWs think all the characters need to do is fill in a holiday request form and submit it to HR - a bit like someone working for the BBC would, I suppose.

The programme might as well be set on the street where I live in suburban Birmingham. What made it different has been lost. I only listen about 10% of the time now whereas I was once an avid listener.

Crazy women who write to prisoners and befriend them like the Shirley Henderson character in Happy Valley referred to above by @TottersBlanklyIntoThePhysicGarden or the women who marry prisoners on Death Row in America.

I was thinking just that @MissMarplesNiece, when they were talking about the possibility of contracting. At the moment the contractors are working flat-out, 16 year olds (secondary school is out for the summer) driving tractors (legally). In some years teams keep going 24 hours to get the work done before the weather changes, not quite so urgent this year, but it isn't the season to be thinking you might do it.

Yes it could definitely be an urban soap now. It’s sad

on the holiday - there was mention that the money would cover getting people in to look after the farm but I can’t imagine it’s that easy to cover pretty much every worker (who would be left at bridge farm - Susan and Will?)

@MissMarplesNiece your beautifully expressed post is everything we’ve been complaining about for the past several years.

A couple of threads ago someone observed that it seemed as if the SWs didn’t find TA interesting and were trying to turn it into something else. I have come to suspect that some of the more recent SWs actively disapprove of all ‘country pursuits’ and are doing their best to stamp them out in the story.

And this is alongside the determination to iron out any socio-economic inequalities amongst the characters. (Lilian for instance has in the past helped out at the Bull either for fun or because Jolene is a friend, and she’s felt she owed her something following Jolene’s support over the Paul farago. But it’s not her job. She’s not a barmaid and she never, ever has to be there. And the less said about Lower Loxley the better for my blood pressure.) It is the saddest thing - to realise the writers don’t actually understand the story they are supposed to be telling.