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!

I remember last year there was some news about police getting inside access to a whole gang of drug smuggler phones, or perhaps it was an app, and being able to bring down scores of people, so that doesn't seem impossible. But even if that was a proper call from the police, I don't think it was Markie or anyone adjacent that hit George, so presumably they'll be along to give him a crack over the head themselves in the near future.

(I don't know why I find Markie to be such an annoying and unconvincing 'gangster' name, but I do).

Can we have some sheep,cows,horses and so on soon please?

That was a storyline in the most recent series of Blue Lines too.

To be fair the gang has targeted the Bull before and NYE when George is likely to be out and about drunk isn't a terrible time to pick - they wouldn't know he was barred so could've been watching the Bull & seized their chance when he drunkenly wandered off down a dark footpath. I'm not convinced the perpetrator would call an ambulance in that scenario - but maybe they only wanted to beat him up and didn't want to have murdered him - but hit him harder than intended or realised that left there he could easily die of hypothermia.

@noodlezoodle (I don't know why I find Markie to be such an annoying and unconvincing 'gangster' name, but I do).

His name's probably something like Hugo Mark Simeon Triple-Barrelled-Surname, and he's gone for Markie for the sake of street-cred.

I still think George slipped, fell, lied about hearing someone and about the phone call from the police, and that he will be Found Out.

EricTheHalfASleeve
To be fair the gang has targeted the Bull before

They had a drink there on one occasion, and they used the car-park after hours on another night for some unspecified purpose that might better have been carried out practically anywhere in the world other than a pub at which one of them was already known, but I don't think they actually targeted it.

One of the reasons that the whole farrago has no credibility of any kind is that Markie "and his gang" completely lack any motive for any of their behaviour. The landlady of a pub recognises you: ok, so you don't go to that pub again. What do you gain by having any more to do with the place? What do you gain by threatening her? What the hell is the point of anything they have done?

Why on earth if Kiera hated George so much she felt she had to run away from home is she up at the hospital visiting him? Equally, why is Amber calling him ‘babe’ again after she clearly had the ick. There is no light and shade with this lot… one minute George is banished to outer darkness, then after the assault they all can’t get enough of the charmless, self-pitying lout?

Also, please note that Adam went off to Ireland ‘at very short notice’… Would he have a motive? 🤔

@dotdotdotdash Also, please note that Adam went off to Ireland ‘at very short notice’… Would he have a motive? 🤔

Well, if we can't immediately think of one then we can't expect the scriptwriters to. But give them time and I'm sure they could come up with a motive for most characters (and all listeners).

One of the reasons that the whole farrago has no credibility of any kind is that Markie "and his gang" completely lack any motive for any of their behaviour. The landlady of a pub recognises you: ok, so you don't go to that pub again. What do you gain by having any more to do with the place? What do you gain by threatening her? What the hell is the point of anything they have done?**

Wasn’t that they were threatening Kenton and Jolene into silence after one of their (undoubtedly illegal) dogs attacked Kenton? And when the campaign of intimidation continued, George was involved in stopping that - they know this, hence they want revenge on George. Perhaps they just happened to be in the Bull - not knowing he’d been barred but getting lucky that he’d rocked up anyway - and whoever was lying in wait for him grabbed a bottle, followed him and smacked him over the head with it.

That or George has a) been up to sommat he shouldn’t and someone else has exacted revenge or b) he tripped and fell, someone saw it/found him afterwards and called an ambulance (but kept quiet for fearing being blamed) and he’s using this to try an worm his way back into everyone’s sympathies and hopes that this his redemption lies.

Tbh I’ve completely lost the will to live with this complete non-story SL, but are we genuinely being expected to believe that it was Marky or one of his henchmen (or possibly Hench Men if they're very fit) who dunnit?

The Marky whose beef against the Pirate is that, many a long year ago in a pub far, far away, she once, erm, looked at him?

Beyond that I’ve got nothing.

Would the police tell Noxious Scrote Junior about evidence they have collected about Markie (which is a sausage roll-shaped dog biscuit)?

BrightYellowDaffodil
One of the reasons that the whole farrago has no credibility of any kind is that Markie "and his gang" completely lack any motive for any of their behaviour. The landlady of a pub recognises you: ok, so you don't go to that pub again. What do you gain by having any more to do with the place? What do you gain by threatening her? What the hell is the point of anything they have done?

Wasn’t that they were threatening Kenton and Jolene into silence after one of their (undoubtedly illegal) dogs attacked Kenton? And when the campaign of intimidation continued, George was involved in stopping that

Yes, but what on God's green earth inspired them to do whatever swapsies they were up to in what may be the one car-park in the whole of Borsetshire (a pub which incidentally is not in Markie's patch, the Black Country) where one at least of them was practically sure to be recognised? and after hours, when their being in the car park would be absolutely sure to draw the landlord's attention and quite possibly get the police called before he even looked further than "dodgy types in pub car park at near midnight"? I'll believe the dog attacking Kenton was an accident: would they really have wanted to draw even more attention to themselves?

Add to that: George was unlikely to have been instrumental in stopping Markie; Markie was in prison in December 2024 for selling stolen meat out of a van in the car park of a different pub, and the person instrumental in getting him copped for that was Freddie, not George.

(I think the editorial team has forgotten that little episode completely.)

The original reason Jolene was terrified of Markie was because she recognised him as someone who started a fight in a venue she was singing in decades ago.

Why would Markie, a supposed hard core criminal, care if Jolene recognised him after all these years? There would be no consequences for him if she pointed him out as the instigator of a fight back in the 1980s or whenever it was. Markie’s subsequent intimidation with the dogs and all the rest of it therefore made little sense.

As for George miraculously meeting someone in prison who just happened to have a grudge against Markie (how did that even come up in conversation I wonder)…give me strength.

Jolene recognised him as a person she saw once, just before there was a fight in a pub decades ago, but knew neither his name nor his address. I can't see why he'd give a tuppenny one about her having seen him; she knew nothing whatever about him and had nothing she could tell anyone about him that would incriminate him in any way.

That's until he first of all elected to hang about her pub, then chose to tell her his name and threaten her with Unspecified Horror if she told anyone who he was. Which until he told her, she had not known.

Too many scriptwriters, not enough adhesive on the post-it notes and a complete lack of interest in anything making sense. I sometimes idly wonder whether they're doing it on purpose, in which case - well - hats off to them!

I'm sure Amber still has the ick, she had it even before he was so vile to his family.
She was 'babe-ing' him to deflect suspicion. George is stupid so he won't suspect anything.

Never mind the implausibility of the “who hit that knuckle-dragging misogynist on the footpath a fair distance from The Bull?”, I am more concerned about the (typically cash-strapped) Grundy clan’s ability to burn a hefty home-made lasagne and ditch it and the dish and then have Clarrie make an even more substantial shepherds pie that is half eaten.

Where are former runaway Keira and Poppy?

Madcats
Where are former runaway Keira and Poppy?

Maybe they have escaped! Run away to join a circus, gone to Darkest Peru looking for talking bears, taking part in a book called Three on a Fjord (by two of them), apprenticed themselves to a lovely man called Fagin....

All suggestions welcome, I expect. If I had been born a Grundy woman, I would certainly be looking for off-ramps.

The careless throwing away of burnt or rejected food is a soap trope that I really wish could itself be thrown away. I’ve never once seen it happen in real life.

I did once have to throw away a small stew which three different people had salted while it was cooking. So we went hungry that day, because student households back then were not able to afford takeways.

Ah yes, like our own dear Mr Yaxley-Lennon.

Reading everyone's comments on the Markie storyline makes it even clearer just how ridiculous and shoehorned in it is. I would LOVE one of the scriptwriters responsible to explain the rationale for the backstory. Surely they could have just introduced a villain without any of the 'Jolene singing eons' ago origin?

Amber and Brad were out walking on NYE, came across George, panicked he would see them, hit him over the head, panicked more, phoned for an ambulance and then Amber pretended to be his loving fiancée while steering him towards it being Marky, and they still are not sure what George may or may not remember. Long term tension except no one cares anymore and we all want to move on to the lambing. Sorted

Not enough adhesive on the post-it notes! 🤣🤣🤣

Long term tension except no one cares anymore ... assuming anyone ever did.