Archers thread #190: Carry on, Cleo! Best new character for ages. 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 be delighted to have your wedding reception across the lawn from the local Flower & Produce Show, 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.)

Charlotte Smith must have been delighted to get back to Countryfile and Farming Today. What a pile of piffle tonight. Ah well.

When is George expected back? It can't be long now, surely. It occurs to me that I can't recall whether he's ever spoken on air to Ruairi. As their actors are currently the best (IMO) amongst the younger members of the cast, I hope they will cross swords in some way.

And finally, I can't mention Carry on Cleo without squeezing in one of the best lines ever written (Denis Norden and Frank Muir have the credit): Infamy, infamy! They've all got it in for me! Currently, Lily probably feels this way.

https://youtube.com/shorts/eRnd48yTC5A?si=N05njp3uLfpSjAmI

Over to you!

@Eastie77Returns Jenny had her own reasons for sticking with Brian. Paul is in a very different situation.

Well, at one point when the children were young, perhaps. After that I assume you mean "lifestyle"? Paul would have the same incentive, what with Ruairi being MySon and likely to do very nicely indeed out of it.

Yes, I meant the lifestyle. JD was quite status driven. I don’t get the impression Paul is and I’m not sure he would stay with an unfaithful boyfriend just so he could enjoy the trappings of wealth but who knows!

It seems to me that when new characters are introduced, they are all a bit ‘extra’. Especially If they are to be play major roles. I imagine this to compensate for our lack of ability to form judgements on visual appearances but seems to result in the character becoming immediately unpopular. Once they’ve settled in, they turn it down and are better accepted.

I suppose I’m thinking of Paul, Amber, Dane, Joy being the most recent and prominent examples, but also think it’s true of Jakob, Khalil and Zainab. Azra and Leonard maybe not so much but their personalities are not as strong anyway in that they seem to be likeable, dependable, and apart from a stupid bit of starstruckedness, sensible. These are qualities it would also be quite hard to overplay. Apologies if this is an accepted (but unmentioned) technique in radio drama.

Is Jonny an Archer or does he have his mums name?

Actually, the cycling thing wasn’t very sensible on Leonard’s part.

Jonny has his step (adoptive?) father’s name and is a Phillips.
But he now plays the piano in a Porto Alegre cathouse and is no longer a person of interest.

Arf! Johnny's greatest quality is his instant forgettability. One minute Pat was all over him as the great replacement for the Sainted John, and he looked like a potential fly in the BF ointment. The next he was gone and pretty much never mentioned again. He was probably wise to leave, before Natasha aimed the tractor at him.

I hope Jonny comes back with a wife from an Argentinian farming family determined to help him reclaim his birthright as the only son of the eldest son.

But I’m assuming they can’t have Jonny and Ruairi both do that.

But there was no point in inventing Johnny and bringing him to Bridge Farm if they didn’t have a plan for him. (I’ve been prepared to assume his disappearance has been caused by the actor not being available. It would be pretty poor if they just ran out of ideas and junked the character.)

Jonny could back with an assertive wife and six children (how long has he been away? I once met a woman who had triplets, twins and another baby, meaning she had six under 2 at the same time. A real woman, not a Chalet school character).

Johnny is waiting in the wings ready to come back as disruptor at a crucial point in the plot, much like Ruairi, who remained off stage until Brian was actually reaching the point of handing over the reins. Inheritance-wise Johnny should technically come after Helen and Tom as he is a grandchild and therefore on a par with Henry, Jack and the starry twins. Unlike Ruairi he is at least a competent farmer, but who knows what he has been doing in the interim.

Inheritance-wise John as eldest child could have inherited everything, which would now mean the land all belongs to Johnny, his wife and his six children, though Helen's business and Natasha's business would still be theirs. But he could increase their rent.

Just going back to last night - is this the first time, since his incarceration, that we’ve seen beneath George’s Tough Guy carapace?

It was slightly terrifying to hear him break down like that - and once again makes me pray (almost as if for a real person) that he does get out alive.

Yes, I’m very worried about George. We know why that weapon was planted in his cell and we know who is behind it.

I also liked the way Amber didn't focus on how upset she was about the method used to euthanise Bartleby. In the beginning she would have made it all about her.

!

Not necessarily. Farming families often split the farm between the children and the one continuing to farm pays the non-farmers off. Johnny might inherit John's portion or not, depending on the terms of the wills.

If P &T leave no wills ( surely unlikely) then on the death of the second spouse, one third would go to each child. As John predeceased his parents, his share would go to his only child. I imagine Tom and Helen would see that as very unfair, but that's how intestacy law works in England. If there are wills, who knows what may happen.

How many farms are there in the Archers? Brookfield, Home farm and a tiny Grundy turkey farm - is that it?

don’t forget the organic farm!!

And Berrow

plus Rex’s piggy farm

Yes, try as you might, how could you forget Bridge Farm!

Places called "farm" on the Magnetic North map (which covers an area one and a third mile by one and a third mile) are

Bank Farm (north of the village)
Meadow Farm
Nightingale Farm
Bull Farm
Willow Farm
Home Farm
Grange Farm
Ambridge Farm
Brookfield Farm
Red House Farm
Valley Farm
Heydon Farm
Sawyers Farm
Bank Farm (a different one on the other side of the Am from Grange Farm)
Green Farm
Overton Farm
Bridge Farm

And we have to add Berrow Farm, which may be a renaming of Valley Farm.

Some of those listed we know are no longer farms: Nightingale, Willow, Sawyers; the others we don't know about, though I think one of the Bank Farms was said a while ago to be getting out of dairy.

This may seem like a very large number of farms in that space, but there you are: that's what there used to be in and around Ambridge.

I haven’t listened for a while..and overseas at the moment…but has Joyless been silent for quite a while now?

Yes, we've not heard a peep from Joy or Muck for several weeks. Nor Pa Malik or Khalil.

No idea how things are progressing with Dane and Helen. Or the harmonious living arrangements at Beechwood.

The idea of Helen, Tom et all living contentedly is ridiculous. It seems a potentially rich vein so I cannot understand why they are ignoring it.