Archers thread #197: Runs, Ambridge, runs! 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 find it credible that Kate, who changed continents twice to get away from her own children, has now morphed into Grandmother of the Year, 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.)

Well, Finlay may have made good his escape, but we're all still stuck inside the Borsetshire forcefield. The cricket team is rising phoenix-like from the ashes but will now be The Bull's team, not Ambridge's. Will Alice and Rex make a go of things? Will George cope with a month off the booze? Will the real Brian Aldridge re-appear? Will we hear a bit more about farming? We did get a lambing scene the other night, which was good.

Over to you!

P. S. The pointless new AI title generator MN has introduced in spite of absolutely nobody ever asking for it wanted to call this thread something like Discuss The Archers here, no spoilers. I won't be following its suggestions.

yes
more pigs, cows and sheep please

Missed the new thread! Thanks @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

DD listened with me tonight and asked is that lady (Carol) meant to be really old? And I said yes about 90 I think and DD said, well she doesn't sound very old 😆

I wonder if this is all leading up to Glebe Cottage becoming vacant soon.

I don’t think George wants ruairi or Brian etc to go to prison, more likely he’ll blackmail them into making the village accept him and generally oiling his way through life.

I have listened to the archers for nearly 55 years. Is is shit now.

Same here. Even compared with twenty years ago.

Ha! I've listened on-and-off since September 1962 - I was only 11, so it was mostly background noise. But let's be honest, it has always been shit. Not quite as bad as Mrs Dale's Diary, perhaps?

My mother used to listen to Wagoners Walk. I recall absolutely nothing about it.

Ha again! I never heard that one, though the name is familiar.

I’m so confused - isn’t Anna Tregorran a lawyer? Was this someone different?

My thoughts exactly! Mother snd daughter sounded about the same age.The SWs know what someone in their 90s sounds like - they’ve been writing for Jill for long enough. Carol just doesn’t sound like an old lady. I didn’t find Ruairi and George particularly convincing either. I don’t find the idea that Ruairi attacked George particularly credible, nor that he is now so overcome with guilt that he is hanging round offering George lifts. It just doesn’t ring true..

The SW haven't forgotten Anna's a barrister, have they? She said something about teaching (fair enough) and being "freelance now." I thought barristers are self employed?

I could sing the theme tune though. Very strange what sticks after five or six decades!

I guess being a successful senior barrister working from a set of Chambers is something that seems far too elitist and exclusive to the current group of SWs. (Rather like coming into your inheritance of a local stately home. Or living the life of a young woman born into a stately home. Or being the beneficiary of a significant inheritance from your mother / grandmother - after decades of storytelling leading towards that.)

Agreed. It really is extraordinary, isn't it. I find the nonsense around Peggy's estate particularly hard to swallow. Accountant notifies all beneficiaries a few days after her death exactly what they're going to inherit - eh? It's a tiny sum and nobody kicks up an almighty stushie about where the money's gone - really? It's coyly mentioned that she's left a substantial sum to a charity nobody else has ever heard of and the family just nod along and say that's absolutely fine?

The nursing home fees must have taken a large chunk of Peggy's money but nobody ever mentioned that, so that was a lost opportunity. The idiocy over the holiday where strict conditions were set out and then not met, but nobody ever mentioned that again. The weird storyline about the artwork that just fizzled out.

It's not as if the Editor and the SWs are all naive youngsters who don't have any money and are a long way off the stage of life where sadly health and social care of elderly relatives become a major preoccupation. Why on earth don't they treat all this realistically? I suppose they are now attempting to do this with Carol. Is Anna going to move to Ambridge and end up with Stella, she says hopefully, fantasising wildly that this could drive Pip to leave the village ...

The falls storyline could have been done with Jill, not two characters that have been invisible and/or peripheral for years. And has Anna not heard of falls alarms? My father's local authority provides them free.

It would have been perfectly of a piece with what we've heard of Carol this week if she'd said she refused to have an alarm or already had one but didn't wear it. Another realistic detail not included. My Mum and Dad were issued with alarms years ago and initially took them off at night, the very time they were most likely to need them. However, when this was pointed out to them, they saw sense and wore them all the time except in the shower.

My Mum has shown great reluctance to actually use hers, though, preferring to ask for advice from her long-suffering and very kind neighbour on the odd occasion she's been feeling very unwell and not known what to do. It's been pointed out many times that that's what the bracelet is for. I can understand why, though, as pressing the bracelet activates a box on top of the TV and a loud voice starts shouting through it, which is extremely disconcerting! We found this out when it malfunctioned one time I was there.

Difficult for her to deal with too, because she is very deaf. Face to face is much easier. I imagine a realistic portrayal of the problems deafness brings with it would be tricky on the radio, so I can forgive TA for not doing that.

(Mum's council charges a modest fee for this service.)

Yes it's strange they've decided to do this with a character who has been mostly silent for a decade. Feels like the SW have suddenly remembered they've got an aging character still living in the village.

Also felt the conversation with George and Ruairi was unrealistic. After the way Ruairi spoke to George at the family meeting, George would be doing his best to avoid him and even if he did accept a lift, the conversation would be really awkward. Now suddenly they're having heart to hearts about their childhoods!

Well, they do have to move Carol on if they’re going to bring Glebe Cottage back into play.

Unless the epic Mia Soteriou has been engaged for a substantial amount of time and they’re going to have one of the Ambridge young move in with her? That’s quite a current phenomenon - and (warming to my theme!) they don’t presently have an old/young odd couple pairing (Caroline / Will; Bert / Fairbrethren; Jim / Jazzer; Peggy / Kate. Brian & Ruairi don’t count.) Might be immense fun.

Though who could do it?

TottersBlithely · Today 09:55
Well, they do have to move Carol on if they’re going to bring Glebe Cottage back into play.

They could achieve this by mentioning in passing that Carol has moved into a home. They must have plans for Anna, maybe she will be defending R or Brian

I’m not complaining because the Anna actor is really good. The scenes with her and Helen and her and Carol were very natural I thought. Agree that Carol doesn’t sound 90-odd. She sounded like Usha to my ears.

Delurking to ponder whether Anna is back to throw a spanner in the Pip/Stella works...

Not RTFT but what does ninety year-old sound like? Some conventional reediness? Why can't Carol buck the trend?

The Brine actor at 82 is vigorous and strong, though I hate his vibrato rumble when being, ahem, sexy.

Is Anna going to move to Ambridge and end up with Stella, she says hopefully, fantasising wildly that this could drive Pip to leave the village ...

It did occur to me that that might be the reason they've brought in yet another gay character!

I've been saying for a while that there should be a SL about Jill's decline and the tensions that creates within a family. Instead they bring in a new Carol who sounds very hale and hearty!

A home? Surely there is only one home in Ambridge. It's the Laurels or death.