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!

Thanks for that, I will give it a go!

Kate could have potentially made a good future Lynda.

You are so right. That blend of slightly crackpot enthusiasm and entitled bossiness, tolerated because she has a good heart and some understanding of what humans actually enjoy.

And, oddly, a good business head.

Fabulous username, @HereComesYourMam! 😄 (Turned it on, just what I need to cheer me up. Not Bargain Hunt, though.) )

But that is pretty much how Lynda started out, when they moved to Ambridge from Sunningdale. Everyone thought Lynda was ghastly to start with.

Precisely!

@EBearhug interesting. I wonder how we will all be talking about Joy in 10 years time!

They did, but alongside a grudging respect to her abilities. The huge difference was that Ambridge and the listeners were aligned with their feelings about her, over time both the village and the audience came to like and value her as they could see what she really was like underneath her spiky exterior. And she never came across as uneducated. Lynda never had as much airtime as Joy gets

But with Joy we are supposed to believe that everyone in the village instantly adored her and thinks she's a marvellous addition, yet listeners don't agree with that perception as she is so irritating. Certainly on here the majority of people dislike her character and can't understand why the people of Ambridge like her so much.

Imagine being Helen or Jazzer and getting today’s script!

For a man who likes to keep busy, Akram seems to be remarkably…..unbusy. Surely he’d just make a few calls to see whether he could swap plumbing jobs around.

I am impressed that they managed to get the real vs fictional weather to align for a change. It might even be a first.

I quite like Joy. Lynda, on the other hand, has always been an utterly loathsome, bossy nightmare. And her voice is hideous. I disliked her even more when lovely Old Robert was around, but as I'm quite indifferent to Nu Robert I just tune her out now.

In the past tense, hopefully 😆

Well...I didn't like to say... 😆

Famously, Maeve Binchy stopped listening to the Archers because everyone kept going to about how awful Mrs Snell was, and that being M B's own name she found it very offputting.

I kind of love Lynda for how awful she can be though. Joy is just annoyingly awful.

Here are the current results of my statistically dodgy polls into Who Attacked George. Because only seven options are available in a standard MN poll, I had to run two polls, rendering the process even more dubious and meaning that percentages add up to rather more than 100%.

I ran out of time to add the other useful suggestions of Rochelle, Will, Joy, Jill, Rosie (joking) in a third poll, sorry.

But here, just for fun, are the combined results so far, based on 140 votes.

TOP SUSPECTS
Harrison (poll1) 51%
Kenton (poll 2) 39%
Keira (poll 2) 39%
Marky gang member (poll 1) 18%
Mucky Mick (poll 1) 15%
Henry (poll 2) 10%
Ed (poll 1) 9%
Amber (poll 1) 6%
Jazzer (poll 2) 6%
Susan (poll 2) 3%
Jolene (poll 2) 3%
Chris (poll 1) 2%

If you still want to vote for one of the above suspects, the polls are still open and you can find the polls here:
Poll 1
Poll 2

As more evidence emerges in each episode, the finger of blame will shift...

For me the trouble with Joy is they try to make her fill too many roles without any real depth of character. It always feels as if she is simply there as a mechanism rather than a real character.

I can’t believe people think it was Susan. I would be gobsmacked at that

I have gone and done a search in Lowfield.

in 2011 Jazzer held a private celebration of Burns Night with Harry the Milk, in their flat. I think Emma felt sick on account of the haggis.

Lynda had a private Burns Night in 2013 and asked Jazzer's clan chief from the chippie to address the haggis.

There was a Burns Night celebration at the Bull in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 (in 2020 Eddie had one at Grange farm, I think because he'd had a row with Kenton about changing the name of the pub to B@Ambridge, Lynda had one at Ambridge Hall quite definitely because she was furious about the name-change, and the Bull had a Burns Weekend in retaliation), and 2024. I expect they celebrated the day in the years not mentioned, but nobody bothered to say so at the time.

Lots and lots of haggis, neeps and tatties then! I love all of that. I have just defrosted the fridge freezer, always a voyage of discovery, and made the fortuitous discovery that I have both real haggis and a vegetarian version entombed there. (Mr Gasp will only eat the latter, poor Sassenach that he is.) Let's pass over how long they may have been there. I once saw a MN poster say that for her time stood still when she put something in the freezer. My twin separated at birth! If I stop posting after Sunday 25th January you'll know why.

And the storyline that might have added some depth wasn’t properly developed… the SL about the Rochelle lies and her failure to properly care for her when she was a teen appears to have been dropped.*

*to be clear I’m fine with this poor SL planning if it means we never have to hear from Rochelle again.

have I missed something? where is Lynda?

Last spoke on 24th December at the tractor run.

Gone into hiding after hitting George over the head with a bottle. Except that it (unfortunately) can't have been her, because she would never have done such a thing without speaking her mind.

Not really surprising, now I've come to think of it. IMDB says Carole Boyd was born on 16th February 1941 so she is very nearly 85. Like many other long-serving members of the cast, she probably doesn't feel up to a lot of travelling to Birmingham. The internet suggests she lives in Shepperton, quite a long way from the Mailbox.

However, Joy is a totally inadequate replacement for Lynda, for all the reasons already mentioned.

Why does no one in the village ever ask how J*y - with no visible means of support - could have afforded to buy an executive home in a sought after rural location? No one. Ever.

Except on these threads, daily