Archers thread #195: Run, Amber, run! Discuss 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 think 19 is an ideal age to have a baby with a convict, 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.)

Emma spoke sense to George and Amber tonight. Goodness only knows where this storyline is going. I can't see George being Father of the Year. Oh dear.

Over to you!

NABALT

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I've been to a lot of university graduations. That did not resemble any graduation that I've been at, other than the general layout. Do others have experience of graduations that are that...informal? Sure, presumably many unis outside the 6 "Ancients" don't conduct much of the ceremony in Latin, but that seemed a little too chill.

I have zero experience of graduations, having not even bothered to attend my own.

When I clicked on the thread much, much, earlier this was the only post showing on the "preview". I confess I got rather excited about the Friday cliffhanger (I haven't listened yet)... and then realised the context🤦‍♀️😂

Certainly didn't resemble the 6 I've been to. The part with him being asleep just before his name was called was so stupid, in the ones I've been to the graduates have been very well organised and are lined up and ready behind the stage well before the blurb about which faculty is announced and they're due on. Certainly wouldn't have been joking about the mobile going off or any need for parents to be calling their child to wake them up in the first place.

Listening to Ruth talk with a mouthful of toast was grim.

Agreed. Bleurghh.

I found her voice grating too, and this despite my late and lovely DH being a Geordie.

Ah that’s the one I meant, the one that Pip ridiculously barred from being around Rosie though she’s very happy for Bess to be, who is primarily a working and not a family dog

Mine was in the Albert Hall with Princess Anne. There was certainly no chat with HRH she just nodded at us individually as we walked past. It must have been an excruciating gig for her.

It's completely unbelievable that everything has turned out so well for someone as unstable and vulnerable as Rochelle was previously made out to be, but I honestly don't care as long as we never hear from her again!

I actually took Joy’s synopsis on Rochelle as a win. I think the SWs have clocked how stupid the whole vegan/abattoir subplot was - and how unpopular she was as a character - and discreetly wrapped it up and disposed of it so we never hear from her again.

IME, graduation seating is not a general free for all. You have to book tickets way in advance and it’s usually all allocated seating, like at the theatre- so Ruth saying she wanted to get there early to get a good seat really jarred.

And then they talked loudly during the ceremony. I would have bottled them if I had been sitting in front of / next to them.

I can only assume Felpersham Uni is tiny and the graduation ceremony involves about 20 people; the one I went to last year couldn’t possibly have accommodated all the graduands sitting onstage. They were sent through in a very (very) long procession from one side as each name was announced, did the handshake-and-scroll bit, then processed offstage the other side, all in approximately 20 seconds. The more flamboyant ones risked jazz hands or a beaming thumbs up as they whizzed past, but definitely no time for any remarks from anyone. Nobody would have been able to drop off to sleep!
Tickets were strictly 2 per person so basically Mum and Dad - I wasn’t one of either so I’ve no idea whether they had allocated seats. Us hoi polloi were watching on a big screen outside.

CBA to google this, but are graduations in January a thing?

Also, just for once I would like Justin not to get away with screwing up, letting people down and communicating poorly.

I wondered if Joy was lying about Rochelle.

They can be. Depends on the term structure of the uni. Often, there's a main summer graduation, and somewhat smaller autumn and/or winter ones. The bulk of undergrads that do their degrees the usual way and manage to finish everything on schedule will be in the summer ones, but there are plenty of students that have a resit or another reason why they don't finish everything in time to apply for summer graduation, and also, many postgraduates will finish at a different time of year, especially PhDs. I'm assuming that Ben's mental health blip lost him part of a term (I seem to recall conversations about this at the time), so it seems reasonable that he's graduating in winter.

At a larger uni, there will be dozens of ceremonies, each with several hundred students. Winter graduation usually just means fewer ceremonies, not fewer students per ceremony (it's a faff to organise the support staff and the musicians and the academic procession, so fewer ceremonies makes the organisers happy). I didn't get the impression yesterday that there were only 20 students at the whole ceremony...maybe it was 20 nursing students, which seems fine? I don't even recall 20 being mentioned, but I might have been faffing with the kettle at the time.

Where do you think she is? HMP Bronzefield, perhaps!

@JoelenesParrot yes definitely a win, that's what I meant, I don't care that the outcome is ridiculous and unrealistic, so long as it means they've tied up the bin bag handles and chucked it in the skip😆

I have a friend who has just taken up a professorship in an allied health profession (coming out of the nhs). When I commented on how lovely no OOH and term term working would be, I was informed that they now have cohorts starting throughout the year, so I assume graduations happen as they pass out. They still get something like 35 day holiday and 10 wellness days a year!

@Trivium4all I just plucked the figure of 20 out of the air as there sounded so few of them that they could all sit onstage, get up individually and have a verbal congrats from the Chancellor/whoever. They didn’t actually say how many were graduating.

(Looking back, my own graduation in a different century was also a swift process-across-the-stage-handshake-and-disappear-asap job)

Sorry, just chuckling to myself at the idea of a uni prof (especially one on a straight academic pathway at a research uni, rather than coming in from a professional context like your friend, or one that heads over into management) actually taking all of their holiday entitlement...when the students go away is when we can finally get on with the bulk of our research, grant chasing, etc., and there's never enough time and it's never finished. Teaching is a part of our job, but it's not usually the largest part. A very common complaint is that it's often about 30-40% of our contract, but takes up 70-80% of our time, meaning we can't take all our holidays if we expect to keep up with our research. And career progression is largely determined on research outputs, however the promotions process may be framed. The system is not in great shape.

Ah, I missed that they were sitting on-stage: I guess I just assumed that they were sitting together in a block already in the right order for being lined up and marched across the stage, like at every graduation in every country that I've ever attended, and like your own...usually, the members of the academic procession sit on the stage, and it's the chancellor or vice-chancellor that conveys the degrees! The chancellor is often honorary, hence I presume Princess Anne, above. If I said whom we had, you'd be able to identify the uni I was at at the time...

I was just thinking that - given what we know about Rochelle - for her to suddenly be in a stable relationship not two minutes after the Rex thing, being a great mum to her (previously abandoned) kids, and having charges dropped after being the key participant in actually getting the animal rights nutters into the abbatoir...nah.

I assumed it was a lie. I thought she was trying to protect Mick by adding details to make her story sound more believable, which can often happen if you panic. And we know she rarely tells the truth about Rochelle. I have no theories about where Joy really was or what Rochelle is up to because I just don’t care.

Thanks @Trivium4all and @Cantsleepdontsleep 😊