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!

Agreed. I fear they’ll patch things up for a while.

there needs to be some BandAid ripping.

And ... isn't Fallon making herself vulnerable once more by going into the employ of an Archer who can drop her on a whim like the Bridge Farm lot did?

She had prospects at the Bull beyond "just being a pub chef." She's going part-time too at the same time as she's going to be single.

I'm glad I looked up what a lengthsman is - they used to be responsible for a "length" of road, canal, or railway line and it included everything from repairs to litter picking. Can we bring them back? Every time I see a road sign with all the text peeled off, or completely obscured by vegetation I tell anyone who is in the car with me "this should be a specific job, travelling around an area and making sure stuff like this is sorted out!"

I seem to remember pre-speaking role Tracy being this sort of of awful tarty woman who would occasionally be the butt of a joke - people would say things like "did you see poor Male Character cornered by Tracy Horrobin at that party on saturday night" or whatever. I know that I thought "Oh, here's the legendary Tracy" the first time I heard her 😄

@PuggyPuggyPuggy I wonder if the US virgin is a lineman ..as in Wichita Lineman? (Which I will be singing all day now)

I dont know abput virgin (version typo 🤔) but i know an actual linesman. He climbs up the poles to fix electricity wires and is on call for power cuts. I suppose it will be phased out eventually as lines go underground but I think it's quite well paid judging by his lovely house etc.

@CaptainMyCaptain ... I think that's probably a lineman, not a linesman. The army (Royal Signals) used to call the lads who went up poles to fix the wires linemen. I don't know if they still exist, as it's all techie these days.

My neighbour goes up poles for SWEB. He’s been electrocuted twice this year! Very dangerous job by all accounts

Oops yes I meant version!

I'm not sure whether in Ireland they were officially roadmen or whether that's just what I called them. Long replaced now by crews with a JCB, much less effective in many cases than a man with a shovel and a slash-hook.

The two that I knew best were both very bright guys who had left school at 14 because that's what most people did then, and contributed to their communities in ways that went beyond the job. They also both owned their own houses. Getting a permanent and pensionable job, even at a General Operative salary, enabled long term planning. A system that left people from poor families with fewer choices, but left them respected and included in the society where their roots lay. Good? Bad? I dunno.

The guy I know certainly exists and still does that job but it might be lineman rather than linesman.

i used to be in the signals. Lineys were bonkers. (often got electrocuted on account of not putting the earth spike in correctly. And one at least ended up severely disabled (one arm and leg amputated, ended up a paralympian) (and i always thought the Wichita Line(s)man was the same thing, fixing the telegraph wires)

Susan defending her father, on that occasion, is deeply wrong and Neil needs to make that clear to her.

I'm with you, I think Bert Fry each time as well.

Underground cables also break, so the job will still be there, it'll just change how it's done.

Ooh, yes I have wondered what the wichita lineman did... so many of life's small mysteries being cleared up!

When Susan was explaining about her horrible grandfather, I got quite confused about the generations... for a moment I thought she was talking about someone who was Bert's father, but also her mum's father. I know people are pondering whether Susan and Tracy have the same dad but a casually dropped in incest storyline was not what I was expecting 😂

The Witchita Lineman (no s in it) song was inspired by Jimmy Webb driving through Oklahoma and seeing mile after mile of telegraph poles stretching along beside the road, with a man at the top of one of them talking into his phone. Then he named the song to be in a place with an interesting name because Glen Campbell had asked him for something place-named to follow on to his 1967 version of Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix".

But that's not the same job as an English lengthman, because I don't think those were responsible for fixing telephone wires. That would have been GPO engineers, or it always was when the phone lines got tangled when I was a child. That used to happen quite often to an aunt of mine who lived at the end of a long lane, and she could always tell when a branch had fallen on the telephone wires and made them touch each other because her phone started to go "ting ting ting" all the time as the wind blew, and she couldn't ring the GPO to report it because the phone wasn't working. She would get on her bicycle and cycle slowly up the lane until she found where it was happening, and then go to the neighbour next nearest to the village to ring in and report the fault, and a man would be sent out in a van with a long telescopic rod to push the branch off the lines. If it was a dead branch that was it; if it was a live one he had some very long handled sort of secateurs to chop it off with. I used to watch fascinated, from what my aunt deemed a safe distance.

I remember how delighted my aunt was when tech moved on and instead of two wires which had to be kept apart, the line became a single wire and never tangled at all. It still might break, of course, and then get caught up in a car's wheel as it trailed along the road. Living in the middle of nowhere had its disadvantages.

That's what I said a lengthsman did. Ours had brushes, shovels and a wheelbarrow in his pickup, plus things for cutting back overhanging brambles and other vegetation.

Tracy was still an awful tarty woman when she did start top speak. Trying to get off with Iftikar; deciding she was going out with Roy even though he wasn't in the least interested; out clubbing with a hunting overtone.... She was presented as a man-eater and predator, and a menace, when she first came to Ambridge. I think she also got sacked from her job as a school dinner-lady for manhandling a child, or some such. And she supported Keith even when he set fire to the Brookfield barn, and was vile to Emma for having "shopped" him when he had put at risk the lives of Emma and her children, who lived very close to the barn.

Then they rehabilitated her for some reason.

Chelsea has smeddum

smeddum scottish meaning - Google Search

Wish we had a drought where I live in the north of Scotland! Can't get anything done outside because of the constant rain. It has also been a poorer and cooler summer to date than many I have experienced, with maybe half a dozen properly hot days.

Again surprised to read this back story.
Tracy now (have I been spelling her name wrongly as Tracey???) seems one of the best people in the village!

Yeah, she was a right one when she was younger!

It’s lovely sitting out in the evenings and nice to go for walks then and still be warm but depressing to see the garden fade and die. We can water it without hoses, though it takes ages, but the sheer heat has finished things off. And then poor farmers…

I wish we could even things up a bit!

Swap you some sun for some rain!

I was just adding some details.

I'd forgotten / missed / blanked out all that stuff about Tracy.