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.

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.)

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!

@Brefugee I thought the same about the gaming chair. Where does Will get his money from?

I liked the chat him and Ed had at the hospital, it would be nice if Will got back into gamekeeping or something he enjoys or feels more fulfilled in.

I don't think it can be these two, because of what we heard him saying. He wouldn't be commenting on "Nice wheels" to Mia, and he would talk quite differently to Amber. I suspect Amber's Dad.

I assumed he was saying "Nice wheels" to himself. As you do ... if you're George!

Quite possibly, but it means it was someone travelling in something with nice wheels, almost certainly on a car - I can't see him admiring a bike. So that rules out people without access to cars.

I imagine Will is very careful with this money and has savings set aside from when he was working FT and renting out The Green. He gave George £500 not too long ago. He could have bought the gaming chair on a buy now, pay later basis.

I thought his conversation with Ed was very sad. The fact he has basically given up on ever being happy again or finding a meaningful job is tragic when he is barely 40. He sounds like someone who has lived with low level depression for years.

Oh this is interesting: “Old Amber” left the Archers to be in a TV series penned by “Harrison’s” Dad:
https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/soaps/coronation-street/coronation-street-the-archers-charlotte-jordan-pulls-out-newsupdate/

Maybe the Radio Times isn’t just for Christmas.

Favourite?

A period drama. Set in the 70s. Now that does make me feel old.

It's just a slang term for "nice car".

Maybe they needed to save up for this month!

I think "Nice wheels" means "Nice car", in the way you might say a footballer has good legs. (meaning he's fast, not shapely)

The writer of that week’s episodes referred to it as a “bubble week”. It sounded as if the teams plan to beef up writing and recording at quieter times to add a couple of standalone weeks (meaning that they then don’t have to work through Xmas/Easter/holiday periods etc.). The script probably gets a few topical tweaks once the timetabling is firmed up and they probably keep cast lists low to keep things simpler to coordinate.

Presumably Leonard and Joy were included because they were already scheduled to be recording. There was no logical reason why both should decide to visit and clean if there were never any plans to spread noro to Brookfield or the village shop/pub.

I think Keri Davies has stated somewhere, probably xwitter, that this was done so they wouldn't have to work over Christmas.

This is patently not a good reason for it, because a] it will have been recorded well in advance of Christmas, as would any other week of episodes going out then, and b] they've never had to have a week of pointless filler at Christmas-time in previous years.

Or in some circles, nice motorbike. Not on this occasion, because the noise was of a car, but it can mean a bike that the speaker approves of.

I am a bit torn by this change in Emma’s attitude. I agree George can’t continue as he is but to fundamentally say ‘we screwed up raising him and now he needs to behave as if we didn’t’ feels like an unrealistic expectation. I hope he does get the counselling they talked about before but I suspect that trajectory would be a bit dull for TA.

Same with Alice, she was all forgiveness to George but said nothing when Lillian told her he was barred.

But the car could have been coincidental - we have no aonnection between it and the attack. Maybe that scene was just to demo how unstable he was by that point in the evening.

ThatFlightyTemptressAdventure
Same with Alice, she was all forgiveness to George but said nothing when Lillian told her he was barred.

Perhaps Alice felt that decisions made in a pub in which she has no interest at all (not even drinking there much) were not hers to second-guess?

George was barred for being offensive and threatening and breaking a glass (and then being threatening to a woman in her late seventies after catching her alone wouldn't have helped his case), just as anyone else who behaved as he did would have been barred, I suspect. He was angry about not being employed, which was because two of the three victims of his dangerous driving work at The Bull, and it is half-owned by the aunt of the victim of his attempt to pervert the course of justice. Only a total numbskull would have though it appropriate to apply for work there in the first place.

Part of me suspects George wanted to be turned down for that job so that he could be martyred about it. I wonder how many jobs most men just out of prison have to apply for before they get one? George has applied for just two since last October.

Yes, but. If you record a few easy ones, you can fit in the more complicated ones so that you don't have to work over Christmas.

So they spent, say, November recording the February episodes, by cramming in a couple of bottle episodes, when they would normally have spent December recording for Feb.

“We can’t have caber tossing indoors or we might break something”

I think Joy will be missed if dedded.

Who else could tell us about what happens in strongman competition in South Shields ?

Am I right in thinking that Jazzer has spent the vast majority of his life in England? I suspect he’s never seen a Highland Games, he never seems to venture north of Birmingham

At least three-quarters of Jazzer's life so far has been spent in the Midlands of England, and when he was a small child in Glasgow and from a poor family I doubt he spent much time in the Highlands.

He did go to Scotland for his honeymoon with Tracy, driving up to the Isle of Skye in the Riley. But Highland Games were not mentioned then, and I suspect Tracy would have done if they'd seen any.

I don't really want to think about Jazzer tossing his caber

Better than trying to kilt someone. Sorry.

Have they ever made such a thing of Burns night before? Or is this a Joy thing?

@TheUsualChaosJoy organising another event not even a month after the tractor run.🙄 Good thing this isn’t a drinking game. We’d all be pickled.