Archers thread #201: Tempting fête in Ambridge? Free entry to 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 love to administer Bert's mucus medicine, 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/5538836-the-archers-spoilers-thread-12-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.)

There's a fair amount of stuff going on at the moment but I don't feel inspired to say anything more about any of it for now. Over to you - I hope you all have more enthusiasm than I do!

Seriously?

He blasts into their house shouting the odds, accusing them of all sorts, claiming the savage dog did nothing and was the victim and they, the livestock owners sitting in their own home, show him what the dog he's defending actually did and 15 year old gobshite is the victim?

Hell no. David and Ruth are annoying but they are not in the wrong.

Hear, hear.

I think Azra and others need to bear in mind that they had the trauma of seeing the real thing, not just photos, and they had to deal with shocked and distressed animals in considerable pain.

If I were Ruth I would be wondering whether there was any recourse via the surgery manager and GMC. Azra has overstepped her professional boundaries and turned a patient into a friend. Then when the friend does something she doesn't like she weighs in, with her blocked S-bend of a husband, and piles on the pressure. Now Ruth is worrying that the situation will affect her health and her family. Azra and BSB should be sorting out their entitled little shit (BSB Junior) of a son, not taking out their distress on practice patients. But Ruth won't.

It was ridiculous. They treat him like a baby.

I think of Khalil as one of those slightly teenagers not really yet adult. He has had a more sheltered life. I'm not surprised he is having sleepless nights from suddenly being shown graphic pictures of the sheep.

Khalil was wrong to go to Brookfield, but he was upset.
Ruth was wrong to show the pictures, but she was upset.
The parents were trying to understand what had happened, they were upset too.

A mess all round.

I don't think Ruth was wrong to show the pictures, Khalil needed to see the reality of the situation. I don't think David was wrong to put posters depicting savaged sheep up a few years ago either. I say that not liking Ruth or David very much.

Still photographs of the aftermath of dog attacks on livestock used to be shown fairly regularly (eg every couple of years) on TV news programmes and in local papers. Has that really changed? Unless Ruth showed him video clips I can't see what the issue is, Khalil presumably knew about why it was important to always have a dog under control before he was let walk Monty in the first place.

I remember being a bit shaken when some bright spark (fellow pupil, not the teacher who clearly also found it quite heavy) though it was be a good idea for our biology class to walk down to the abattoir and watch the slaughter and initial butchery of cattle - I was probably 15, though might have been 16 - but after pondering for a while didn't think it unacceptable to know the reality behind my food choices.

And didn't complain about it once I was back home.

I think if Akram and Azra had actually heard Khalil shouting at David and Ruth they’d realise why Ruth did it. I think she was probably wrong to do it, but understandable.

Also, have they spoken to Khalil? (Sorry if I missed them saying they had). Or have they infantilised him further by going to speak to David and Ruth without him even knowing?

They would do better to support him - both with what he saw and his very emotional reactions - instead of going round telling people off!

There were photos of mauled lambs on every gate in a certain bit of land in the Lake District about five years ago. My DD was about 6 and obviously asked some questions but it’s sadly part of the countryside and I’d rather she knows what can happen. Did not even occur to me that she shouldn’t be upset or complain to the National Trust!

So George is now the kind of fellow who goes around dropping off bunches of flowers to old ladies? He’s an excellent actor so can get away with it but it seemed a bit unlikely. Then I started wondering if may be this sort of PT common is when n’er-do-wells are on the brink of fatherhood and they convince themselves, and others, they can be a responsible, decent person. Then for many reasons things fall apart later. Any thoughts on this? I don’t know enough about it.

No.

He is big lad shouting at an older man and woman calling them liars etc. I'd have done the same as Ruth (if it had got as far as that, which with me if wouldn't have)

They should have told K to go away ir they'd call the police.

K's parents mollycoddle him (fairly understandable) and that is part of why this us all A Big Shvk to Ma & Pa Malik.

Linda, after initial shock disbelief and denial has been excellent. None of this was her fault (i suspect the teenage guests somehow enabled Monty's escape).

I wondered about this. I want the George character to be a better person all round and not a deadbeat dad. Oh, hang on... Keira will sort that one out.

Funny how Kate's being a shit or even less than even reasonable mother never gets expressed in TA's narrative.

Doesn’t their son work for the doctor, championing mental health following his own issues - wonder how he will react to his mother’s actions.

I think the flowers for Linda from Clarrie were to show that the farming community can see both sides and have sympathy for Linda - I do too.

I liked George’s Peruvian Lily errand.

Mostly because unexpected conversations are what makes TA interesting - and I don’t remember the last time I heard a conversation between George and Lynda.

Also it adds another dimension to Clarrie. (Possibly invented on the spur of the moment by the SW, but still …) It’s not often we get to hear of her performing simple benevolence towards another (and socially ‘superior’) villager. She’s eternally either doormatting at Grange Farm, or trying, with as much grace as possible, to stop her friend(s) and former employers stamping all over her.

@echt Funny how Kate's being a shit or even less than even reasonable mother never gets expressed in TA's narrative.

I think because Phoeble mostly grew up with her dad and Hayley, and we have no idea what went on with the (subsequently abandoned) children in South Africa, it was all pretty much eye-rolling and "Oh well, that's Kate for you!"

It does seem to be a feature of Jennydarling's children, though. Adam leaves 99% of the parenting to Ian, Alice ... well, the less said the better about her, but luckily Chris is very hands-on ... and Debbie has no children.

This. Precisely this.

@muddyford , "blocked-S-bend of a husband"! Brilliant! 😂

@DeanElderberry , do UK biology classes do dissections? An incident I recall from high school was later named "Swine Lake": some boys took their foetal pig and dangled it out the window by the strings used for attaching it to the dissection board, performing some sort of marionette show for the MFL class in the room below ours...this was cut short by the students in that class grabbing the pig and cutting the strings, so the boys had to go downstairs, knock on the door, and ask for their pig back...

They're signposting, to me, that George will revert to his misogynist ways shortly after the birth of the baby.

Yes, I don't think saintly George will last. He's acting a role, he knows how people are meant to behave. But when he's sleep deprived because of the baby, and something goes wrong, he will revert.

Listen to the words he uses.

David and Ruth's reaction made no sense to me. David saw the savaged sheep on their bodies still warm or in their needing to be PTS state.
He wouldn't be apologising for distressing a strapping 15-yr old lad who'd burst into their house shouting at them.

(FWIW, my father left school at 14, which you could in those days. )

Ideally, during the birth, for maximum listening amusement.

Cripes. I don't know the answer but back in the 1970s we certainly observed dissection in Biology lessons once or twice. I don't think we ever had to do it ourselves. I took Biology to O level but not A level. I have a feeling the A level classes did do dissection. Nowadays I suspect it might be more a case of watching a video online.

I remember older classes did abattoir trips.
(with a number of short term vegetarian conversions afterwards). They also dissected frogs and locusts. By my year we were allowed to dissect…. An egg (uncooked).

I did biology O level and A level in the 70s. At O level we dissected an eye, probably a pig's. At A level we dissected a whole rat over the course of several lessons. The smell of formaldehyde made our eyes water!