Archers thread #196: Run, Rex, 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'd like to marry Pip, 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.)

So now we know who bonked George on the head. Will the stunning revelation lead to anything interesting or credible happening? Answers on a postcard, please!

Will Alice and Rex become an item? Will Amber come to her senses? Has Adam's constant languor and fatigue now removed his ability to speak on air?

Over to you!

The not-a-pregnancy was early in 2020, as far as I remember. It was before the programme went into repeats and then monologues.

Yes, but it wasn't a pregnancy that was assumed to be the start of the menopause, it was the other way round.

I hope the MMC story was a bit of “light” public service broadcasting and doesn’t need to actually happen. We’ve had the loss of two pregnancies in TA in recent years I don’t need another one.

Prepared to be wrong but I don’t think Helen is growing with pregnancy but with smugness. Two boyfriends, her own business and a starry job offer. Quite a month for her.

> Trigger Warning < Loss of pregnancy

We've had more. We had the Kirsty one and the ridiculous business with Fallon. We've also had the Chelsea one, which was a termination, and Fat Rosie was Pip deciding not to terminate having started the process.

Of those, at least two (i.e. half) were conceptions from ONS, with the remaining half being unplanned.

Presumably, the Archer Girls were planned, but didn't turn out to be one of each as was predicted.
Marthyr wasn't planned. Jack wasn't planned by Helen.

I mean, don't people IRL plan to have/not have a baby?

Amber is 14 weeks pregnant. It’s isn’t George’s. He slings her out and Brad quits college to look after her. No, she says, go back to uni, she pleads, and she enrolls for September as she realises that Felpersham uni has a subsidised crèche and she can do her marketing degree and both of them will end up rather successful, thank you very much.

there also was phoebe after a fling with one of the home farm pickers.

Same idea and confusion though. I don't think doing the reverse situation with Helen would be so different.

I can't imagine not having planned my pregnancies. And apparently i'm super fertile and know my body well because it took about 3 months with number one, and one single go with number 2. Number 3 - which unfortunately i lost - was unplanned but i knew it was on the cards since we were a bit spontaneous at a wedding and decided 3 was ok for us.

But seeing all the unplanned and so on up there, it is too much and i really think it is very very lazy writing if Helen is pregnant and not just loved up. Such a waste of broadcast time. I am Very Cross with the SW and want them to buck their ideas up.

Isn’t part of the problem that there aren’t really any young happy marriages

its only really Tom and Natasha isn’t it? There just don’t seem to be many long term couples younger than 50 (I know pip may count here but she already has her unplanned pregnancy and that’s not going to happen in her marriage)

Phoebe was not pregnant by Constantin. She took the morning after pill and was then sick because she had a stomach bug, so she panicked somewhat and was reassured by Lexi.

That was the occasion on which Lily charmingly insisted that Phoebe had to take a test she brought round to Willow Farm, lied to Roy about the pregnancy test he found in the bathroom being Lexi's, and, when Phoebe protested later, said that blackening Lexi's name didn't matter because Lexi was only a picker. Phoebe suddenly quite went off Lily at that point, since Lexi was very much Phoebe's friend.

Yup we need
Lily, Freddie, Ben & Josh to all get hitched and produce offspring.
Then Meriel (sp) needs to appear.
And Dan.

Is Lily still in Oz? It would be rather good if she got stuck in Dubai for months on the way back.

@bloodredfeaturewall, That wasn't a pregnancy. It was an 'OMG what if I might be'.

@CaptainMyCaptain , it's the opposite though.
Kate very much assumed she was pregnant and found that she wasn't going to be pregnant.

IIRC, Ruth and Vicky both assumed they were not pregnant but were.
Jamie Perks was conceived on holiday, Kathy having thought she wouldn't conceive.

Kathy missed the pill for a single day because she misunderstood the international date line on the way to Lucy Perks' marriage in New Zealand, I think. Pregnancy was the inevitable result.

I think we can class Ed and Emma as happily married and under 50.

ah yes! Forgot about them.

feels very light on people in their early thirties

Ah yes. I remember now. Thanks.

Ed and Em are happily married but it's not straightforward. Tom'n'Tash are under 50, and have a more straightforward history, but that could change.

But if Tom and tash don’t make it then there are zero kids growing up in a family with both parents (except xander and Keira but the latter is pretty old now)

Yes and neither family is your average family.

Keira has a half-brother who is also her cousin, and lives in a residential caravan, and Xander is not biologically Ian's although legally his.

Keira is an unknown quantity and she's about 15 so should be getting a voice soon.

I hope we don't have a public service menopause SL. It does my head in how Mumsnetters are obsessed with being "peri" and excusing all kinds of behaviour on their hormones.

@DeanElderberry you're offended by people mis-spelling Ruiari. Really? My name isn't actually Beatrice (surprise! surprise!), it's Rachael but do I get offended when people spell it Rachel? Er, no.

I hope we do have a menopause storyline, brilliant that it's such an open subject to talk about now in rl and in drama.
I didn't know what peri was 10 years ago caught me by surprise and I found it a very confusing time.

It isn't the mis-spelling (though the rule of a slender vowel on either side of a consonant is easy to remember), it's people calling him 'the unspellable one' and thinking that is superior and clever.

'Let's laugh at foreign names' is offensive.

How old is Tracey? If she’s under 50 we can add her and Jazzer to the happily married under 50 gang. No younglings though.

@DeanElderberry , I understand. It’s the dismissiveness.

Tracy celebrated her 50th birthday last year, in July.

IIRC she had a strop and refused to attend her own birthday party - but turned up later and had a great time.

No one seems to be talking about last night’s episode, which I haven’t heard yet (imagine a loud blast of Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand). Was it so boring??