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 Given how out of date a lot of the other character pages are, this seems odd, but there we are.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.

@WitcheryDivine really enjoyed this analysis and agree on the SW doing some kind of game of consequences.

the only thing I’d add is that Brian sounds EXACTLY how my dad did when he (looking back) started declining. The tetchiness, the random-ness. As with others I’m unclear if that’s what the SW are intending but I can understand that Kate/Alice/Adam might be coming to that conclusion - however they are doing so with no other info, which of course we as listeners do have.

I really liked the WI insert - a great new(old!) place for characters to hang out. Personally think it was a bit stilted in this instance but would like to hear much more to bring this group together.

im only a couple of years older than Pip and she’s being incredibly annoying. And I was confused about why she turned up at the WI just to tell Ruth she wasn’t coming in…? Did I mishear that?

I liked the tradwife comment between George and Amber. That seemed like good seeding/scriptwriting to me.

Our local WI is a "young" one with an average age around 45. They do so much cool stuff.

@Hercisback for clarity - I meant ‘old’ in the sense of the Archers heritage ie that we are revisiting a place from the Archers past - not that the WI is archaic or irrelevant at all.

The SWs have Adam saying "power" more times than Tom said "waxed jacket" the other day. How coarse.

Adam sounds like the one with dementia, rather than Brian.

It all feels very chaotic at the moment. One scene a PSA, the next an implausible succession drama.

I liked the scene at the school, though. It was nice to hear the radio people doing ordinary real life things, and not just at the tea room or pub or village shop. For people with small children the school is a big part of the daily social interactions.

Absolutely. I’d be giving him a flea in his ear not the keys to the kingdom.

He certainly sounds demented 😆
What's going on with Ruth? One minute, she's angsting because all her children are going to die of breast cancer and it's all her fault and she's practically a murderer, the next she's manically telling her one child who has had an actual cancer scare to cheer up and stop worrying because everything is absolutely FINE. Is there no middle way?

Awful Adam sounding gleeful at any hint that Brian might be in decline.

Kindness Assembly? God help me! DD's school used to have an attendance tree - if you'd been unlucky enough to be ill, you didn't get a gold leaf.

It would be quite a turn up if Adam is the one going dotty.

Adam's not mad, he's just one of those rather stupid people who think they're clever and cunning. They can be quite entertaining in real life, assuming you're not living/working with them ... but not for long!

I like Adam and I think he’s believable.
I think he initially stuck around to support his mum, for good reason given what Brian has come up with over the years.
Now he’s getting older and in a committed relationship with a young child and presumably a mortgage etc. At almost 60 he has no idea how the farm etc is going to work out. I can understand his frustration and his need to get things settled. He can’t just bugger off to Patagonia.

I agree. And Brian has been only too happy to use him when it has suited.

Whilst I think Brian and Adam are as bad as each other, it is awful to hear Adam using concerns about Brians possible dementia as an opportunity. And I cant stand that nit wit husband of his.

I assume there were no elections in Ambridge last week. Not a mention of politics, although the SWs very understandably may feel there's no point as they wouldn't be able to script something that wouldn't sound out of date two nanoseconds later.

I may be unfairly stereotyping, but I would imagine Borsetshire might be an area where Reform would do well. Can't see the Greens getting too many votes unlike my London borough where they have seized control after decades when we were a one-party Labour council.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g i suspect we live very close to each other!

Aha. We're south of the river. I bored my brother senseless over the weekend by blurting out at regular intervals 'I can't get over our election result!' He was understandably more interested in what the SNP will do now.

There was a brief mention of the elections - Brad took Bert out so he wouldn't Miss His Opportunity To Exercise His Democratic Rights. Possibly outshone by tohfoo stirfry.

I think massive energy and water consuming data centre - or possibly a horrible warehouse. It's been a while since we've had a protest relevant to local communities everywhere.

Pointless just had a question about The Archers! You had to name any of 70 actors who were in the cast picture the BBC did for the 70th anniversary. Only three actors were scoring answers: Tamsin Grieg, Patricia Greene and June Spencer. Here's a link to the picture: https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/medipacks/archers-70th-anniversary I could have won the enormous prize of £1500 and I expect many here could too. The youngsters who'd reached the final ignored the Archers question and went for naming fruit and vegetables grown in the UK. Lightweights. (They did win, with butternut squash.)

Who's the Xander actor. He looks such a happy chappie. Obviously not a chip off the old block.

Andrew Wincott. My memory for names is awful but I could have dredged up at least three. (Not that one, I knew he was Andrew but had to google the surname.)

Oops, sorry, you said Xander, not Adam. As you were.

I had the exact same conversations with my mum about the pendant, except she wasn't quite so grumpy.
I am so sick of being preached at by breast cancer PSA, WI, Kindness assemblies. I mean every now and then is OK, but it's a constant stream at the moment.
there are less sermons in church!!

Aye, I did.
Adam 👬÷2 . Xander 👶

I hate Pip.

Could we have a PSA on how to get Pip dedded? Show not tell preferred.