Archers thread #194: Bottled on the Bridle Path! Discuss 75 years of 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 wishthat we'd heard the Reverend Shula preach over the festive period, or other unusual views.

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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.)

I am all Archered out after the excitement of the 75th anniversary yesterday, the special drama (Truth and Lies), the podcast, you name it. Now it looks as if George is going to pull through, the hype seems a bit overdone. So it's over to you!

Twelfth Night is 5th December - that’s when I always take my decorations down and drag the tree to the tip.

I’m usually a defender of Joy - I find her somewhere between well-meaning, harmless and amusing - but I’d have clonked her over the head with a bottle of Chardonnay this evening for all that wittering about Burns Night.

Can someone, anyone, just up with a champagne bottle and bop Joy on the occiput. Please.
(And did any of you, like I did, pick up various bottles in the supermarket and examine them for sturdiness, heft and abv general suitability*? Oh well, just me, then)

And who gives a flying neep if a Midlands pub doesn’t do anything for Burns Night? Really.

*champagne. Or Baileys. Thank me later.

Have I missed something? Do we know that Joy and Mick deleted the CCTV stuff, and if so how?

No we don't. I'm just presuming. Joy just seemed very keen to steer Jolene's thinking when they were talking about it. But equally it could just be standard Joy waffle, thinking she's being helpful.

No Joy was being unusually pushy tonight.

I feel more and more like lots of people were involved but I bet that won’t turn out to be the answer.

Brad hasn’t spoken to George yet.

I think it was Fallon that whacked George. She had a cut hand and has access to the CCTV footage. She’s also in a very tetchy mood.

Harrison was there, has ‘history’ with George, is trusted to have access behind the bar, is police so would think of eg wiping the cctv, holds George responsible for the miscarriage, and has now gone back to wherever he’s working. And Fallon is starting to sound shifty, and is changing the subject.

So I think it was him, but Fallon knows.

Harrison's stint behind the bar on Christmas Day would mean he would have been clued up about the CCTV.

Is Joy a Scot? Burns Night,Burns Night, Burns Night. How many times did she say it, and why does she think she should organise every thing? When she does start organising stuff she is a bully.
Please stop putting Joy front and center all the bloody time, it is so tedious.

Everyone is acting sheepish and Brian is more grumpy than usual. Are they going to write him out, he is hardly heard from nowadays.( unlike effing Joy).

Didn't Muck and J@y tamper with the CCTV when they broke the robot hoover at Home Farm? Hmm...rubs chin thoughtfully.

If I had to rank all TA characters in order of how much I want to hear them, Brian would be top and Joy would be bottom, even below Pip. I'm fed up to the back teeth with her!

She's not Scottish, just gobby.

Excellent point. I want to see them led away in handcuffs ASAP.

With J#y gagged.

This really made me laugh, and thanks for the intel.

It feels cathartic to see so many others who think Joy is anything but a joy.

I don’t think Harrison is behind this. It’s too much of a leap for him. IRL Fallon would have snapped at Joy and told her to shut the f**k up. She is the landlord’s daughter so could easily have pulled rank.

George is a dreadful patient but seems to be bouncing back very quickly from such a life-threatening injury…I agree it’s looking unlikely that Markey is behind it. I think it will end up like one of those Murder Mystery Party plots where no logic applies and it would have been impossible to work out who actually did it on the basis of the clues given (still bitter about one I went to 30 years ago btw!)

Burns Night celebrations outside of Scotland always seem totally unnecessary hosted and targeted at ex-pat Scots.

Harrison Burns night.
A coded hint!

Ooh! Clever!

It’ll be accidental joint enterprise. One Ambridge resident confronts him and leaves him, another bops him on the head, and another finds him and leaves him for dead before he is actually discovered.

None of the main characters would attempt murder. It’s ridiculous. As others have said maybe an accident or heat of the moment single punch would be believable but not this.

lots of pubs outside Scotland will lay on Burns night celebrations and anything else they can in January because they need to get punters in. Nothing about loving Haggis, bagpipes, whisky or anything else. It is Bums. On. Seats. that count.

Punched the air when Fallon snapped at Joy. Am ignoring all the waffle and set-ups of potential perpetrators. They are being so clumsy about it all (the SWs) i just want it to be over.

All of the red herrings being dropped in the past few days making it seem like almost everyone and anyone might have been involved make me think that the script writers have been watching the film Hot Fuzz.

Has Auntie Chris got an alibi?

It feels like there are so many people who are being set up us suspects that most likely it will be none of them. A heated row gone too far and the subsequent cover up would be much more plausible but we heard the clonking happen and it does seem like someone followed him which doesn't feel believable.
If it does turn out to be Marky related then I will be annoyed as that's quite a boring idea imo! 😆

I'm sure Marky and his Merry Men had better (more interesting/profitable) criminal activities to carry out on New Year's Eve than clunking George over the head so very ineffectually.

What with Rochelle's criminal efforts (apples don't fall far from trees and all that), AND some odd business with Joy's behaviour when Rochelle was young, AND the little we know of Joy's background being largely unknown/unverified, AND her being very keen to insert herself as a lovely stalwart of village life, what if she's some kind of sleeper agent? While she might not have been activated, she has gone rogue.

Disclaimer: I may have watched too much Slow Horses recently.