DumTeeDum - A show about BBC Radio's 'The Archers'

George cracks

This week’s podcast is presented by Stephen and Jacqueline.

We hear from:

· Jade from Australia who wonders whether Stella may be perimenopausal;

· Witherspoon, who thinks that Alice is back sooner than he expected;

· Katherine who has a question about school;

· Jessica, a first-time caller-innerer, who has a thought about George;

· Andrea who doesn't normally enjoy drunkenness on the radio;

· and finally Globe-trotting Richard who enjoyed Friday's episode;

We also have emails from Heather, a first-time emailer-innerer, and Helen from Hampshire.

Plus: we have the Week in Ambridge from Suey, a roundup of the Dumteedum Facebook group from the mystery voice and the Tweets of the Week from Theo.

Please call into the show using this link:

www.speakpipe.com/dumteedum

Or send us a voicenote via WhatsApp on: +44 7810 012 881 (07810

012 881 if in the UK) – Open the WhatsApp app, key in the number and click on the microphone icon.

Or email us at dumteedum@mail.com

How to leave a review on Apple podcasts: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/podcasts/pod5facd9d70/mac

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Duration:: 1h 2m
Broadcast on:: 04 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature, whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to, or the succulents that adorn our homes. Nature makes all of our lives, well, better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it. But the outdoors is closer than we realize. With all trails, you can discover trails nearby and explore confidently. With offline maps and on-trail navigation, download the free app today and make the most of your summer with all trails. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announce they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up front for three months plus taxes and fees, promoting for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month slows. Full turns at mintmobile.com. This is a Royfield Brown production. Find others on Apple Podcasts. [MUSIC] Hello, this is Dunty Dun. A weekly podcast about the archers and the goings-on of Ambridge. I'm Jacqueline Bertho, who would always prefer quiet Sherry with the girls over any hen-night shenanigans. And I'm Stephen Bowden, seen with North on display. And then there's you, our lovely Dunty Dumbers, watching out for the green wellies because they're the most dangerous. Welcome to Dunty Dun, a place to talk about the things that are happening in our favourite borsch of village. This week's scripts were written by Naylor Ahmed, and she finished on a real high with Friday's episode. Coming up, we have calls from Jade, from Australia, who wonders where the stellar might be Perry Menopausal. With a spoon, who thinks that Alice is back soon as I'm expected. Kathryn, you have a question about school. Jessica, a first-time caller in her, Hooray. Hooray. Who else I've thought about George. Andrea, who doesn't normally enjoy drunkenness on the radio. And finally, globe-trotting Richard, who enjoyed Friday's episode. We also have emails from Heather, a first-time emailer in her, Hooray. And Helen from Hampshire. Plus, we have the weekend ambush from Sui, a roundup of Dunty Dun Facebook group from The Mist Street Voice, and the Tweets of the Week from Theo. But before we start talking too much, let's remind ourselves of what happened over the last seven days with that roundup from our Sui. And an advocate for Sui Queen Altar here, and a roundup of this week in Ambridge. Well, what a week. Most exciting, Lee. We got a bit of Jill, though proper grumpy Jill. As learned this off in the Lake District, but she was in two-clock night about missing him. Drama was happening with the hen night as the previous venue had electricity problems. Whole thing moved to the Barnet Brookfield. Come on, shout out who had that on their bingo card. George and Jassa, who was in the Alice in Linching, Bob, and made his feeling known in Alice's hearing, brought over Shae's lounges. They all knew how to pronounce longnges, naanjes. But we were all right, there were many, many cushions. Jill was designated stunt granny to stand in for a leaner's two grannies. Black Thai she was provided so she could put bees on her cupcakes. Then she interfered with Alice's ingredients because she's a granny. And you don't need to be a granny's behaved battery. Emma's forthcoming fortress birthday will have a cake in the shape of a chainsaw, courtesy of Fallon. Pictures were taken and George looks like a wet weekend in a run-down seaside, which is Roosevelt on the English Riviera. There was much talk of Tilly Button, and Hero George turned down her advances because he had a problem. He's a bit young to erectile dysfunction, surely. Martha lost her giraffe. Searching went on and on, and Hero George found it. It's clearly wearing very thin as Hero Millarkey. Oh, Lordy, the drama of the veterinary went on and on, with Paul being stroppy and whiny. Jakob had enough and words were said. Not sweary words on the BBC, obviously. Lillian sent over posh biscuits, so it all is right with the world. Even Jakob, no cake for me, managed to have a biscuit. Jakob took Paul out to dinner, and Paul admitted he bottled his feelings up. Well, with that as bottle in the mouth, I don't want to hear the floodgates open. The stables are going ahead with their opening on the same day as the fate worse than death. Mindy Bottom is a very disjuffed about it, despite not actually being an official part of the committee, because she resigned, remember? Chris and Brian discussed their hopes that this round of rehab will have worked. Brian thinks that Alice should change her police guilty, but Alice is having none of it. She remembers George's voice. Brad's 18 involved drinks in the bowl in a very hard-hearted fashion. George was a bit off, but no one is quite sure why. At the Hindu, it was a grieve that Permer should just show George that she's there for him in a non-judgmental way. Non-judgmental. Permer, in other words, non-judgmental are just not words that sit together in the same sentence. On Friday, we got an excellent episode with George admitting he was driving the car and moved Alice and put her seatbelt on in the crash car. Yay, and the cider bottle came out as a proper clue. Emma promised not to tell anyone. Then probably said we have to go to the police, or Will, or Ed. Everyone should promise not to tell. How does that kind of work, Ed? Well, I guess we'll find out. Have a good week then, everybody, and we'll see where we end up. [Music] Thank you for that excellent round-up, Sue. Yeah, brilliant week, and how was your week, Stephen? The high point of my week was definitely last Saturday night when I was at Wembley Stadium, seeing Bruce Springsteen on the East Street band. I'd been waiting more than 40 years to actually get round to see Bruce do a concert, and he did not let me down. It was three hours of absolutely fantastic music, all the best songs, all the songs I really wanted to hear for the possible exception of racing in the street, and it was just excellent. And the seats, which the best I went with, had got the tickets, was really, had been really apologetic, all terribly sorry, we're miles away from the stage, etc, etc, etc. They were actually really comfortable, direct line of sight to the stage, so we're looking at end-on. We could have been way up on one side looking at our shoulders, and it was much more comfortable than being stuck on the pitch with everybody standing and everybody holding their cameras up and not being able to see, which I've done before at other venues. So I was very happy with that. The only downside was I picked up a bit of a cold at the weekend and ended up staying home from work for a couple of days during the week, which is fine under normal circumstances, but when you've got people in building you new ensuite bathroom, it's a bit of a pain. And so I was hidden away in the sitting room while they got on with it, making noise and generally doing buildery things in the rest of the flat. And has it been hot there? It's been beautiful. It was possibly a little bit too hot for comfort outside, but it's basement flat, keeps cool. Yeah. And then in the evenings, it's just been absolutely idyllic weather, and perfect temperatures are getting outside, just down for a walk. Great. That's brilliant, isn't it? How about your week? It's been very, very hot here. The farmers around me have been harvesting the wheat, so we've had a lot of tractor noise day and night, which is part of living in the countryside, and actually it's very lovely to know that things are going on, especially as we had severe weather warnings for Wednesday and Thursday afternoons for storms, because here it's a bit like in Cornwall or the west country, you get three days of very hot weather, then you get a massive storm. And so I was at the vet's when the massive storm broke, and water started pouring in everywhere. So that was exciting. So good week. That's more than enough of about us. Let's get on with two of the important bits, which is you, our lovely cholo in a res. Who are we starting with? We will be starting with Jade from Australia. Good. [BEEPING] All right, Busca. Hi, Jacqueline, Steven, and Dumpty Dummies. It's Jade from Australia, colouring in. I'm about a week behind, so I'm calling in about Stella, and I think it will still be relevant because it's a bit of a longer term prediction, I guess. I don't think it will be resolved this week. I noticed that a few people have been commenting on her change of character, and that I also noticed her change of character, in terms of being less confident and a bit more anxious. There's not being enthusiastic about the Hindu, and I wonder if she's entering menopause. I don't remember if we ever got down to establishing what age she was, but I think it would be really cool if the archer did a storyline about menopause because it's something that I think a lot of women don't know much about, and it could shine a light on the fact that it can have impacts on people's careers, and especially someone like Stella who's been really confident, and yeah, the big change in hormones can have impacts. So that's just a prediction from me, and yeah, I wonder what you all think. Okay, hope you have a great week, and hopefully I'll catch up next week, and then can call in with some more topical things. Just a tiny edit to my previous message. I should have said menopause is something that a lot of people don't know much about, and I think it would be great to shine a light on this thing that many suffer through without understanding what it is. Bye! Thank you for that call, Jade, and I guess I should probably include myself in the many people who don't really have a grip as a menopause. I have had friends who have been through it, but obviously nothing more direct. In terms of Stella's age, I think when she first arrived, we worked out that she must be around 45 years old, give or take. So a few years on, so she's in her late 40s at the moment, so I think that means that she is in the right age range for the menopause, and I guess it's possible. I'm not sure that there was anything that I've heard from her, which made me think that it was that sort of thing that she was going through. I think she's just been rewritten by the script writers who had her as a very competent manager who was able to run rings around the bausage at land, bored, and now for whatever reason to fit the demands of the glass and the relationship with Pip and so forth. I decided that isn't who she is, which is I find a bit annoying, almost as annoying as I find the treatment of the geography of Ambridge over the whole car crash storyline. But I think that's just one of the things that we have to put up with. Well, very good thoughts there, Jade. I agree with you. I think the things that we're seeing, the changes, it could just be script writing, and Stephen says, but it could be the start of a menopausal story, because the perimenopausal would normally, for most people in a normal range, would start for any time from 45 onwards, and women who are 45 to 50 are classed as perimenopausal, and it's only after you've not had your periods for a year, that your class is having gone through the menopause, but the effects are very long-running for a lot of people, and to have a menopausal story in the archers, especially one coupled with a same-sex relationship with Pip who's much younger, and who has a young child, and Pip's not even 40 yet, so she will perhaps be as un-understanding, or not understanding of what Stella would be going through as a perimenopausal woman, as a husband might be in a heterosexual relationship as the other half. Male partners that might not understand what a woman's going through, it's often female partners and female friends as well, don't understand, because some people suffer incredibly, as some people breeze through it. I know there's an archers menopausal group on Facebook, I don't belong to it myself because I'm way beyond all that, but I know several people who belong to Dumte-Dum are part of that group. The one character who might have quite a lot of advice and helped offer, who's very close to Stella, is Ruth, of course. Yeah, exactly. She has been through a lot in that sort of space, she had a very late pregnancy which Miss Carried, she's been through breast cancer and had a mastectomy, and she will have been through the menopause herself, so I think she's probably a very sensible person for Stella to talk to, if that is indeed what's happening. Yeah, a good call and be an interesting way to go back to normal everyday stuff. Next up is a very familiar sound. Greetings Jacqueline, Stephen and all Dumte-Dummers around the world. It was Spun and I guess Hack is here. We're still in Germantown, New York where the weather has been wonderful, and I'm thoroughly enjoying my break from the city. The rolling hills, meadows, and farms here remind me of what amperage is, of course, in my mind's eye. I'm color-intering after Tuesday's show, so there's much more to unfold this week. I promised myself not to talk about Paul, Alistair, Denise, and Jakub. This week marks the return of Alice. I thought she would stay in residential treatment a bit longer. I was also very surprised that there was no family therapy done while Alice was in treatment. And boy, it's clear that the family needs it. First, Chris has been awfully sweet and caring, and I'm at my peak liking of him. On the other hand, Brian, while well-intentioned, has exhibited his controlling traits, which have negatively impacted not just Alice, but all the adult children. Maybe that's why Debbie took off for Hungary. Jennifer, for all her good traits, was also a controlling parent. I was quite peeved when Brian repeatedly referred to "we" having to change Alice's plea. Brian also seemed more concerned about what other people think. I was glad that Chris stood with Alice. I wouldn't have been surprised if Alice bolted and sought a drink, so good on her for staying calm. I wish there was mention of her going to daily AA meetings. One disappointment from Chris. Come on, man, stop and put the puzzle pieces together. Alice said she has memories of George's voice on the night of the accident. Everyone else involved in the accident was in a different car. Corman Strike would already have had a chat with George and solved the case. Talk to you soon. Thanks for that call, with a spin. I'm glad you've got out of the city and are enjoying the countryside around Germantown. But your call or suggestion about Alice shows that you are a city boy, because daily alcohols are how colleague anonymous? How did we say that? Alcoholics anonymous. Meetings, you're joking. You are really joking in the countryside. You may be able to find one anywhere in a city, in a large city. But in fact, if you look, if we say for the area of the countryside, where we think ambush is situated around there, if you do a search just for those meetings, you'll find from the general area, there's at least a 40-minute drive to any alcoholics anonymous meeting. And the one that I looked at was 40 minutes drive from the general area. So we're talking about an 80-minute round trip. And the meetings are on Tuesdays and Thursdays evenings for two hours. If she hasn't got a car, there's no way she could be going to meetings. Yes, I suppose we can be lucky that Borsches might have an alcoholics anonymous location. We do know that Alice has been going to a support group, never named, and so it might not be alcoholics anonymous, but one that serves that purpose. But they never daily. Exactly. They wouldn't be daily. It would be weekly, perhaps. I think the general impression I got when she was going early on was that there would be weekly meetings. And she has her buddy to talk to. But didn't she tell Lisa about his buddy to sing a hook a while ago? So hopefully she will reconnect with her buddy. I think that having been through rehab again, she will have been able to realise that she needs to reconnect, as you say, with Lisa and I would have thought that that would have happened. And then family therapy. Again, that's not going to be so readily available as it might be in the US, because it's NHS, mental health, and all that sort of stuff is very hard to find. And if they went private, which I guess Brian would be willing to do, they would again need to find something. And there might be somebody who was able to do that in either Borsches or Felicia. But it's very hard, very hard to find. I've been through it. My daughter lived in, she was at the height of her addiction. She lived in York, which was a county town. And you'd think there would be all services available there. Certainly not. Getting family therapy was very difficult. And we had to go to a residential place, which was extremely expensive. But it was for families. So her father, myself, and one of her sisters went to have three days of therapy as a family to help her. But there was extremely unusual and we took about six months to get from the waiting list to go. It's not readily available here. It's very different. The UK is very different to the US. So thank you for that call with me. Next up, we have Katherine. It's Katherine. Two issues with the arches this week, it's Wednesday night. Firstly, will they stop telling Alice that she's going to go to prison? There is no way in her she'd go to prison. Firstly, she hasn't actually killed anyone. Secondly, she's got no previous convictions as far as I can remember. I know it's 11 o'clock at night. I don't think she has. But there's loads of stuff a patient can do with her. She's got an alcohol addiction. She's got a young child. There's no reason that that sentence, even if it did, passed the custodial threshold as they saw, would not be suspended. And be absolutely fine. She's no risk to the public. They'll do some sort of suspended sentence with conditions. That's my theory. Secondly, I was driving to Bournemouth the other day to go to the beach and drove through the village of Bremer if anyone knows the new forest. It's got a privately owned scrapey home that always reminds me of Lower Locksley. I think it must be just like Lower Locksley must be. And split seconds after driving past Bremer and thinking fondly of the archers, I went past the village primary school. Why is there no village primary school in Ambridge, I thought? We've heard of Helen going to pick up her daughter there, meeting her old mate. Finished primary schools are a hot bed of gossip, intrigue, favoritism, teachers liking one kid more than the other. That was favoritism. All sorts of stuff, PTAs, quiz nights, discos. We never hear anything about the primary school. The only schooling thing we heard really was Henry when he was going through the business with Rob. So what I was going to say was why primary schools not mention more in the archers? That's the end of my two questions. Stop saying Alice is going to go prison, she isn't. Why don't we hear more about primary schools? Thank you very much for that call, Catherine. And I'm sure you're right about the question of Alice's likely sentence and that she probably won't go to jail. But I wanted to focus in on your question about primary education. And as it happens, there's a paper in one of the academic archers volumes on this very topic. The booking question is Custard, Polverts and Kate. And the paper is called We Don't Need No Education, the absence of primary education in the archers. And this paper points out that the primary school in Ambridge closed in 1973. Now between 1970 and 1973, there was quite a lot of storylines around primary education which led up to the closure of the school. And then it came back again as a topic of discussion in around about 2000 when there was a proposal to close the school and merge it with a primary school in Holerton Junction. But in the end, after a long debate, it turned out that it was the Holerton school that was going to close and merge with Loxley Barrett, which is where the Ambridge children now get their primary education. So that's one of the reasons there isn't a discussion about primary education in Ambridge. There isn't a school there and hasn't been a school there for 50 years now. The other reason I think though is the lack of primary school age children. Because actually, if you take a look at the moment that the only two children that we know of that are of primary school age are Rosie and Jack. Now, Potty will just, I think, have finished primary school this year because she turns 11 in September. So I think she will have had her last year of primary school and we'll be going to secondary school for just a degree and presumably in this coming September. But other than that, we have a shortage of children of primary school age. And that, I think, is at least in part due to the failure of the program during the Sean O'Connor era to keep up with the proper flow of birth, marriage, and death. So there's a period during which nobody got born except for Jack because it was part of that editor's obsession with the Helen and Rob storyline at the expense of all else. Something that I have griped about in the past. But I think the answer to your question is twofold. One, the school closed in 1973 and the other is that there aren't any primary school age children to talk about. Who wrote that paper, Stephen? That paper was by Grant Bage and Jane Turner. Johnny Goode, good credits to them. Yeah, Bremer, I agree. I think it is an amazingly evocative, little, stately home, if you could use the word little. I've got friends who are funny enough living in the next village to it called Downton and it has no Abbey. So we used to laugh that Bremer is the replacement for Downton Abbey. But the school, it's always interested me that there was no school. I had an explanation from Stephen, but yeah. Also, not only do we not have those children of that age, they don't have voices. So that's always a bit awkward to get the conversations. But you're right about the gossip around schools and PTA's and all the rest of it. We did have, when Lee first arrived, didn't we, the judo group? We had lots of mums meeting to take the children. So that's how Emma and Helen were quite chatty and they all got a bit involved with that. So I suppose they've tried to replace that schooly atmosphere with that kind of thing, but that's all gone by the board now. Everybody's living there individualised with the grandparents who care for their children. The PTA is now back with her old school friend as a result of their children now starts north of Grandma's school. Lottie, that was it. That's the whole thing about Lottie's friend who's having the hen night. Elina. Elina indeed. Next up, we have a first-time caller in a row. Hello Jessica, calling from Germany currently. And a first-time caller in a and new listener to the podcast. I am wondering whether George is going to end up confessing to Emma, who's clearly gotten done something being wrong and is probably going to press him on it. And then we're going to have a period of Emma trying to put George off revealing the truth. Anyway, that would be frustrating but potentially an interesting storyline. So thanks for that call Jessica. First-time caller in a row and a very, very good call. I can't remember what day that call came in on. And Thursday. Wednesday, yeah. So yeah, you called it and it was Emma because I didn't think it was going to be Emma that you would confess to. I felt that Emma is too proud and she shows George that she's proud. But do we think that it was David saying to her, get your mommy's big pants on and go and talk to him? It's you that he needs. I think that probably was a lot of what made her approach George in the way that got him to finally to confess though she was a bit overwhelming, I think at times. And she's also darker, self-interesting, how whole. So I think while we're not going to be frustrated by her not wanting George to tell anybody, we have got this whole question about how she reconciles protecting George on the one hand and making sure Alice doesn't go to prison on the other. And that's going to be interesting. But one person she hasn't mentioned as somebody she could talk to or they could get this out through is Chris. Yeah. I'm wondering whether Chris is going to be the one because at times, I know they've had a tempestuous relationship with brother and sister. They don't always see eye to eye and Emma's been very, very nasty about Alice to Chris's face. So I don't know that Chris will trust her, but I don't think Chris will hesitate if he gets any hint of George's involvement. I think she makes some very foolish promises. I could understand him wanting, but you must swear, must swear. Personally, I would have never have done that. I would have said, "It depends what you're going to tell me. I'll assess the situation." But she's not a rational thinker, Emma. She went into panic mode, didn't she, as soon as she started to tell her. And it was all about, "Oh, I've been so awful about Alice." And I was so glad when George said that it was a brilliant bit of writing. Yeah, it is not about you. Because he was saying, well, I think all of us were thinking that Emma had suddenly made it all about herself. Yeah, exactly. But I have to say that, it is one of the best episodes I've heard for a long time. You were really on "Tentux." And you learned at the end how young and immature George is. When Emma asked what she could do for him, he said he wanted a hug. Yeah. And I think you saw the vulnerability there and the fact that the George that we all loathe is a facade that he has built up. It doesn't excuse him in any way. No. But underneath, there is a child still. Yeah. And the actor, Angus Sobie, is only 19. I assume he's acting a character who's only 19. So I felt that his vulnerability in the last few weeks was a brilliant actor. I do hope he goes long and far, not far away from the archers. But I hope he has a great career because he, it works. It's really worked him portraying that. That's a vulnerable 19-year-old who's a bit of an arse as well. More than a bit of an arse, yes. Exactly. But I know we all love to hate Emma. And Emma is such a complex character. But I get to name the actress is Emeralds. Hanrahan. She played a blinder with George as well. Her vulnerability came out. Her love for him came out. But also the total and absolute panic came out. So I thought it was a brilliantly, brilliantly played. Yes, and brilliantly written by Neva Rani. Jolly good. Thank you very much for that call, Jessica. Welcome to The Family. Those are our first few calls and there are some more to come. If you'd like to join in by calling us yourself, or dropping us a line by a message or email, Steve and his hits tell you how. And all the details are also in the show notes. The first option is to record a message or a clock prediction by going to www.speakpipe.com/duntydum. Now, we're still continuing to have our issues that speak by at the moment. But I hope that we will get it resolved soon. So at the moment, there is a temporary reduction in calling length to 90 seconds. If you do want to go to the full two minutes, then I suggest you just call back and add the last 30 seconds or so to your call, starting if possible, at the beginning of a sentence, so that we can edit the two seamlessly together, which has been the case with a couple of calls this week. Alternatively, you can send us a voice note or a written message via WhatsApp on 07810 012 881. And if you're calling from outside the UK, start with a plus four four and drop that first zero. Please keep your call to a maximum of two minutes, but you do get your full two minutes on that method. Or finally, we have an email address. You can contact us on if you would rather write to us with your views, a maximum of 250 words, please. And the email address is duntydum@mail.com. And so interestingly this week, we have had all four methods of communication. We've had speakpipe calls, we've had voicemails via WhatsApp, we've had a written message via WhatsApp, and we've had an email via the duntydum.mail.com email address. Anyway, do bear in mind you need to be at least 18 to contribute. Millions of people have lost weight with personalized plans from noon, like Evan, who can't stand salads and still lost 50 pounds. Salads generally for most people are the easy button, right? For me, that wasn't an option. I never really was a salad guy. That's just not who I am, but noon worked for me. Get your personalized plan today at noon.com. Real noon user compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, the typical new user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. 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Give it a try at Mint Mobile.com/Switch. $45 up front for three months plus taxes and fees, promoting for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month slows. Full turns at Mint Mobile.com. Now, let's get back to those calls and I think it's my near-neighbot, Andrea. This isn't it. Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen. And lovely dumped examples all over the world. And it's on beautiful Brittany. I'm calling in after, I think it was Wednesday's episode with Alistair and Jazz are having their tiddly talk. Now, I don't normally like it when people are acting drunk. I think it's really difficult to do well, especially on radio, because at least in the TV and films, you've got some kind of visual imagery as well to help carry it along. But I thought their birds did really well and it did make me smile. And I love Jazz's talk, especially it was so jazz-er. And him comparing Tracy to a coffee cream, I thought was wonderful. Speak soon, bye. Thank you for that call, Andrea. And yes, I thought that for a drunken conversation scene, it was better than most. I think that's probably because of the contrast between the three people involved in the conversation. Jim, Jazz, and Alistair are all very different people. And that's part of what gives that Green Acres household. It's real humanity. And I thought that that came out in this conversation with Jazz going into one of his not unknown ideas about extended metaphors and so forth. And the whole chocolate business. I think for me, the coffee cream was one I really liked quite early on. And it was the butterscotch, which is always the one that got left. This is in black magic. It was the butterscotch, which was the one that everybody else didn't like. And I suddenly came to like it, but cunningly, I would never actually have it until I'd be able to eat everything else. Because I knew that the butterscotchers would be there for me at the end. So they felt other ones. Well, there were other choices to be made. How cunning, I'm so glad you're not my brother. Not that we ever had chocolates, really. And I'm not a chocolate fan. So coffee creams, I might coat with one, but anyway. But what I liked about that conversation was that Jazz has started laying down the rules, didn't he? He was waxing lyrical. And then Alisa tried to describe his dating process and everything else. I thought it was quite a funny conversation. But what struck me is that this is two weeks running, we've had drunken scenes in the archers, which you've got contrast enormously with the Alice storyline going along at the same time, which is something that the archers do a lot and very well. Yes, I think there's a lot of alcohol in the archers. And of course, part of that is that one of the central locations for the whole series is the ball, which I guess is true of television soaps, as well as continuing radio dramas in that there's always a pub at the heart of everything, at the heart of the community. I guess we're going back to the Rovers, we turn. Yes, and I'm Walker. And the Queen Vic with... Yeah, oh yes, I know that. And she... There's a bar in crossroads, wasn't there? Yes, that was just a hotel, so it was a bit more... The difference. A bit different, yes. Now for our final call. And this one is from Loops watching Richard. Richard calling in from, as it were, Athens, what an episode. I did wonder for a moment about whether George's potential confession could get him off scot-free, but I don't think he can because his original crime causing a serious accident is a serious one driving without you carrying attention even if there's a reason trying to frame someone else. It's a really serious offence. The impact of the lie is something they'll take into account in the court. The timing of a confession, if any, is quite late. He will get some credit for cooperation and perhaps if Alice makes a statement saying, "Don't be too hard on him, that might help." But I do think that this might be George's nadir from this time on his status in the village, maybe on an upward trend. It would be nice, I wonder. I was glad to hear Chelsea and David and Ruth and Emma discussing how to support someone with mental health issues or to think about it all somewhat favorably. And of course, Chelsea is the one with the best appeal. Have a great weekend everyone. Thanks for doing the podcast. Bye. Thank you for that Richard. Yes, Chelsea, I think she's the one who's thought it was a very interesting conversation that she had with Emma when she suggested talking to David and Ruth because of the Ben issue. And of course, she was the source of part of the source of Ben's problems, wasn't she? Because she was the one who was pregnant and caused him the angst and the breakdown of his relationship with Ben. I think that makes it sound as if she's at fault somehow. I don't think that you could possibly blame Chelsea in any way for it. Ben's reaction to Chelsea's response to what had happened to them that triggered it, but in no way was that Chelsea's fault at all. See, I don't know why I tried to say these things because you expressed them so much better than me. I just say a nod and say yes, Stephen. But I liked the fact that she could still talk honestly with David and Ruth because can't imagine being the pregnant non-girlfriend of somebody's son and then being able to have a frank conversation with David and Ruth about other people's mental health to help Emma. And I find that relationship between Chelsea and Emma is lovely. It seems a much more healthy relationship than, for example, with Emma with other people. So I'm glad that and they're two generations apart, aren't they? No, they're first cousins. They're first cousins, are they? Oh yes, of course they are. Emma's sisters. Yeah, oh dear, blimey. All these families get confused with my own family. Like, somebody else is on the random radio program. Yeah, they are first cousins. So I understand more now that relationship because I've got close relationships with a couple of my cousins as well because we were. Although their age difference is enormous. Yes, they are quite about in age, but that's because Susan was both a lot older than Tracy. Yes, exactly, but yes. And Susan also got pregnant much earlier than planned. Yes, and unplanned pregnancy, which results in her marrying Neil. Whereas Tracy, I think, will have been older when she had her first child, which was Chelsea. Now, Richard talks about George's confession and his appreciation of the episode, which we've already said, yeah, we appreciated it. But the impact of his lie and how that, when it comes up, because it's going to be found out, it's going to be passed on, we know that will happen. It has to happen. Yes, it would be interesting to get Catherine's views on the appropriate sentence for George, when she said that Alice would not go to prison. And of course, it's likely now that Alice won't be convicted at all because George's confession will make it clear that Alice didn't actually do anything wrong, apart perhaps from sitting in a car with the keys in the glove box. And the police might take an interview of that, but I think I'll roll the circumstances. She will not get anything more than the lightest of warnings for that. But George, who arguably has conspired to prefer the course of justice, or at least if Emma doesn't act straight, she will be involved in this variety of course of justice, as well as the actual offenses of driving without insurance and of lying to the police and all that sort of stuff. So I'm not sure whether that would reach the threshold for a custodial sentence. But they do take the version of course of justice and other things that interfere with this sort of thing very seriously. And they would have to give maximum credit to any confession from George, and it would have to be a thorough one and as quick as possible. And then plead his young age and so forth as to why he didn't come forward sooner. And it's going to be tricky. I really don't know what the likely range of sentences might be. No, I've no idea. But also he is known, George is known to the police, because they had the incident guegables, didn't they? Yes, the bench. Yeah, the bench and they were taken to the police station and he told Brad to lie, and then he told... He then told the truth, but then did the police take, I guess, they let him off. So I think the question... They did let him off, but it's the fact that he is not unknown to them. I'm sure there will be somewhere in on some computer that he was in questioned about something. And Harrison knows all about him as well. Of course, Harrison does, but we're... Harrison's gone very quiet, so we're only hearing fell inside of the story at the moment. So yeah, good call, Richard, and I'm glad that you enjoyed Friday's episode as well. And on the last point on that, you suggest that maybe Alice might say, "Don't be too harsh on him." And I think that is quite likely. I think Alice knows that she's not completely innocent and the act that she was trying to do. Maybe he was trying to be kind with, without George, so much, but he was trying to be helpful and taking her home. Yes, and I think she'll be so relieved that her sense of herself is right in that she wouldn't have done that when she didn't do that, that she may feel therefore more open to being helpful to her fellow villager. Yes, exactly. Now, when we looked at Witherspoon's call, he mentioned Brian, and my first thought was when he's been so righteous and was so angry when Alice and Chris stood up to him. Because he has that controlling trait, as Witherspoon said. I, my first thought was when he finds out about George, what will his reaction be? Well, maybe the right thing for Emma to do is to go to Brian and say, "Brian, can you help? This is what's happened." Yeah, that's exactly where my thoughts were going, because I know that she could go to a mum, but you know what a mum's like. She could go in several directions, Susan. But I thought that Brian may be... And put it in the moment, because Emma and Ed are very much in Brian's books after the work they did here in the road when that tree came down. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So the rapport is already there. So, whoo, hold our breath. A plot prediction from Jacqueline, a rare thing. I think it's very rare, very... So, those are the calls. Thank you so much for calling in. We always say that this show is about you. I've watched you the listeners think, so please do tell us how the week was viewed ambrage and call in next week by any of those methods previously listed. Now, let's have a look at those emails we received this week. And the first has a subject line, the Jill Stella Pitman Party climax. And it's from Heather. It goes like this, "Dear Dumpty Dum, I think the script writers have been trailing some interesting developments for us. vis-a-vis the Pit Stella romance coming up to a one-year anniversary in the next couple of weeks. Pit isn't clocking quite how not into silly girly hen parties Stella is, as well as abjectly missing Stella's mild ambivalence to having, as well as abjectly missing Stella's mild ambivalence to have her life focused and ruled entirely by Rosie. Jill and Stella have had their moments. Remember when Jill self-criticized her own lemon drizzle cake as being a bit dry and wove-by-tide Stella for agreeing. After Kate Gate fills the frosty exchange over who cared most about sustainable regenerative farming, but Stella giving no quarter to Jill and Jill having none of it, all of which is a long way around to say I think we'll get a major match-up of incident at the hen party relating to one or more of Jill dying, Stella and Pip breaking up, Pip proposing and Stella saying no, and somehow Jill blessing Pip's gay partnership with Stella by saying Stella is all right really, and then once she's gone, Stella tells Pip something along these lines and they decide together to get married, with at best a very uneventful and quiet hen party of their own, Heather. That is a lovely message, I add lots of things in it. I'm going to go with the very last, the rest part of it, Heather, because you say that Jill somehow gives a blessing to Pip's gay partnership and Stella realises that yes, and we follow Stephen Bowden's prediction that Brookfield is in safe hands with Stella and Pip. Yes, it appears that the hen party itself didn't trigger anything quite that exciting, it did have a trigger the conversation between Emma and George, so we do have that from it, but Jill's sadly sounded very frail this week and that's been commented on, and I think that we do need to steal ourselves the possibility that that character will be dying fairly soon. Patty Green is suffering from macular degeneration, it's hardly harder and harder to read scripts, so she may be forced out of the program simply by the stresses of not being able to read scripts, which is rather important to do on a radio program, which will be a pity, and whether her final act would be to put her blessing on Pip and Stella's relationship. I think we still have to deal with the fact that as you say, Stella is expressing mild ambivalence to having her life focused and ruled entirely by Rosie, I think that's a massive understatement. Pip is absolutely blind to the idea that anybody couldn't love Rosie as much as she does and put Rosie at the heart of their lives in a way that Pip I think doesn't. Exactly, the hen party, having the hen parties brought up so many subjects around it, it's been this whole village seeming to work to help Chelsea and Fallon, the boys all delivered the shes long, and David and Ruth were involved with the preparing of their barn, Fallon, with the situation with Natasha, because we had nothing from Natasha this week, although all her stuff, and the appreciation of Natasha from Pip, which was ironically replied to by Fallon, I think there's a lot of stuff, but I think you're right, this could be Jill's finale. Swole song. Swole song, it could be expression Stephen. Our second email is actually a WhatsApp note from Helen in Hampshire, and it goes like this. Hello everyone, Helen messaging in from Hampshire here at 10.30pm Friday night after just listening to the Friday episode. Wow, he has finally cracked, all week George has been struggling with what he did and isn't it so exciting, now he has told Emma, goodness me, what will she do? What a difficult position she's in, and I really hope maybe she can drop enough hints maybe to Chris without breaking George's confidence so that someone else can piece it together. Fantastic acting, absolutely thrilling episode, can't wait for next week, from Helen. Thank you for that message, Helen, and yes, absolutely, and we've discussed it a little bit already, and I think that while Emma has ruled out saying anything to Harrison, to Will or to Ed, she still has some options and Chris, as you suggest, is one of those, and I think that she could perhaps persuade George that talking to Chris might be a sensible thing, so she doesn't need to drop hints, she can actually have a proper conversation with him, or as we were saying before Brian might be another person to whom Emma could go, and in some ways it'll be interesting to see how Brian reacts, because that would leave Brian eating a bit of humble pie of the opposite sort to that, that all of those who've been praising George have had to eat, in that they will be saying how wonderful George is when he wasn't, and Brian's been effectively saying how awful Alice was when she hasn't been, and when her determination to tell her truth has been vindicated, but none of that has happened yet, and it's possible that it all might get into a horrible mess, if they don't get her act together, if Emma can't find a way forward, and they get to the trial, you just think is still a while away, I would have thoughtly given the state of the courts, it'd be very unlikely, as a trial would come up in August or September, or indeed in 2024 or 2025, in reality. Yeah, exactly, in reality, yeah, it would be, I would have thought from what I read, it would probably be next year. Next year at the earliest, I think there's a sort of 18 month or more backup in a lot of courts, but you never know, it might be slightly different in borsature magistrates courts, and they might get heard in September, so we still got a bit of time for Emma to work out what to do, and how to get things straight. One of the things I hope is that when she decides who she's going to talk, she's not a deciding person, she's quite sure, deciding ahead that she needs to talk to someone, it will just blurt out, but what I would really like is that she and George go and talk to someone. Yes, but what is going to happen, I'm sure, is that she will say to somebody, "I really need to talk to you about this," and they will start talking about something else, and we'll have one of these irritating conversations where they can't, herveters can't get that side of the thing out, because the other person is talking too much, either about their version of the same thing, or about something continually different. Yeah, that is a very arches trope, and it's actually the one that really, really irritates, not just me, but a lot of people, I think. So I think that's all the communication from our lovely Dumpty Dumas this for this week. And as we've mentioned a few times now, Patreon backers of Dumpty Dum now get an ad-free version of the podcast. After positive feedback from our Patrons, we are now aiming to make the Patreon version available from around 6pm on Saturday. This is not however a guarantee, there may be weeks when other demands on Stephen's time mean that he can't do the edit until later. Patrons also get a weekly email about Dumpty Dum and the arches, and we're looking at more special features for those of you who are willing and able to support us in this way. Now if there's anything you think we might be able to provide us bonus material, particularly if it will make the difference between back in us or not back in us, please do let us know. All the money from Patreon goes towards covering the costs of making the podcast, including the subscriptions of the virtual studio and the attitude tools that I use. We're planning that any extra will go towards the Dumpty Dum get together. The more of you who sign up, the quicker we will be able to put a get together together, and Patrons will have priority access to tickets. So let's move on to Facebook and give a warm Dumpty Dum welcome to the following people who have joined our Facebook group in the past week. Nadine Daniel, Trixie Vickers, Ian Taylor, Claire Campbell, Gail Mitchell, Kath Pickles, Ruth Scheidhauer, Jill Dixon, Tim Barnsley, Rachel Beth Lovett, and Christina Hannah. And as ever there were also a few other people whose membership requests we had to decline because they didn't answer the questions. So let's hear what's been going on in the Dumpty Dum Facebook group this week with a round up from The Mystery Voice. Hello all, it's Stephen here with a roundup of a week's activity on the Dumpty Dum Facebook group, and there are no prizes for getting the most popular topic of discussion. It's clear that Paul is losing the sympathy of many Dumpty Dumas. Mary Finn said he may be upset and hurt, but that does not mean that his every demand should be given into. His mum is separating from his dad, it's sad but this happens. And how does it make it better for him to be demanding details and laying down the law? Sorry Paul, time to grow up. Jackie Bartlett tended to agree. He was screaming and making demands to know all the details as if he was the husband. And as for his giving conditions at his boss, as degree for him to stay, just who does he think he is? He's not indispensable. He might be good with the patience, but he's not the only one. Sarah Ferguson had some advice for one of the protagonists. Dear Denise, I hope that you can see quite how manipulative your son is being and that you hold your line, boundaries, put them in and keep them. He will kick, scream, sulk, give you the silent treatment, vilify your name. We all know how it goes. Whether you and Alistair make a go of it is not the issue, find your freedom, your freedom and don't be sidetracked. Bon chance. Richard Openshaw welcomed a new player in the story. Jakob is exactly what the tedious Alistair Denise Paul storyline needed. It has my attention again now. And he went on to say, now let me get this straight. Paul is upset because Alistair is now Denise's go to. That used to be Paul, and yet he had no idea that his parents marriage wasn't in a good place, despite the fact that his dad was not his mum's go to. Al Cam noted, Jakob is the only person speaking the truth here. And bless him, he just wants a quiet life. And on the subject of speaking the truth, Sarah Spillsbury noted, he's not so gently falling apart, which serves him right. That's George, of course. Helen Blackburn said, "I think Alistair's remembered, and George is in for a hard time in the witness box. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for it all to come out," said Claire Campbell. "George is a nasty piece of work. While on this occasion he was actually doing the right thing, a smack in the face of real life couldn't be better placed," Amanda Kightley foresees doom and disaster. "The Grundy family's world is going to come crashing down, even Chelsea's. She said she'd been telling all her clients she's related to George, and you feel her clients might disassociate themselves from her when the truth comes out." In other news, Nicola McIntyre was wondering about Vince's reference to his shoe size. "Vince? Size 12s? Do you visualise them as tall? I don't see them as tall enough to be size 12. I see them as five eight or nine." Barbara Williams is worried about nurture. "Oh dear. Jill sounds very frail. And our own Jacqueline has found loads of chainsaw and tree stump cakes on Pinterest. While Claire Asprey found a very interesting article to explain what all the fuss over no-till drilling, as advocated by Stella and Adam, is all about. And finally, Mike Jennings provided photographic evidence that he has been indoctrinating small babies into the geography of Ambridge and the surrounding area before exposing them to the archers omnibus. And on that bombshell, I will return you to the studio." Thank you to that mystery man. I presume you paid your twin brother a large amount of money to do that. I hope he didn't come out of the dumpty-dum funds. So thank you so much to everyone on the dumpty-dum Facebook group. If you'd like to join them, please do. But don't forget to answer all the membership questions so that we know you're a real person and we keep saying this. But even this morning, when I got up to start recording this, there were four requests which didn't have any answers to any of the questions. So I'm assuming they're bots. If anybody out there would like to write some review, please do. There's a link to the instructions on how to do this in the show notes. If you can't leave a review, or if you already have, the other thing you could do is tell three of your friends about us, even if they're not currently out as listeners. Who knows? It might be the start of a very long obsession. So we're moving on to Twitter now, where you will find us @dumpty-dum. Make sure you include the archers hashtag using a capital T and A. So the visually impaired who use screen readers can enjoy any archers based tweets. As well as @dumpty-dum. Stephen can occasionally be found at a when-lock house. And we can both also be found with the archers friends on Blue Sky, where I am at thewaylock.desplain.social. And I am @jberto.bsky.social. So let's find out who's on the Twitter medals this week. Tweet, tweet tiger. Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen and Dumpty-dum is everywhere. It's purple pumpkin here with tweets and skates of the week. And my thanks has ever to everyone who tags @dumpty-dum to make sure we see all the best ones. This week I'm sending these thoughts before the last couple of episodes of aired, so I'm hoping not to have missed all the best action. But for much of this week on Twitter and Blue Sky, we saw even those who were originally sympathetic to Paul, deciding that he needs to grow up and understand what constitutes an appropriate mother-son relationship. We were also all wondering quite how much Alice's memory will return, and wondering how best to silence Brian. Sarah Maddox @ Sarah_Mattox pointed out that Kate must have a hypnotherapist at Spiritual Home, who could do a regression on Alice. And a final area for wonderings was why it's always Canada when people from Ambridge go far away. As Miranda @appleandroid @ said, "Of course Tilly is going to Canada. It's one of the few locations known to Ambridge, and drag @dracknoysperson.bsky.social is sure Paul could get a good job in Canada." But now over to this week's medals for Blue Sky skates and exposts, all of which we continue to consider as tweets of the week. In bronze position, it's Loma Lindy 12 @LomaLindy12.bsky.social Well, George guilt at least shows you're not a sociopath. The silver medalist is Catherine Ramsey at K. Ramsey 1997. To shame Jim wasn't around in the early days of Charles and Camilla, they could have saved a fortune on a PR strategy. And the gold medal and the last word goes to Little Kim @LittleKim. You're both wrong guys. Denise is a mint imperial. Tracy is a Ferrero Rocher. And on that chocolatey note, that's it for this week. I hope to see you all on #TheArchers on Twitter or Blue Sky next week. Thank you for that CO and congratulations to all who are mentioned in this week's round up. Now don't forget we are also on Instagram @duntydum where I am vaguely active. On that note, please send any of the archers or podcast relevant photos to the Duntydum email and we'll publish them with credits to you. Duntydum@mail.com. We'll be back once again next week and recording at our normal time of crack of dawn on Saturday morning. So please get your calls in by midnight on Friday, UK time as usual. And as we come to the end of this episode, we need to say thanks to all our wonderful contributors and to the team of Duntydumas behind the scenes. And we need to say a great thank you to all of you who are listening to us too. We love making this podcast and sharing our love of the archers around the world. And we must say thank you to Kim Durham and Sunny Omen for their voices and our podcasting parents Lucy B Freeman and Roy Phil Brown. Thank you so much for listening and joining us today. We're now off to develop a real rapport with horses. So it's goodbye from me. And it's Aufwehr from me. [Music] Hey, it's Paige D'Sourbo from Giggly Squad. High quality fashion without the price tag, say hello to Quince. 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