Archers thread #193: Christmas in Ambridge! Don't expect any wise men (or women). 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 a couple of acquaintances to clean and tidy your house without your permission, 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/5457344-the-archers-spoilers-thread-11-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.)

What do we think - best Christmas ever followed by a nice quiet New Year? No, me neither. We have the tractor run to look forward to , and then whatever they've got lined up for the 75th anniversary of the first ever episode - New Year's Day 1951. I can't imagine that anybody involved with the programme then expected it would still be on the air 75 years later. I wonder what they would make of the current direction. The lack of farming content would be a surprise, given that was the whole reason for devising the programme in the first place.

Over to you!

can you re-install the BBC app? i listened to it on there using a VPN set to UK. (i use NordVPN)

My theory is that Jazzer was covering for someone.
He would only really cover for:
Ed
Fallon
Brad
both Ed and Fallon.
or Harrison, because of Fallon.

I love a mystery but agree after accusations and speculation, it will probably turn out to be Marky.

If it was in G’s head there needn’t have been a real affair.
If it was meant in some way to rep the real police investigation they would be asking a lot of questions about the mysteriously disappeared ex-fiancé.

Jazzer Ed and Fallon getting Dross together for one last “act” would make a kind of sense though.

I’m not sure of the timescales either. It seemed to me that the search for Kiera and George’s non-rampage were happening about the same time? Which would have left very little time for one of the main suspects posters have identified to a) get sufficiently angry b) track down George and do the deed then c) cover their tracks . Or in Jazzers case cover up for someone else.

For it to be any of those major characters, it would have had to been a heat of the moment act in an altercation with George to even make a tiny bit of sense. And that didn’t happen.

I managed to get caught up yesterday . I don’t think the BBC were great at providing info on where we could find the extras/ live updates .
I googled , checked sounds and iPlayer . I then found the times on this thread for the live updates and thought I had it sussed , as could then go into the schedule on sounds and find the programmes before and after - none of which had the extras - so very frustrating .

So it wasn’t until I listened to the extra episode in the evening , that I realised that they were within this episode . Why have all the hype and then make it really confusing for those who couldn’t listen live . Surely that would be most of the audience ?

I didn’t think that it might be all in George’s head , as I was listening . Now not sure .

I think it could be anyone re the bottles - even Keira . As she could have picked up a wine bottle from her house / other relatives . I think as others have said it is likely to be the Chardonnay bottles from the competition .

If it was all in George’s head why did he not “ think “ of Amber as surely she would have been forefront at his thoughts ? Or had the blow to the head impacted his memory - so he wasn’t thinking in the current time ?

The timings re the interviews seemed off though to get Clive etc - it all seemed to have happened so quickly with the interviews - so maybe this does give weight to the thoughts of George and not real . I was also annoyed that they had pulled Emma out twice from the bedside of a potentially dying son - would the police do this , unless they perceived an imminent threat to life for others ?

I do think it is likely to be one of the family members or Harrison . If it was more planned / pre meditated - likely to be Harrison . If a family member they may have just been in a rage upon seeing George and acted on the spur of the moment . The catalyst seemingly , Ed being hurt by George then Keira going missing . Would all the family members know about Ed though ?

I found it on Sounds and listened thru VPN. To be honest, if you are a regular listener you haven’t missed anything you don’t already know and most of it has been pretty well summarized on here.

The 🔮 knows that all squids are damp, yes? It’s being in the water that does it

Anyway, I’ve not been on these threads for a while but last night’s weirdathon has mildly traumatised me. I’m still not sure what happened or - most importantly - why. Where did Cloyve pop up from? How did the interviewing officer know so much about people she presumably didn’t know from a hole in the ground? Why was Emma being interviewed rather than being allowed to sit with her dead/dying child when no-one knows what - if any - crime has been committed yet?

I started to wonder if this was written by the same person who did the Justin As Scrooge storyline last year - have we been visited by the Ghost of Christmas WTF?

@BrightYellowDaffodil , I started to wonder if this was written by the same person who did the Justin As Scrooge storyline last year - have we been visited by the Ghost of Christmas WTF?
It wasn't the same writer. David Payne not Nick Warburton.

@TeenToTwenties canon

Isn’t it a “damp squib”? Not to be confused with a “squab”.

It is utterly plausible that David would have allowed a few fireworks to get damp (we had freezing fog down here, earlier in the day).

I don’t fancy trying it with DH, but I don‘t think wine bottles would shatter on impact with George’s head. (It’s recycling day, here, so I have listened to all the glassware being lobbed into the lorries).

The Telegraph has a good article https://archive.ph/Xs1Gt (link to get round paywall). The writer would fit in well on this board and I particularly liked Schrodinger's George

I don't think the interviews really happened but I don't think they were supposed to be in anyone's head either. It was a stand alone reimagining.

I think Jazzer found George earlier and called the ambulance but didn't say anything because he thinks Tracy/Brad did it and he was trying to protect them. In the fullness of time it will be revealed that it was Markie or someone we've never heard of before.

If he’s not dead yet I don’t think he’s dead at all. Annoying, I was looking forward to my first “Ambridge Murder”. Pfft.

If anyone's not familiar with An Inspector Calls, it's currently available on the BBC iPlayer here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0028x6f/an-inspector-calls

Could be tonight. They used to like a Friday cliffhanger back in the day. And dont forget Emma did say that “2026 couldnt be any worse” which is asking for trouble.

This may be useful to people outside the UK. It appears to be last night's episode and there are a lot more on the channel. Not sure if Truth and Lies will be uploaded there too.

@BrightYellowDaffodil the Ghost of Christmas WTF

😆

I rather hope that Oliver, having gone out to help with the Keira hunt, wearing gloves as one does on a cold night, met drunk and rampaging George clutching his bottle of whatever and decided enough was enough.

And that no-one will ever know.

I had forgotten today was Friday!

I’m torn because I’d rather George be the suspect than the victim, but I do love a good murder story. It’s a shame for the actor if he’s dedded.

I saw some clips on BBC4 TikTok with Ruth Jones (mega fan!) visiting the studio and meeting the actors. He seemed like a nice chap, if he’s gone I hope it’s on to a long career!

Justin as a young man!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002p0ds?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

does this link work? This is a link to it for anyone looking for the standalone episode

@UserNom , This Is Your Life: Simon Williams - a much younger Justin

It doesn’t make sense to ascribe any sort of reality at all to the Inspector Calls bit. Imvho anyway. She was privy to information she couldn’t possibly have known and was aware of the inner thoughts of key characters. Exactly like the titular inspector in the play, as realised so brilliantly by the (great) Alastair Sim in the film.

You'd almost think the SWs read the Wikipedia summary: While no one member of the Birling family resident of Ambridge is solely responsible for Eva's death George’s injury, together they function as a hermetic class system that exploits neglected, vulnerable women young male wrong ‘uns, with each example of exploitation leading collectively to Eva's George’s social exclusion, despair and suicide getting clonked on the head by a bottle

Thanks for that @Trixibell1234 . The blurb even says 'a mysterious police inspector' so that with the weird beginning and end means it's obviously not meant to be real. I don't think it's in George's head either as there were things he wouldn't have known or cared about. So tonight? Back to reality with real police making enquiries?.

I am giving all this far too much headspace, but I keep coming back to the fact that whoever whacked George over the head will presumably go to prison (assuming no cover up) so while the storyline of it being Ed looks quite interesting, are they going to cut his character to achieve it?

Alternatively it could be Clive, if the rotten apple in Emma’s family tree was a clue, or maybe Brian wants to retire? It all seems very random. I am waiting for someone to say they saw Rochelle in the area

Before Amber was shoe-horned into Ambridge, wasn’t George planning to have a cardboard coffin business when he was released from Jail?

I’m trying to decide whether or not that plot-line was ditched because the Editor decided to dead George, or whether it was just poor continuity between writing teams.

Or not having any capital himself or almost certainly anyone who’d want to invest in his enterprise.