Archers thread #204: Is Vince mince? 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 have liked to hear more of Pip's and Stella's wedding vows, 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.)

Several people on the previous thread, and probably the spoilers thread, have rhymed Vince with mince, so credit to all of you! As I start this thread, we don't know what's going to happen to Vince, and it's looking as if Sunday night is going to last all week, or a good chunk of it. Ah well. We have to put up with this kind of thing every few years. I cling to my belief that the SWs aren't going to kill off another of Elizabeth's partners in a horrific accident - but of course they could be toying with us!

Josh has returned from Patagonia sounding strangely changed by his time abroad. (Angus Imrie is presumably too busy, or perhaps fed up with the limited storylines given to Josh up to now, so the part has been re-cast.)

Will the Brookfield inheritance row start up again now? I do hope so. Josh has been very badly short-changed by his parents' decision to leave the farm to Pip (and Stella). Surely they could have taken the same approach as Pat and Tony and involved both children (with separate provision for Ben, who's not interested in a farming career)?

Over to you!

I think Vince's injury was deliberately avoided in previous episodes to create suspense about what was wrong. The questions asked by others were all generic 'How's Vince' type and no one seemed to know anything beyond him being alive. Elizabeth's reply to Lily was scripted evasively too re 'all the tests'. I don't think it has come out of nowhere to Elizabeth and Vince.

Waves to @piscofrisco. Elizabeth has not lost her memory. The Archers usually takes place in real time, but the storm happened on Sunday which then went on for days. Her forgetting what day it was was an in-joke for us listeners and also an opportunity to make it clear that we had now caught up and were back to real time. Lily has been referencing the time her mum was depressed after Freddie went to prison for drug dealing and she (Lily) had to take over at LL, hoping Elizabeth is not going to have a repeat episode. Freddie is much loved on here - sort of a Nigel in waiting, if only he could be allowed his rightful inheritance.

I love Freddie. He’s one of my favourites.

So far I’m liking new Josh. Obviously Pip is still dreadful.

I wonder how they will explain the not walking again. If it’s a spinal injury they are very hard to clearly diagnose this early on. The swelling from a severe spinal injury can take months to reduce so a full prognosis just isn’t possible to begin with. I suppose that fits with ‘might not walk again’ as the Drs just wouldn’t know at this point.

waves back :)

maybe he will grow on me but my first impression is that he is too big for his boots and cant yet be trusted with running anything!
I see re the storm and the memory-that makes more sense now!

This is slightly the point with Freddie @piscofrisco. He is permanently overshadowed by his competent twin sister who was pipped to the post in the inheritance stakes because she’s a girl. In so many ways she would better suited to running LL. Freddie is about to earn his stripes by running Vince’s abattoir, but, as many on here have pointed out, I’m not sure how many transferable skills there are between that and a stately home. Lily’s experience at GG (and indeed at LL when her mum was depressed and Freddie was in prison) feels much more transferable. It’s a great story arc - Freddie and Lily are like Nigel and Elizabeth respectively and Lizzie was the one who saved LL’s fortunes for Nigel. Freddie needs to find his own Elizabeth, but seems disappointingly asexual, having had no relationships to speak of.

Would have been better if stupid Pip had left a scarf behind, not car keys. And how thick is she not to have noticed she had forgotten them? Thank God she is going to Iceland and we won’t have to listen to her next week

Well none of that has endeared him to me.I like Lily. Freddie comes across as bratty to me. Am I going to get kicked off the thread now? :)

I feel the same about Freddy (and I didn’t like his dad either!)
You’re quite safe not being a Freddy fan here. Saying you want to hear more of Pip and Joy on the other hand….!

Welcome @piscofrisco We're a broad church on this thread. As long as you come to loathe Pip then you'll fit right in. Detest Jolene and Ruth and we will be besties.

I'm partial to a Penguin dunked in coffee.

Penguin is, and has always been, a biscuit. Whether it contains any chocolate is debatable

I think it must be very hard being Freddie Pargetter with no hope of ever coming up to the standards of your golden child twin sister. I see Lily as Perfect Peter to Freddie's Horrid Henry. It's a fabulous dynamic. Not easy for Lily either, as we started to see this week. Elizabeth has a tendency to lean hard on Lily who knows that however perfect she may be, it will never be enough to overturn the rules of primogeniture.

I do wonder if in weeks or months to come, the fact that only Vince heard the consultant’s prognosis will mean the story could change a little. The whole point of Elizabeth wanting to be there was so that she, not drugged up in a hospital bed, would take in more of what was said than the patient.

So possibly there was some element of hope, or as @PatChaunceysFruitCakesays , no concrete diagnosis because it’s too early to tell. Vince might only have heard ‘might not …’.

Although, firstly they slightly over egged things with ‘Just about the worst news I could get.’ I was afraid he had been lying flat all week and had been told he’d lost all movement from the neck down.

And really, (sorry if this sounds cruel, it’s not meant that way) Vince is in a better position than most in TA if anyone’s a candidate for a wheelchair. He’s wealthy and surrounded by people who care about him. He doesn’t need to be able to walk to run Casey Meats. He doesn’t need to be able to climb into a tractor, or be winched into a tree. He can buy all the most advanced aids, rather than having to sit at home waiting for the NHS to supply him with stuff they dug up from the 19th century. He won’t lose income from a zero hours contract job. He won’t have to battle for State aid. If the LL flat doesn’t have a lift Elizabeth will find a spare building to convert. Or she could move into his palatial home - finally moving the LL story on.

Whatever happens, I am quietly confident that Ambridge health fairy will see to it that Vince is not permanently disabled.

I also thought that Vince would manage his life ok in a wheelchair, then slapped myself.

Having recently broken my neck and having to quash thoughts of how much worse it could have been I’m a bit conflicted.

Gosh, I hope this story won’t be too traumatising for you, @ExitPursuedByABare.

Seconded.

Archers characters with disabilities and chronic health conditions, in addition to those mentioned above:

Dan Hebden-Lloyd had juvenile arthritis, but it went away as he grew up, which is apparently quite common. He was able to pass his Army medical with no issues.

Type 2 diabetes - Walter Gabriel and Mike Tucker, I believe. Mike of course already had a missing eye, but carried on with his life with scarcely a mention of his disability, never mind any obvious effect on his daily life .

Mike, Pat Archer, Elizabeth, Will Grundy and Ben Archer have all had episodes of depression.

Jack Woolley developed dementia and ended up in The Laurels when Peggy couldn't cope with caring for him at home any longer.

Jack Archer was an alcoholic and he died in a sanatorium, presumably from directly related problems (before my time as a listener). His granddaughter Alice is an alcoholic now but has managed to remain sober for some time.

Khalil is in remission from leukaemia. Ruth is in remission from breast cancer. There has been remarkably little cancer in the village otherwise.

Helen had clicky hips as a child but is fine now. She had an eating disorder which seems to be under control these days.

Elizabeth was born with a hole in the heart and has had some problems since.

Alistair is addicted to gambling and goes to Gamblers Anonymous.

Christopher Carter was born with a cleft palate which was successfully sorted out with surgery.

Tony had a heart attack some years ago but seems to be fine now. Betty Tucker died of heart disease, and so did Jennifer.

Brian got epilepsy after being kicked in the head by a Grundy cow, but it went away (also apparently perfectly possible).

Very few of the extremely elderly village residents have problems with deafness and I don't remember any having cataracts, macular degeneration or any of the other common problems of old age. It's at the back of my mind that possibly Marjorie Antrobus had something.

I don't like him either. He whines a lot, isn't very bright, has just as great a lack of self-awareness as his sister, and seems easily led. I wouldn't trust him with a listed building and its historical contents, partly because he seems completely oblivious to history.

I got the hint that Something Bad was going to happen - just caught up on two weeks of episodes. AIBU to have hoped that some sort of large-scale disaster might have occurred? I was secretly wishing that when the Orangery roof fell in, maybe Pip and at least Keira would be in the direct descent of the chimney, I find them both very annoying.

And yes, Freddie’s whiny voice is intensely irritating but it does lend credence to the idea that he’s a spoilt entitled brat who definitely isn’t ready to be entrusted with LL.

Surely the shock of the storm plus the death of her old friend Carol will be too much for Jill?

Honestly, the way TA is produced nowadays I wouldn’t be surprised if Jill’s death is announced in a throwaway comment from Ruth Oh, yeah, David said the same at Jill’s funeral a couple’a months ago …

Didn't Jill stop driving because of cataracts. And Leonard broke hus wrist because he went out cycling.

I was expecting someone to come along with a JCB or something and move the tree off Vince and for him to die of the toxin release from a crush injury before the ambulance got there.

I do think having him in a wheelchair would highlight accessibility to Lower Loxley, most of the old farmhouses, the Bull, St Stephen's, maybe the village hall, etc.

Lo Lo needs an Austen adaptation to use it as a film location to help pay for the orangery.

And nearly every Archer has an incurable disease, they're stupid!

I’m ok thanks. Enjoyed Blunkett’s Archers moan in today’s Daily Telegraph.

@AgentKim , Penguin is a biscuit. (goes soft when stale)

Vince will be healed by Joy but he'll waddle like a penguin.

I hope a volcano will erupt in Iceland. While Pip is at the summit.

@piscofrisco , only the absence of Freddie is annoying. Lily is annoying

KitKats used to be Rowntree. You could rub the foil so the wrapper was embossed. They were two fingers not chunky.

Jill had surgery for her cataracts after nearly driving into someone on the farmyard. Shame she didn't run Pip over.

Disability is difficult to do well on radio IMO, which is probably why it doesn't appear much in TA.

I'm surprised they've not done a TV location SL. It would be ideal for a cameo appearance.

I am secretly hoping Chelsea will get together with Freddie at some point. She would sort him out as well as LL. He could do with her down to earth good humoured brand of common sense and she would be a brilliant lady of the manor. Plus she is way too good for Josh.