Archers thread #188: New Order, please! 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 love to spend time with Martyn Gibson, 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.)

In some haste as we are going out for the day. I was asked weeks ago to put I've Killed the Vicar in as the new title but I agree with more recent comments that Peggy's funeral feels like old news now. Great line, though. Sorry not to have used Markie Malarkey, though. I've settled on something that will only make sense to people who were also youngish in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Here's a clue. If a certain person appears in tomorrow's episode the title will be relevant.

Over to you!

Amber's unsupported word has been accepted on Ambridge. Given what a little liar and bully we know she is because we've heard her when most of Ambridge hasn't, I don't entirely see why the listeners should receive this as wisdom, or indeed at all.

I think it unlikely that Chelsea paid her any attention at all. It's more likely that Amber sees Chelsea as competition for the role of top dog-ess (NB: I have avoided the usual word for a female dog!) and is undermining her.

Oh, well done Chris!

Really liked this episode. Lovely dialogue in both SLs. I want to hear George's poem, to be read after Amber has jilted him.

How can Alice run the farm and do the stables work?

Why is everyone bending over backwards for George ? His in prison not the Armed Forces, he is not just away somewhere, he committed a crime and yet everyone is treating him like he deserves to be treated like a hero.
The same with Amber. She is a stranger and a shit stirrer and yet everyone is trying to be nice because she is marvellous George's girl friend. It is so annoying. Why is Brad upset with Mia getting a boyfriend, they had spilt, which was his idea, and I don't think he mentioned her much after that he was too busy being googley eyed over the Doctors daughter. The SW are trying to hard too get drama out of nothing and a job on Eastenders writing team.
And the little shop story was like a little Christmas miracle when every one turned up to help.
I was glad Chris told Alice to get a grip and thought at last he had grown a pair and then next thing he had apologised, GRRRRRR!

I'm still not entirely clear how Amber can be George's girlfriend - have they even met outside prison? What is the relationship based on? George hasn't had a single girlfriend to my knowledge - apart from a crush on Tilly Button and an obsession with Fallon. I don't really understand how they got together - I feel as if I have missed something.

this is a really good point I hadn’t considered - I wonder if the archers is somehow now a training ground for SW to move onto TV? I will ask my TV friends.

This seems like an odd listen for you then? As most of us here berate the lack of farming, what is it you listen for? The continuity of characters? (Genuine question!)

From what Amber has said, it’s depressingly unlikely that she’d have bothered with him if he hadn’t been sent to prison. I think she was following him before The Bridge - so might maybe have got in touch to utilise his SM popularity - but it was definitely prison that gave him the touch of glamour she wanted.

I suspect most TA listeners are, like me, too old to fathom the current reality of people having serious ‘relationships’ carried on entirely online.* If George only has landline phone contact, I’m wondering if he even knew what she looked before inviting her to visit him. It’s hard to imagine what was going through his mind - whether indiscriminate eagerness to be in a relationship, or an unexpected but genuine connection that has re-wired his brain.

I actually like this story! It seems very George. And it’s brilliant that they’ve expanded the story to encompass his time ‘away’.

As for everyone being nice to him - Emma and Will, at least, must have read every single newspaper article and statistic on likely outcomes for young men sent to prison. Their main focus must be on getting him out alive.

*I mean generationally - not cognitively! Not making an ageist observation.

These were exactly my thoughts when George was offering such patronising 'advice' to Brad last night from the giddy heights of his own, sole, wildly dysfunctional relationship (only in existence because a very strange, obsessive girl somehow zeroed in on him as a prison bad boy and then pursued him like a crazed stalker, as far as I can make out). I winced at George grandly assuring poor Brad, who actually has had a RL relationship, that he might meet someone at the wedding.

Isn’t it odd that Mia and Brad haven’t kept in touch with anyone from school that they could gossip about Amber with?

Completely unrealistic if my DCs are anything to go by. They would be discussing, messaging - it’s never been easier to keep in touch with old schoolmates and find out what everyone else is up to - especially if one of those people is trying to become a so-called influencer!

I've always had the impression that Mia and Brad only got together because they didn't have any other friends!

Let’s not forget Ambridge residents are never allowed contact with people outside the village. Tracy being permitted unheard friends from a wider circle at her party was pretty unusual - usually the crowd would be just Jill, and Leonard, and someone who folds towels at GG.

You also forgot “tired” 😁

I think he sounds not so much tired as bored ... possibly by the sound of his own voice and the content of what he says!

Just started the wheat harvest here this afternoon.

I find it hard to believe that Brian could just unilaterally scrap doing the harvesting for BL: surely they have a contract? In many previous years the discussion has been about renewing (or not renewing) the contract between BL and Home Farm. If he just decides not to honour that contract, Justin can probably sue him.

Maybe they haven't renewed it yet for this year? I know, that would be insane, but this is Ambridge and they've all been too concerned with infighting and saunas and the like to think about boring admin.

Can someone remind me which episode Justin completely changed tack in, can’t find it and am trying to understand this but of plot, haha…..

@JanFebAndOnwards ... am trying to understand this but of plot, haha…..

Good luck with that!

Where is this plot going? I can't be bothered to fully understand it because anything involving Justin rarely bears any relation to character or antecedents, but I'm thinking Stella is going to be so outraged by Brian pulling out of the harvest contract in a fit of pique that she'll resign in a fit of pique thus hastening the moment when Alice is called upon to step up to the plate or possibly bringing Adam back into the fold. Brian is starting to sound his age so he needs someone... I still can't work out the significance of Home Farm being back on the market, but the SWs must have someone in mind for it or why move the silent Gills? Maybe Brian will finally retire properly and take some money out of the business to buy the house and move back in.

The Gills will be selling Home Farm because nobody but Mick has spoken to them in all the years they've been in the village, rendering them mute from lack of practice.

Brian plus Alice, Christphurr and Martha, all in separate rooms (to begin with…)?

I missed the discussion around then, but presumably you all commented on the weirdness of Brian wanting to give the whole of his farm to a child other than the two who are experienced and (relatively, in one’s case!) successful farmers?