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!

I suspect he will be like his father when it comes to matters of the heart/loin

will Paul be his Jenny?

Well, it's closer to the Olympic Park than Ambridge is. Easy journey on public transport or bike.

Meant to add I had no problem at all with R and P's encounter at all. Always better when we hear the run up or the aftermath and not the messy bit in the middle!

If they're setting up Ruairi and Paul to be a couple then realistically they do need to get some of the heterosexual younger generation into relationships. At the moment there's Pip and Stella( although they're not actually young) and now potentially R and P, which given about only 1 in 5 or 10 people are gay means there's somewhat of an overrepresentation.

There's the bizarre relationship of George and amber but that's so ridiculous it can't be counted as a proper relationship.

Why haven't at least some of Lily, Freddie, Ben, Josh( what's happened with the woman he was seeing?), Chelsea, Rex( please not Rochelle) got girlfriends/ boyfriends who could develop into future long term relationships?

Why haven't at least some of Lily, Freddie, Ben, Josh( what's happened with the woman he was seeing?), Chelsea, Rex( please not Rochelle) got girlfriends/ boyfriends who could develop into future long term relationships?
In the cases of Lily, Ben and Chelsea at least, I think the answer is glaringly obvious.

But I’m not listening and you haven’t seen me here, right?

Who said that?

I don’t want to know about any TA characters’ sex lives thank you.

Herc it was the school harvest service in St Stephens, Lil had dragged Justin along and he ended up squashed in a pew beside Brian. They kind of continued their argument re the board etc. in the middle of the children’s service!
Alan told them off roundly afterwards. Which was satisfying but not I think what an actual vicar would have done

@JudyCoolibar . He said he lived in Docklands, which is sort of East End and Canary Wharf is part of it, his flat looks out on the the water and he lives near the Olympic Park.
He didn't say that Olympic Park was near Canary Wharf.

Ruairi is bisexual so who knows who'll get the JD role and who'll be the bit on the side.

@Agapornis Is Olivia 3 or 4 syllables? I'd say Uh-LIV-ya.
If I said Etienne in a French way, then I think it might be Et-yenn.

I'd like them to keep a couple of active characters at the vet practice. Alistair must be due to retire soon (though does anyone ever retire in Ambridge?), and it's good to have Paul too rather than Jakob alone. The Jakob actor is 63, Denise's is 60 and busy with TV, so they need to plan for the future.
Also, I don't think there has been an adoption story? (Not counting Neil, and Adam & Ian's vague attempt.) So that might be somewhere down the line.

I didn't mind Paul and Ruairi's aftermath - pretty realistic for your twenties! Hope that's the last time they've mentioned Etienne though. Is it normal to pronounce it with three syllables? ETT-ee-enn should be AY-tyenn to me.

63! He sounds a good deal younger. Kate is 48 on 30/9, so if Jakob is meant to be the same age as his actor, that's a big age gap.

Off the top of my head I can only think of two adoptions. Long before I was listening, Christine Barford, Jill's sister-in-law, and her first husband Paul adopted a son, Peter, after they discovered that Christine couldn't have children. This was in the 1960s when adoption was fairly common and there were plenty of babies available for adoption after being 'given up' by unmarried mothers subjected to huge pressure. (Abhorrent practice.) Paul was killed off some years later and I don't think Peter ever became a speaking character, or only very briefly. He was last heard of living in Berlin and managing an orchestra. He's been mentioned as visiting Christine and taking over paying for The Laurels, I think.

The other one was when Shula married Alistair. They decided that he should adopt her son Daniel, which was upsetting for the parents of her first husband, Mark, who were very involved in Daniel's life. Mark was killed in a car crash just before Shula found out she was pregnant with Mark as a result of IVF. Anyway, Alistair passed the vetting and became Dan's legal father. (The social workers missed all evidence that he was addicted to gambling, which wasn't surprising, as the SWs didn't give him that storyline till later. )

We've had a couple of fostering storylines. David Archer's great-uncle Tom Forrest and his silent wife Prue fostered two boys, and Oliver and Caroline (Oliver's second wife, now deceased) did short-term fostering for a while before they decided to buy Grey Gables.

JanFebAndOnwards
it was the school harvest service in St Stephens

The school is in Loxley Barrett, a village with its own church as far as we know, so why were the kiddies all bused to Ambridge instead of walked to their festival in crocodiles across the Loxley Barrett Village Green?

Agapornis
The only person I have known named Olivia pronounced it Oh-livy-ah.

My understanding is that they’re a Future of Ambridge couple!

I hope not. I want Ruiari to take over Home Farm and start the next generation of (nearly) Archers. He's bi-sexual so I'd rather he had a family with a woman than we go down the distasteful route of exploiting women as surrogates again.

Talking about the young'uns not being paired up, I would love to see Chelsea meet a boy who is an apprentice to be a builder ,plumber or electrician, anything as long as he ends up with a good paying job so they could buy a house when his qualified and they don't have to scrimp and save like her mum and step dad. Not living in a council block with 4 kids which I think the sw would love to stereotype her to do.
Brad will become a type of Goodbye Mr Chips type at a university and meet a lovely kind girl and settle down to a peaceful academic life.
All the other posh'o kids can frigg off.

On one level Paul and Ruairi's morning-after chat was a pleasantly nostalgic flashback to those happy years when Shula and Caroline shagged their way through the 70s (no man called Simon was safe) (we get of fringe Declans these days but it isn't the same) BUT I want Ruairi to marry Meriel to bring a new Archer back into Ambridge farming.

So little romantic fling from which they emerge heart-whole, fine, but that's enough. And no bedsprings, coconut shells, or yogurt-soaked teatowels, please and thank you.

The one I knew (one of those people where all you needed was a first name and an eye-roll) was ETT-ee-enn.

His mother was French, and he was trilingual, so I reckon he knew.

Paul’s morning after chat is far better than when we had to actually hear his mother and Alistair kissing and giggling in the surgery storage cupboard.

Whoever is playing Paul seems to have been told to tone down the level of camp, for which I am duly grateful.

Yes - didn’t recognise him! But much more natural

I don’t like Ben. He’s really annoying. He’s just a less annoying version of the joyous one

the harvest festival fight is ridiculous.

the double entendre from Ben was a bit much but denistare and the shower scene and Fallon/harrison were much worse

why is Ben giving relationship advice?

That chicken is magnificent, although disturbingly reminiscent of Michael Fabrican'ts hair.

I didn't mind the Ruairi and Paul stuff, would much rather have some chat than squelching noises we've been subjected to before. I am scarred for life by the Sid and Jolene scene.

<whispers> I like Ben.

I’m still hoping Ben and Chelsea end up together.

Does Chelsea deserve someone so wet?

We need Chelsea for Freddie.

Since Ben deprived us of the Ben Beth and Bess house of fun I find it hard to care.

Loving the thread while I listen to the omnibus this evening, so much made me laugh you wonderful folk.
not much more to add except how much I love Jim and am so happy to hear him back. He reminds me so much of my lovely late dad, and I loved Alan’s panic at being asked questions about Christianity - lovely bit of wholesome silliness.

Good god no. I can't stand Chelsea and particularly her voice. Freddie hasn't shown any interest in her fortunately. But then he hasn't shown any interest in anyone, male or female, either. Maybe he won't reproduce and lily will, leading to various inheritance issues storylines.