Archers thread #199: Kaboom! The Aldridges are self-destructing, and it's GLORIOUS. 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 drop everything to help Helen create a new cheese on national minimum wage, 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.)

If you haven't heard last night's episode (Friday 22nd May) you really must. It's episodes like that that keep me addicted. Funny how often they involve the Aldridges, the most dysfunctional and also by far the most interesting family in Ambridge. Also very well acted on the whole. How lovely to hear Tamsin Greig in TA, but I wonder if we ever will again.

Some cracking posts towards the end of the last thread, which is here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radio_addicts/5518503-archers-thread-198-josh-sent-to-patagonia-pip-stays-put-wrong-way-round-discuss-the-archers-here

Over to you!

is that what Downton Abbey is like??? I had no idea!

It is PREPOSTEROUS. Constant high drama. Nobody gets to have a nice quiet life for long. I have enjoyed every minute.

I have just binged on ALL of Y Gwyll at the rate of 2 or 3 episodes per day. (On one particularly good day, I managed 4.) This started out as a means of avoiding all the stuff I really ought to have been doing, but soon became an end in itself. I have to say I have no regrets and it's the best thing I've seen since The Jewel in the Crown.

What’s going to happen to Alice? Is she going to be driven to drink? I thought it was quite sweet that alarm bells started ringing for Rex and he wasn’t afraid to try to step in when none of her actual family bothered or even really noticed in the past. I couldn’t understand what Stella was up to - did she offer to help Brian to try and get the lowdown and just to have the pleasure of knocking him back? She was right to remind him he was in danger of making the same mistake twice. What is the point of Martin Gibson?

According to Adam, he hasn't been sacked, because only the partnrship can sack him. Mind you, I don't remember the partnership being consulted about employing him.

@LillianGish What is the point of Martin Gibson?

Fairly recently - recalling the wife running off with the gardener and the golfing with very young women nonsense - someone to laugh at. He may think he strikes terror into the businessmen of Ambridge, such as they are (though I don't believe he does) but I think he's just filler.

Alistair’s sister is also a Lesbian.

And they can’t do anything too heart breaking to Kirsty - she has already:
been dumped at the Altar after parading around the village (I don’t think Tom even told her himself)
had a surprise pregnancy that ended in a late miscarriage

Alistair’s sister is also a Lesbian. Is she really? Pip’s conviction that she is the World’s First Lesbian is so wide of the mark. She isn’t even the only lesbian in the village.

Don’t forget to add to your list that she also married a man who turned out to be a slaver.
AND the poor woman has Helen as her best friend - god save us all from that misfortune.

I had to watch Y Gwyll for homework, which I found quite daunting, but it turned out there are lots of long stretches of moody landscape and nobody saying anything in any language, which I found hugely in its favour.

You've only got to be on MN for ten seconds to find that a sequence of catastrophes doesn't insulate the sufferer from more . Think of ghastly things that Kirsty hasn't yet had happen. I think the baby will be brought up by Eric and Kate (haven't thought of what would happen to lovely Jakob).

The aristocratic lady who tried to lure Christine was probably the first, and the two women in the new house who were immune to Jazzer's early morning milk delivery charms were well ahead of Anna or Pip.

There's a lot of it about (and always has been).

He had a period of being the good guy, supporting Zainab against the racist in the golfing club. Wasn't that one of those character transplants? My first memory of him (if I'm thinking of the right person) was him being horrible to Kathy when she was working at the club.

I wonder if Adam being fired will lead to a PSA on Angela Rayner’s new legislation that protects employees from day one of their employment now. Without that, I believe (though I am not a lawyer!) I think his new fancy lawyer would have told him his rights were limited as he has only been back at Home Farm for a few months.

Rex really overstepped offering to help Alice with the shopping and picking up Martha. They have been together barely three months- I really wouldn’t want a new boyfriend inveigling his way into the nuts and bolts of my life in this way. Nor would I want him policing my thoughts on whether I want a drink or not- esp if I was an alcoholic.

Rex and Alice won’t make it.

Paving the way for him and Kirsty to get together once the sparrow is born and Eric has flown away.

As Adam said, if he’s employed by the partnership, Brian is out of order and the partnership would have the right to take some appropriate action.

I seem to recall that the partnership was set up so that Jenny and Brian could outvote the rest of them. If Jenny left her share of the partnership to Brian, that situation won't have changed.

What real stress is Alice under?. Just her dad and trying not to have a sherbert.
She has a lot of support ie an ex who is always on hand with Martha, and also her ex in-laws. She works with her aunt so she can turn up late now and again and Aunty Lilian would understand. So all in all She dosnt need Rex to help with any stressful stuff, infact I think Rex is living on his nerves worrying if the least little thing will drive Alice to drink. Rex needs to back away from his relationship with her, its not good for either of them.
Martin's love life is good. He always has a "Lady Friend" so he is not lonely. I dont mind him now, but he was nasty not so long ago. Then he had an epiphany while with Justin at Christmas and he is much nicer now.

I think Martins date went wrong because he was being insufferable, and he was trying to put the blame on GG. I would be put off by a date complaining to the management and coming over all I Know The Chef and It’s Not Good Enough. Then bringing it up with all and sundry in the pub and buttonholing Ian… yuk.

To be fair to Rex, Alice is under huge stress with the family. What is going on is pretty massive. And things like the Ofsted Report can be unsettling.
But Rex got it very wrong by trying to offer practical help on things that Alice and Chris have got very well organised, and by panicking that she’ll drink. It’s not the kind of support she needs.

Alice told Rex she’d like to have a large glass of wine - I don’t think his concern was misplaced. I thought that comment was signaling her problems are far from over - otherwise why have her say it? Alice’s drinking was catastrophic - it was not just a case of the occasional over indulgence. She was drinking at dangerous levels over a long period, putting the health of her unborn child in danger and drinking herself into such oblivion that she was unaware whether or not she had caused a road accident. I think Rex was brave to pull her up on that comment rather than laughing it off. It’s not something to joke about. I imagine that as a taxi driver Rex is someone who naturally limits his own drinking - unlike the functioning alcoholics and heavy social drinkers in Alice’s own family (in fact just the sort of people who might have taught her that a large glass of wine/G and T/ stiff drink were the answer to the ordinary stresses and strains of everyday life in the first place!)

I disagree. If she’s going to meetings and actively working on her recovery, she may well be feeling comfortable and secure enough in her sobriety to make a throwaway joke about it. I know I would!

I think the SW put that in to make sense of Rex getting panicky and leaping into ‘rescue’ mode, rather than trusting her to make her own decisions.

This was my interpretation too.

@Agapornis , Adam vanishing to 'Africa' (did they ever mention a country?) for years, Kenya (pronounced Keen-ya by Jennydarling).

I can remember it being pronounced Keen-ya when I was a child. I think that was usual in the UK until independence in around 1963, so Jenny-darling would have had about 18 years of it. It wasn't a word that came up often!