Archers thread #202: How are you finding your visits to Ambridge? Fill in your feedback forms 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 think working as a hotel receptionist is a perfectly reasonable career choice for a graduate from a family with a stately home, 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-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.)

Over to you!

I am worried about Alan, he must be really stressed to have reacted in that way.
Hoping that Pat doesn't wade in insensitively, but she probably will!

I'd be pretty stressed if someone smashed my window. A very scary thing to happen. His reaction was reasonable and restrained in the circumstances.

But does George know how it works? I don’t think there’s any evidence to show that he knows he’s doing anything wrong. His work experience is mixed and patchy, he has always lived at home, and he has the strong influence of Eddie in his life. I think it’s entirely possible that he hasn’t even thought about it. If that makes me snobby, so be it.

I can't believe people think Alan's reaction was too much!!

If 2 yobby gobby teenagers had played cricket near my house and smashed my window I'd have given them a hell of a lot more than Alan. I'd then expect their parents to be contacting me offering to pay and a good amount of grovelling from the kids, no excuses.

Yet again the repulsive Khalil seems to be treated with kid gloves and get away with bad behaviour.

I agree with @ExOptimist, though Alan's vehemence was out of character, so I wonder if this foreshadows oh.................fill in the bizarre character-bending SL of your choice.

I do like Khalil though.

Go Alan!

And bloody Pat. Of course someone is going to be pissed off if their window is broken. And if it was out of character for Alan then Pat should realise he might be stressed. And of course you shout at kids who hit a ball through your window!

What was Pat even doing there?
Although I suppose she could have been just having a wander around the village on a fine Autumn afternoon .

Alan sounds like he's at the end of his tether.

What's going on with him? Some sort of crisis of faith maybe?

I don’t think Alan would have shouted in that way normally. He would be quite sanguine about it and use the incident as a life lesson. The shouting and rage must be signaling something. Rather strangely, he didn’t say ‘it’s my day off’ which is what vicars in dramas always say on a Monday.

Joelene seems to have accepted that F and H’s marriage is over very quickly after having been so disbelieving two weeks ago. Wheels turn quickly in Ambridge. F is probably right about not moving out now but she could feasibly go and stay at the Bull for a few nights and get a bit of respite. Was H noticeably that different in front of her with Leon? I thought he saved the boys banter until their chat at the Bull.

I hope when Pat goes to have a go at Alan he tells her to get lost. How can you be out of order telling two boys off for smashing your window. I'd be furious too.
Oh but let the kids get away with every thing and not be responsible for any thing, that a good idea. Kahil is really getting on my nerves.
Fallon is very stubborn. It was her idea to spilt so she should be doing just that instead of moaning to her mum.Not everyone has somewhere else to go, she is very lucky that Harrison isn't saying that he is paying the most of the mortgage she she should go. Its not as if he will be chucking her out with nowhere to go.

I don't think Pat was there. After Alan's tongue lashing the boys went 'home'.

Yes, because Henry used the goats' hooves as an excuse to escape, leaving Khalil to answer her questions.

I thought Alan’s reaction was entirely understandable- a window being smashed gives you one hell of a fright. Pat was ridiculous, not least because she just seemed to automatically accept Khalil’s version.

They described where they were playing cricket as being “near” the vicarage so it can’t have been that much of a fluke.

Happy September, everybody, and a belated thank-you for the new thread.

Quite how Khalil has managed to get to year 11 without being beaten up for being a horrid little !* is something I might ponder for the rest of the week. I know teenagers can be annoying whilst they start to have a go at adulting, but he really deserves to have at least one redeeming feature.

It is disappointing that discipline is no longer a thing in Ambridge. Henry and Khalil aren't 10 anymore. They deserve a bollocking from Pat AND both sets of parents. I'd have them both weeding the graveyard and raiding their piggy banks on today's likely INSET day.

I thought Alan’s point was well made - it’s not just the cost of repairing the window, it’s the time and and inconvenience of clearing up, getting a quote, waiting in. I don’t understand why the boys didn’t go to the cricket club to play. I think Alan’s patience has been sorely tested recently - with Carol and Anna - this was probably the final straw.

If they were playing "by the river", as the synopsis says, they were either in the vicarage garden or on the village side of the Am, where there used to be a football practice ground (not a football pitch, just a knockabout space).

Did Henry hit the ball right the way across the river and the vicarage garden, not to mention past another house? Were we told this? And did the boys have to sprint round across the bridge to get to the scene of their scarifying, or was Alan shouting at them across the Am? Or did Alan do the sprinting to catch them?

Oh well, at least it isn't likely to be as expensive, or as divisive, as the window Alan smashed.

I’m not sure that we’ve ever known Alan’s age, but he must be late ‘60’s by now. He and Usha will get booted out of The Vicarage in a year or two, but there seem to be plenty of seemingly empty properties in Ambridge. Alternatively he and Usha could evict Brian from Blossom Hill Cottage or put in an offer for Woodbine?

Ambridge deserves “sexy vicar”!

Ambridge has already had vicar in affair storyline.

They'll follow the Ambridge trend; since she owns Blossom Hill Cottage, Usha will rent somewhere else to live in.

Alan's daughter Amy is the same age as Alice, so she was born in about 1988, and Alan must be at least 56, but that's all we have for him. His wife Usha was born in June 1962, is now 64, and has never been noted as being a lot older than him, though, so they are probably much the same age and we won't be quit of the bore for a while yet.

(Usha's actor was born in 1948 and is now 78, but that's not really relevant.)

So far Khalil has-been very rude to Lynda ( originally) Justin, David and Ruth ( recently), and probably others I've forgotten - but always the "darling child" and the victim. Where is his respect for his elders? If this is not building up to a massive telling-off by his parents, I'll be incredulous.

Shark. Jumped.

Justin Elliott seeking hair and beauty treatments from the local village sole practitioner?

Not flying to a Swiss spa for his annual health and fitness tweaks?

Or even a discreet place in Mayfair?

I’m sorry but either I am wrong or the SW is. And I am not wrong.

Oliver Turner is quite new - and young. He clearly has no idea at all of how Justin was introduced to us, or (naturally enough) how oligarchs live. Even when they’re exiled to Ambridge.

Is it my imagination or is The Archers getting sillier by the day?

Pat's always been a bleeding heart liberal but come on, why on earth is Henry's grandma going to see Alan? I was very glad to hear him standing up for himself and saying what he said about Henry.

As for that ridiculously unbelievable crap with Lilian and Justin, what a total waste of an episode. I've now got a vision of Lilian with an immoveable botoxed face, trout pout and puffy pillow cheeks full of filler. No 80 year old man is going to be thinking about having cosmetic treatments or dyeing their hair, unless they're Paul McCartney or Elton John.

TBF, I found it quite amusing, since the chemistry between Lilian and Justin is good. It's also in keeping with the ludicrous way the "village oligarch" has been having moments of inspiration over the last 2 years: at least it's internally consistent in its silliness. As to Chelsea, it does sort of make sense, since her horse box was parked on his drive for doing up for all those months.

While I have no doubt he might allow her to trim his hair once or twice - as an act of patronage - there is no way on god’s earth he would have asked her to do anything major.

Justin would have a regular barber - probably in London. He might frequent the health facilities at Grey Gables, simply because they’re there, but otherwise I’d imagine there’s somewhere exclusive in Borchester.

He would be familiar with all the best health and beauty spas across Europe (he was married to Miranda, after all!) and if anything needed improving in his appearance that would have been happening organically over decades at somewhere terrifyingly expensive and discreet.

Absolutely true - of course he wouldn’t suddenly notice he looked old at this advanced age. The Justin we first met was completely in charge of everything in his world - why have they ruined him?

The very least Henry/Pat/Helen could do is offer to pay to have the window fixed.

I did have to laugh when Pat said to Alan "I know it's a pain..."

I agree with @LillianGish that the window breaking would have been just too much for Alan coming on top of having to deal with Carol and Anna - in the middle of trying to deliver a long phone message to the former, as well.

I'm not really feeling the dislike here for Khalil - nothing he has ever said or done has come from a place of malice.