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 episode involved a home-made coleslaw, garibaldi biscuits and the promise of a sausage pasta bake.

Isn't Helen's "glow" just meant to represent her falling in love with Finlay? I'm not sure why her youthful cheese obsession is now being emphasised though, so it can be fed into a plot about her becoming go-getting dynamic queen of all dairies who appears in Country Living / Borchester Life? I would have thought they'd be lining up more back story about her always wanting to live in Scotland, getting the boys outdoors more etc etc so she can become the crofter's wife/ laird and lady. It's the kind of script writing that reminds me of UCAS personal statements: "ever since I was three I've wanted to be an astrophysicist".

At least there wasn’t a chili…

But what signs are pregnancy? She had sex which might or might not have been protected, and someone said she was glowing. No mentions of throwing up, sore boobs, strange cravings, let alone a period being late. I have to say I've never come across a woman who glowed in early pregnancy, mostly they feel bloody awful.

Surely we had that with Kate? IIRC there was quite a bit of public service broadcasting alongside her setting up her special menopause yoga classes.

I have never known any soap dramatise pregnancy realistically!!

much like childbirth - the waters always break before any other signs

Are Tom and Tash happy? It’s not that long ago that he was wistfully telling Kirsty that he constantly thinks about the life they could have had together if Wren had survived. He didn’t sound happy with his marriage then and usually sounds exhausted and annoyed when he talks about the twins.

I was happy Kirsty firmly put the idiot straight and told him they would never have ended up together.

My waters didn't break. One was broken by a midwife and the other one broke after the birth.
I always think about that when I watch any drama with a birth scene.

I think they are happy but tired. They're running businesses, raising young children and having to pacify Helen but seem to enjoy each other's company and have shared goals.

Natasha is an excellent character and I wish she featured more.

Alice sounded unhinged last night, forcing Ruiari into coming for tea and trying to persuade him to move in with her and bloody Martha (the number of times she shoe horned that kid's name into the conversation), insisting that Martha would be thrilled to share a bed with her mum indefinitely.

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.
I agree. They're usually posts along the lines of 'My DH shouts at me and calls me useless. It's my fault because I'm hormonal'.

There is lot of attention in the media on the menopause and peri-menopause, and it seems to imply that all women become quite feeble when they reach the end of their fertile years.

Awareness should be a positive thing.

I'm lucky in that I don't think I suffered too much from my 'hormones' but I was sick of any grumpiness being blamed on PMT, then being thought of having 'baby brain', then 'you're over 40, you're peri' etc.

Leave it to Woman's Hour or Inside Health.

ED and prostate cancer could probably do with more awareness but not in a soap opera please.

@BeatriceBatchelor , 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.
Not aimed at me but I'm offended.

The difference is that Rachael and Rachel are both correct spellings, both are nice, and Rachel is the most used of the two.

I wouldn't get too offended if Ruairi was spelt Ruaidhrí or Ruairidh, or even Rory, but I'm picking up 'cba to even attempt to get it right because it's a silly forrin name' vibes from the various misspellings.

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.

This.

I have a name that just doesn't pass the Starbucks test, and a surname that has the least used of about 5 different spellings.
My first name isn't that unusual, I can think of at least 3 who are prominent in their fairly niche fields.
I don't really mind if the surname is written with the most common spelling, it was probably my fault for not pointing it out, but the first name errors go way further than typos.

I am offended when people just put in any old surname (always Jones) or have seemed to make up a completely new bizarre spelling of my surname.

Alice overcompensates with Ruiari because she still feels guilty about the awful things she said to him in the past. Her behaviour is suffocating and odd. Why would he want to move into a cramped cottage and sleep in his niece’s room. He should have a conversation with Paul about finding a flat together.

Has any Archer / Archer adjacent character ever just ‘found a random flat’ somewhere? Aren’t they contractually obliged, as a condition of their continued voiced existence, to engage in the never-ending roundabout of Archer / Archer adjacent properties that pass from one hand to the next?

Helen currently (inexplicably) lives on what was previously Bridge Farm land - actually moving into a completely random non-Archer related house on The Green would be extraordinary.

A TV soap has a current SL is about dementia with Lewy bodies. It does not make for easy viewing and it has certainly made me think.
Before the SL, I'd not even heard of it

Haha very true. I suppose it speaks to their relative privilege. None of them ever have to resort to flat/house hunting in the usual way. There is always an Archer relative - distant or otherwise - who has a property up their sleeve that is magically available.

Compare and contrast with Ed and Emma who had to move into a static caravan/mobile home (I’m not sure exactly what they live in).

The ep was bonkers. DH listened with me (well, i listened and he was in the room) and he said "so what DID George do" and when i was explaining it all, and then had to explain how everyone is related... it just sounded like an Eastenders fever dream and really put me off listening.

Helen currently (inexplicably) lives on what was previously Bridge Farm land - actually moving into a completely random non-Archer related house on The Green would be extraordinary.

well clearly the latest Audit fiasco together with the sealed bid process means that Pat'n'Tony are going to move elsewhere (or into the attic/cellar/build their passivehaus) and Helen and the boys will move into the farmhouse making Tom cross but Natasha totally unmoved.

What if Mianed also put in a sealed bid and it beats Hellin's bid.

@FatRosie, what a fabulous thought!

⭐️⭐️⭐️

It would be glorious.
I imagine Susan offering Hellin Little Grange as a rental property. 😄

As I said above I felt foul throughout pregnancy, definitely not glowy, but it is often used as a stereotypical shorthand for pregnancy. Maybe it's just what they want us to think, maybe they weren't thinking at all.

Don’t we have the same after pip had her ‘testing her sexuality’ shag with Toby?

men like to think that they are so good in bed the women are walking on clouds for weeks after too

I have a short, simple English surname that happens to use phonemes not used in many other languages. I'm not at all offended by misspellings. The best one was in Lithuania and I would really like to have adopted it.

As I pointed out, mis-spelling is not the problem. Pointing and laughing at foreign names is the problem. Colonialism in full cry.

But the mis spelling was the problem

people were constantly being pulled up on it and being accused of being racist. So afaic it’s just become a running joke because whatever happens it’s going to be wrong

Seriously?! No-one was "pointing and laughing" at his "forrin" name.