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!

Or at least she thinks it was Brad. This would mean that she thinks Brad is a psychopath, in which case he will lose all interest in her when he finds out. This would be A Very Good Thing.

I actually find myself quite unengaged by this storyline. Just arrest Harrison and be done with the nonsense!

Gonners
Just arrest Harrison and be done with the nonsense!

Hear hear! I don't even care if he is guilty of anything: just lock him up and throw away the key.

Amber could be covering up for her dad. If she phoned him in distress after her fight with George, and he phoned her on NYE and said 'it's all right darling, George won't give you any more trouble' I'm sure she'd be tech savvy enough to wipe the recording. Though I can't imagine why she'd need to.

anyhow, I'm sure he fell down while drunk and bashed his own head.

It does feel most likely to be a co-conspiracy atm, everyone covering for everyone else. Brad is the only known character I’d trust to wipe the tape.

But I feel like we are being completely toyed with.

They didn’t have time to conspire.

But how could she slip in to the Bull unseen and find where the CCTV equipment is? She doesn't usually even go in there. It sounds very unlikely. It would have to be done by someone with normal access to the pub.

Fallon (despite the cut finger) would know how to wipe the tape, as would Harrison.

Perhaps it was just an Act of God?

Maybe George didn't even slip. Maybe he just lay down and posed in order to force people to pay as much attention to him as they were to Keira. He has made a remarkably fast and complete recovery.

No idea on the tapes, sorry.

Amber's Dad would explain the "nice wheels" remark George made. On the other hand didn't Markie's gang previously nobble the CCTV in the Bull?

That, and the gelding being named "Cinnamon". Sounds more like a mare name, to me, and surely would be shortened to "Cinny" or the like!

I suppose it's possible it's a horse she is paid to ride, either because he's being trained, or because the owner is lacking in time or is ill.

But as for fictional horses coming with a parking brake, well, it's a frequent complaint! It's just about possible that Alice habitually rides with a leadrope attached to her saddle, or reins that unclip from a combination bridle, but we've not really got the impression that she's into Endurance or long-distance trekking, where that sort of behaviour is more normal!

I think they did!

The two could be unrelated - Amber’s Pa was the one who either attacked George or arranged it, and Fallon wiped the tape for fear that it was Harrison even though it would turn out that he had nothing to do with it all. She knew how angry he was after George’s outburst wishing he’d left Fallon to drown, and not only has he not got over the loss of Baybeh Burns anyway but Fallon drowning would also meant the ‘drowning’ of her unborn child. Which he may well still be convincing himself would have been viable and wanted (“She’d have loved it when it arrived!”) had the crash not happened.

Or Kenton could have deleted the footage for fear that it was Marky’s crew and he didn’t want any proof of it that would stir the police investigation up again?

I think Amber would have the skill to wipe the tape (she's been set up as a reformed nerd, and she seems to do her own video editing for her "influencer" stuff), but I'm not sure she would have had the opportunity, or indeed a reason. Was she claiming to have been at Tracey's house alone? If it were her wot dunnit, and she had been at the Bull and obtained a bottle, it would seem silly to delete the video and then lie about her whereabouts, as others must have spotted her (unless they were handing out the bottles to people just nipping in and out clandestinely?). If it were her dad wot dunnit, then what reason would he have had to be going to the Bull (not his regular pub), and why would he have had a bottle from there?

But as for fictional horses coming with a parking brake, well, it's a frequent complaint! It's just about possible that Alice habitually rides with a leadrope attached to her saddle, or reins that unclip from a combination bridle, but we've not really got the impression that she's into Endurance or long-distance trekking, where that sort of behaviour is more normal!

And if it’s a client’s horse a) that type of tack is relatively unusual unless that’s the owner’s thing and b) you’d not be risking someone else’s horse by leaving it tied up outside a pub. One backfiring car/yapping dog/unexpected pheasant and they could pull free and off into the road.

I’m never entirely convinced the SWs have met a horse. I’m still irritated at Shula’s horse’s cheekpiece snapping while out hunting (with Rob, which shows how long ago this was!) and her not realising, despite that meaning that the bit would have fallen out of the horse’s mouth...

Didn’t Brad attempt to take on George’s drone video business when George was At His Majesty’s Pleasure? So he’d know how to edit video...

So are we to understand that someone followed George from the Bull (presumably lurking in the shadows during his heart to heart with Alice) and whilst he was drunkenly maundering on to himself crept up and bottled him?
It being a special Chardonnay would rule out Amber & the Keira searchers - how would any of them have a bottle? Anyone recall how
many prize bottles there were?

If I were investigating I'd want to know exactly who got a bottle and then go round collecting them - someone is missing their prize bottle.

As a side point, if I’d been given a bottle of Chardonnay I’d be looking for a use other than drinking it. Can’t stand the stuff

<opens a nice crisp Sauvignon Blanc>

All right. George was hit on the back of the head hard enough to crack his skull. He fell down, and was so unconscious when Neil found him that Neil thought he had no pulse and was dead.

And yet he heard people talking.

This was not before he was hit over the head, because if it had been the listeners would have heard them too.

So it must have been after he was knocked unconscious?

Um.......

Somebody help me with this, because as it stands it really doesn't seem to make any sense.

I agree. It's likely that the person who deleted it wasn't the attacker. I just don't think Amber could have done it.

Fallon might have wiped the footage to cover for Harrison, possibly even to cover for Ed or Jazzer.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime he wasn't knocked immediately unconscious as we heard him saying "mum, I'm sorry". So I presume he heard voices between the clonking and passing out. Or he could have been drifting in and out for a time before he was found.

Amber sounded like she had quite the guilty conscience about her and Brad to me, I think she did more than cry on his shoulder. I'm not convinced she knows anything, seems like she just stayed in with Brad.

Because Amber wasn't around pre prison to see how George affected the village, she underestimates how much anger there still is for him. She's had all that time of only hearing George's side of the story. Perhaps explaining why she thinks it could only be someone like Marky that would want to hurt him. Having said that, I also find it hard to believe any of villagers would follow him down a dark path and leave him for dead.

I also find it hard to believe any of villagers would follow him down a dark path and leave him for dead.

Absolutely: they’d want to make damned sure!

Can you not ask questions all the time?😀

maybe he didn't hear the voices in reality
maybe he dreamt them
maybe he made them up

I thought the story line was following a traditional Agatha Christie whodunnit but increasingly think it’s specifically a Murder on the Orient express rip off and everyone in Ambridge took turns holding the bottle!

Have worked out why am so annoyed about the past week:
the editors have played with us so much - including, importantly, using the spoilers to actually mislead us, that they’ve utterly broken the fourth wall.

Long standing, regular listeners care about the characters as people.

It’s like we’re being mocked.

”Haha look at them all like little ants scurrying round trying to put the “clues” together!”

Archers fans are not to be mocked.

(I think this is the opposite of what they meant to do for the 75th Anniversary?!)