Archers thread #203: It's Affair Cop! 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 would love to attend Pip's wedding with Natasha and the starry twins, 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.)

Starting the new thread a bit early as I'm not sure I'll have much internet access for the next few days. Fill up the old one first. And then - over to you!

(Credit for the thread title goes to @TripleSulko.)

No one needs to be given away - but it’s stretching things to call Pip ‘middle aged’!

Stella said she wouldn’t ask her brother to perform that role because he’d turn the whole thing into a clown show.

But I really want to say I hate the new way they’re writing now - setting something up today only to bring it crashing down tomorrow. Several examples I’ve forgotten - but obviously David and Stella.

My heart’s already breaking for Hannah - and I don’t even like her …

Where is Hannah's new house supposed to be? She's always been a bit of a tragic figure but I could never warm to her after the awful way she initially treated Neil (I know it was a long time ago but I love Neil and I harbour grudges).

David's reaction was hilarious. No one likes hearing their child slagged off but Stella had a point. Cue Ruth telling him to get ovah himself.

Oh! Don’t know where the house is that Hannah has offered on, but:

Fallon & Harrison have a house to sell.
Josh could inherit Glebe Cottage any day now, and may not want to keep it.
Lynda and Robert might consider selling a portion of Ambridge Hall to secure their future in the rest of it.
Or she might battle Fallon for possession of Rex’s boat.

I don't think Josh inherits anything until his parents die?

About Josh. Was the wedding date set before he left? Where does he get the money to fly back, girlfriend or no.

Back to Brian gloating about the demise of vets visiting in person because of tech putting them out of a job. Where did he dream that one up? - Alastair should have said I'll remind you of that when you want someone to look at a rutting stag's hoof on a Sunday morning.
I know this is down to the SWS, but the whole expense of vets full stop and because of corporate takeovers is quite old news.

Expecting Josh to fly all the way back from Patagonia at £££ to his loathed, spoiled sister’s wedding when he’s only been there a few months is ridiculous. Let the man live his life!

Oh and 200 guests (including the new doctor, who’s not a friend to either bride) is such a stupid waste of money.

I wondered if all the vet storylines are so that Alistair can decide he wants to set up his own practice again and leave Lovell James. If in fact that's something he would be allowed to do.

In real life I'm sure he would have signed a non-compete clause and couldn't start a business within many miles of Ambridge, but I suppose that's no guarantee that he won't at least try to do it!

David would never behave like that!

Oh god, I don't suppose Ruth is going to give Stella away and Rosie is going to lead Pip down the aisle on a unicorn ...

I am quietly cheering for Josh. The farm inheritance was not handled well so he has gone to make his own way elsewhere, good for him. They simultaneously seem to not want him involved in the farm but also to drop everything if they need help on the farm, without offering him a secure future in it. While a 3 way split of the farm was not going to work and they had to decide who to leave it to, and maybe the dreadful Pip was the best choice, they were all pretty awful to him. Ruth and David have always been over the top with favouring Pip while Stella and Pip seem to have no sensitivity towards him with their smug attitude about the farm inheritance. It would be really expensive and probably inconvenient for him to come to the wedding, they drove him away and now they want him to come back with a snap of their fingers.
I do think Josh is a pain in his own way but he has been poorly treated here.

I can understand David being annoyed with Stella, I didnt get on with my mum,but I would hate if anyone slagged her off.
Don't know why they are calling Josh selfish. I find weddings are a pain in the arse anyway. You only have to look on MN to see how much upset they cause.
You might as well go off somewhere and get spliced on your own and tell everyone when you come back. Its suppose to be between two people not the whole world if you see what I mean.

I've just got a feeling that Josh is going to turn up at the wedding - at a crucial moment - with big news of his own.

Thereby stealing Pip's thunder, and ruining her big day.

David’s reaction was so ridiculous it made me really angry. He’s like a toddler. It just felt like the SWs creating drama for drama’s sake. Who actually cares who walks Stella down the aisle, if anyone?

it feels like the SWs are desperately trying to drum up massive anxiety about the wedding being a disaster - and then everything will go fine and it will just be another incredibly dull damp squib, see also: George and NYE

David never had any time for Josh anyway - didn’t he clean out his room and turn it into a B & B space before he'd barely left it? He and Ruth spent the whole time slagging their own son off, sneering at his efforts to build a business, and comparing him unfavourably to the Sainted Pip.

Quite why he's claiming to be so offended by Stella speaking badly of Josh strikes me as a bit rich.

I thought David’s reaction was completely understandable - I actually felt sorry for him. It’s one thing to get frustrated with your own kids from time to time, hearing someone else slagging them off is another thing entirely. I also thought Stella’s reaction was out proportion - does it really matter if he’s there or not with 200 other guests! I like the idea of him turning up and stealing Pip’s thunder - like Meghan Markel announcing her pregnancy at Eugenie’s wedding!

I actually wonder if Stella’s outburst might make David rethink who he’s actually leaving Brookfield to.

@madcats, Pip isn't middle-aged, she's 33. Stella is 14 years older.

Josh will turn up with an obviously pregnant Mrs Josh.

like Meghan Markle announcing her pregnancy at Eugenie’s wedding!

Main character syndrome?

When the marriage goes tits up, she'll get ...

Alistair is 64 and might not particularly want to start a new surgery before he retires.

It wasn't exactly a case of David clearing Josh's room before Josh had left, because he made Josh do it after Josh had moved out but while Josh was still expecting to come back after a year; Josh and Ben started to move to The Stables at the end of August 2022 in order to house-sit for Shula (but they had to pay rent). On Josh's 25th birthday, in September, David made Josh sort out stuff of his that David had fetched down out of the loft, and told him he couldn't put it in his room because that was going to be used as a B&B room, and he'd have to clear that as well.

From the unofficial synopsis for 13th September 2022
"A clear-out is underway at Brookfield; David has cleared Josh's stuff from the loft into the kitchen in fifteen boxes, [in spite of everything having been cleared from the attic by Jill in January 2015. Chris] and requires Josh to sort through the boxes and take away anything that he wants to take with him when he moves out, with the rest going to the tip. On my birthday? asks Josh incredulously, but David is determined. "

Since Josh didn't manage to finish the totally unexpected chore that day, David allowed him to put some of the boxes into his room, and that was when David bashed into the skirting-board and uncovered a hole with a cache of Kenton's adolescent stuff in it dating from 1974, including a diary which Josh read.

It should be noted that attics in Ambridge and the surrounding area can be emptied as often as you like, if a plot requires something to be found in an attic that space will have been refilled with everything that was in it before the last time it was cleared. The move to Northumberland that didn't happen saw all its contents brought down from the Brookfield attic and disposed of unless their owners said they wanted the things; there was an entire dreadful sl about a toy farm that was given for sale at a bring-and-buy, recovered from a dustbin or some such, and then convinced David that he didn't want to move after all. Yet that attic was still full of Josh's childhood stuff seven years later. Similarly Lower Loxley roof was completely replaced not just once but twice, for dry-rot and for deathwatch beetle, and the attic had to be emptied each time for the work up there to be done, yet it could still be mined for all sorts of things after that: pictures, valuable brooches.... I am surprised nothing of vast sentimental value from Anna's childhood has yet turned up in the attic at Glebe Cottage despite her never having lived there as a child. See also a cricket bat from the 1940s being found in a cricket pavilion that was not built until 1982 (in a cricket ground that also did not exist in the 1940s).

I’ve been in hospital having broken my neck. Hospital acquired pneumonia and a temperature of 40 degrees caused hallucinations. Unicorns may have been involved …………

What fun the wedding is going to be.

Eek! Hope you're on the mend now.

@ExitPursuedByABare 😱 I’m so sorry. Sending best wishes for your recovery.

@ExitPursuedByABare , you poor thing. Hope you are recovering.