Archers thread #198: Josh sent to Patagonia, Pip stays put. Wrong way round! Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

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Not feeling greatly enthused about what's going on in Ambridge at the moment, tbh. I'm annoyed at Brian's hypocrisy about Ruairi given the furore over George's attempt to frame Alice as the cause of the accident. I do hope we don't have a slow drip drip drip now as one after another the members of the Aldridge/Archer clan find out what really happened and endlessly agonise over what to do. Frankly I don't care. There! I've said it.

Pip's OK. Well, good, but what was the point of that story, I wonder?

I suspect I'm in a minority of one in rather enjoying hearing (a) from Bert Horobin and (b) about Fletcher. I surmise Bert is here to stay for a while because the BBC has (amazingly) updated his character page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/1wQP3mKR6yr9LVs05jddxcY/bert-horrobin (prominent actor photo warning). Given how out of date a lot of the other character pages are, this seems odd, but there we are.

That's all I can be bothered to say! Over to you.

He confessed, @Gonners. But off air, which may be why you can’t specifically remember it! We only heard Adam’s reaction and Ruairi’s increasing panic.

If Adam asked me for the time, I'd refuse to answer ... or possibly lie, purely on the basis that if I told him the truth I'd live to regret it.

I’m on holiday and am not terribly distant from some hunt kennels, it would seem. They made a right racket this afternoon. Now the farmer across the valley has just been out muck-spreading on something green in a field. This is the sort of stuff Ambridge B&B/Landmark Trust/Grey Gables guests could be complaining about.

Aside from George, does anybody NOT now know that Ruari “did the damage with an empty bottle of Chardonnay, m’lud”?! Could he argue that he simply tripped, whilst looking for the bottle recycling bins in the village. I’m getting thoroughly bored with the SL so could somebody just frogmarch Ruari down to the Police station.

Adam’s delivery is so hammy! He was hissing like a snake in his scene with Ruarhi this evening. And the Maliks’ conversation was so turgid. The mental health inserts were unbelievably tedious and then Ben compounded them with his walk-and-talk therapy session with Ruarhi. It was hard to justify listening tonight. It’s purely habit that makes me tune it- certainly not doing it for pleasure which is such a pity.

I'd just said to DH, 'of course, that budgie's going to get out and someone will leave a door open' when——-

Adam behaved entirely out of character with his badgering of Ruairi. More character bending by the SWs. I like the character, but this ep was terrible.

The care farm that could so easily be easily be set up - liability insurance, H&S, toilets, organising their therapy, attendance records, just for starters, would take time away from the farm work. What bollocks. Nice idea, but not the simple thing that's being presented.

@Madcats it’s a million years ago but I’m certain farm odours were one of the many things Lynda Snell complained about when she first moved to Ambridge!

(I could have imagined it, but …)

GDPR, safeguarding...

So, erm, if you couldn't care less, why were you worried about her having cancer in the lymph nodes?

I don’t think it’s that deep 😊

My late mum was exactly the same. "Visiting my little old ladies".

Many younger than her.

Whatever Adam does next is going to be the absolute end of any relationship he might imagine he has with Brian.

Me, in my 40s at a local event: ‘have you ever thought of joining the WI?’
Woman at least 30 years my senior ‘oh no, I’m much too young for the WI’ 😂

This has happened on several occasions!

Adam’s delivery is so hammy! It's not. He's a good actor.

Was Fletchling Ena Sharples or Hilda Rogden's tasty supper?

I know what’s wrong - Azra and Akram’s voices / tone don’t change when they’re talking privately to each other. They still sound formal and polite. (Reminding me of how Ruth and David sounded at first with NewPip 😄.)

For years my parents belonged to a working party looking after the garden and helping with entertainments and so forth at the local old people's home. In the far off days when older people sometimes opted to move into a place like that instead of staying at home and struggling with basic tasks and loneliness, it was often the case that the residents were younger than they were. (Sadly now the residents are almost exclusively very old people with dementia and there aren't many of them because thanks to Brexit and the ferry troubles [shakes fist] it's difficult to get staff.)

I think the fact there are no comments on tonight’s episode says it all. A total non-event - the conclusion of all the nonsense we’ve been forced to listen to: George at death’s door in hospital, the long and protracted whodunnit, the blackmail plot all tied up in a single episode with George an apparently reformed character. What a waste of time! Utterly pointless. And now it sounds like Bert might actually end up being fixed up with Carol - I thought it utterly ridiculous when someone suggested it up thread, but it looks as if this is what might happen.

So can I come out of hiding now?

@LillianGish , it wasn't a conclusion. It was an illusion of one.

I'm Spartacus!

That can't be the end of it. Surely?

I don't like them killing off animals for no reason, so to have Fletcher presumably dead is a bit shit. They could at least have made it a public service announcement about non-stick pan fumes killing budgies. On the upside, they'll probably have to get Khalil a whole menagerie to make up for it.

Ruairi v George was meh.

I'll eat my hat if Fletcher is actually dead.

@Agapornis, he didn't die in vain. His feathers are scattered outside the HOrville residence.

Ooh perhaps J*y could be imprisoned for crimes against psittacines!

(my username is related - lovebird genus)

I can't help wondering if Brian is still deep-down secretly homophobic 😲

It might even be totally subconscious, and doesn't realise why he treats Adam as he does.