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!

A question I've been pondering - I know Joy is quite unpopular here. I don't dislike her, but I do dislike Mucky Mick ... really rather a lot! How much of the anti-Joy sentiment is related to Mick (who among us can erase the hot-tub horror?) and if Joy threw him out tomorrow, would you like her more, or at least dislike her less?

I think the Joy character is over-used and has been bent out of shape to fit SLs so we reached peak Joy ages ago, a bit like Olivia Colman being in everything.

Mick doesn't help though.

It would be no change for me. I think the way Joy elbows herself into every situation, and knows everything, makes her unlikeable, quite apart from her gross taste in men. Her voice gives me the creeps, honeyed with an undercurrent of threat.

Muck is just a bloke of very little brain, hence being shacked up with Joy.

I'd like it to be Mick, as his overweening concern about Emma's suitability for I forgot what role was OTT and marked him as a beady-eyed, sanctimonious git. Can you tell I don't like the character?

Ooh, it would be delicious it it were Mucky Mick what did it! I agree that he’s a sanctimonious arse.

I'm still irritated that Fallon only deleted a small amount of CCTV footage, that is obviously connected to the attack. She should have deleted, say, six hours of footage and then it's not so obvious. Oh dear, there was a glitch. Etc. You can't say that about 5 minutes of footage that is directly applicable to a crime 🙄

Still, she doesn't seem to be the sharpest tool in the box.

ETA: And even then, it would surely be easy to see what account deleted the footage. And when. From what IP address. The whole CCTV thing is just so stupid.

I haven't heard tonight's but is George about to die of a delayed bleed on the brain, like Mr Noakes with the cactus pot murder in Busman's Honeymoon.
I do think it's mean of them at the Bull to have banned George after his release; he had done that risky favour for Kenton. Doesn't one good turn deserve another?
@Bummmmblebee the zen dinner with its "healing ritual of passing the plates" reminded me of The Little Book of Calm, possibly the mangled version in episode 1 of Black Books!

Surely Justin should just cover the cost of a replacement sculpture? He should immediately have offered to do this and then they could just reschedule the unveiling. Why on earth are Rex and Kirsty so wet? They really do deserve each other.

This week seems very slow. Even George’s impromptu trip to A+E was lacklustre. Azra has exactly the same ability as her husband to kill a scene.

I found out tonight that the writer Rachel Joyce is married to the actor who plays Jakob!

I wish Rex would just shut up about Peggy and kiss Kirsty.

Alice is going to get there first.

They sell Shires, gin, coffee and random cocktails.

I like Joy and can't stand Mick so I'd be much happier if he got carted off to jail for bottling George. It did sound like a possibility but they've been so OTT with red herrings about missing wine bottles and other nonsense that I'm assuming this is more of the same.

If they are lining up George's demise it would be very interesting if Amber keeps the baby and THEN shacks up with Brad (although in reality I would hate that, poor Brad).

Yes you are so right about Olivia Coleman. I remember her on Graham Norton and he asked her about a part she played and she was saying oh I can't remember being in that. I think she tries to come off a bit dizzy but I bet she is like her character in Fleabag in real life.
I wish I hadn't seen Simon on that antique programme because Im having a hard time disliking Justin now.

Azra has exactly the same ability as her husband to kill a scene

She's so dreary.

I'm still cross abour Pa Malik being inserted into Bridge Farm. The plumber we use has a day rate of £230. £90 for a call out. What happens to the ice cream, cheese, veg boxes if a job comes in? Does he say "sorry, can't make it - I'm busy packing lettuce for £12.50 an hour"?

And Azra's fine with that because she wants a "happy husband." Grrrr!

In fact, we have had barely any Archers royalty appear this week. Just endless newcomers/hangers on/peripherals- Mick, Esmay, Azra, Akram. Even Justin, Kirsty and Rex are second division. I’m happy with time spent with George/Susan/Neil etc as they are so long-established and Ruth has married into the royal family so I suppose she has earned her stripes but no wonder we have found this week dull.

All we need is to hear from Joy tonight at the unveiling and we’ll have a full house.

I’m getting really tired of the drawn-out whodunnit about who bottled George. It’s like they want it to turn into some sort of true crime water cooler moment but who even cares???? Who will care even if George dies?

I feel so patronized by the ‘clues’ that keep being jarringly dropped. Kate and the missing bottle of wine. Mick and the ‘smashing time’. So what - we’re supposed to suspect Kate, and then totally drop that suspicion and switch to Mick/Joy? And then on to the next one? They can’t introduce enough information in 15 minutes to make this saga into the intriguing thriller they think it is. A massive misstep from the SWs

It’s Keira anyway - if not I’ll eat my hat, it’s so obvious - and if so good for her. But it will be talked up as a huge shock that rocks ambridge etc etc

George is so stupid that he probably bottled himself in an attempt to get Amber's attention and "make her sorry" for whatever. It's just surprising that he didn't miss.

I’m still really cross that the promised “rampage” was anything but. In my mind, I’d been picturing George as being like that famous “The Shining” poster of Jack Nicholson, running amok with tree surgeon kit. A bit tricky to carry off on the radio,I grant you, but that’s never really held the SWs back.

At this stage I am even missing Johnnie Archer!

I've sincerely loathed Joy since Day 1 and if anything Mick's arrival has only intensified my feelings. However, I reserve a different and special loathing for him.

(ETA - it’s a pity because I did once see the Mick actor in a stage-play - not a pantomime - and he was incredibly good at physical comedy; completely stole the show)

I started off disliking Joy, then thought she was ok, and now I rather hate her. The episode where she told Esme all about Tony and Pats business really irked me. She’s clearly being used as a narrative device to update recent listeners but this is so lazy - the first rule of writing is ‘show, don’t tell’, and Joys told seems to be to tell!!

So when I ask my husband can you reach this for me he usually gets a little tiny bit peeved with me as he wants to eat his food.

with apologies - that is very rude of him

Goes to the heart of one of the innumerable eternal MN debates - should food be plated up in the kitchen for each diner or should the cook put everything in bowls on the table for everyone to serve themselves?

I grew up with "serve yourself, don't be greedy, and when everyone has helped themselves you may have more"

And boarding school too where that was the norm at all meals. And then in the army when that was often the norm for a mess do or ball. I am very much on the "don't plate up" side.

I like the idea in principle. In practice I do it at Christmas or on the rare occasions when we have guests, but mostly I do plate up, to save washing up as much as anything, even though we do have a dishwasher. Just simpler. No meals to heal chez Gasp!

The system when I was a child was that the meat or fish part of the meal (or the stew or cottage pie or any other such dish) was served at the table on plates passed along the table to each child and you could say in advance if you didn't want much, but we were then expected to help ourselves and pass round the potatoes and veg (if it was that sort of meal, obviously, rather than stew!) The rule was that if you took it, you ate it, but you were allowed to offer meat you didn't want to other members of the family and didn't have to finish that. And you only got pudding if your plate from the first course was emptied of food.

Why yes, we were not wealthy. How did you guess?

Until I was in my late thirties I had never come across plating food up in the kitchen and carrying it through on the plates. It just wasn't something anyone I knew, or any of my family, happened to do.

And nowadays, when there are only two of us, we each plate up for ourselves in the kitchen from the dishes or saucepans the food has been cooked in.

(Incidentally the help yourselves at table led on one occasion to the wonderful question from a sort-of au pair lad: "Would anyone else like the last potato?")