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

Dear John

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

We hear from:

· Ros, who knows why Justin was getting mates' rates;

· Tracy in California who is appreciative of how the various stories are unfolding;

· Witherspoon without Angus Haggis who is pleased that Alice is in rehab;

· And finally Julia, a first-time caller-innerer, with thoughts on the whole Alistair/Denise/John situation;

We also have an email from Lilian McCarthy.

Plus: we have an emergency version of the Week in Ambridge from Jacqueline, a roundup of the Dumteedum Facebook group from Ben 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

Feedback on BBC Radio 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1WbP92b6YbpP9j4mwwbtc9Q/contact-us

***

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Duration:: 48m
Broadcast on:: 14 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Okay, you can do this. I know, I know, Karvana makes it so convenient to sell your car. It's just hard to let go. My car and I have been through so much together. But look, you already have a great offer from Karvana. That was fast. Well, I know my lessons played in "Vin My Heart" and those questions were easy. You're almost there. Now to just accept the offer and schedule a pickup or drop off. How'd you do it? How were you so strong in letting go of your car? Well, I already made up my mind and Karvana is so easy. Yeah, yeah. True. And sold. Go to karvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. They say opposites attract. That's why the Sleep Number Smartbed is the best bed for couples. You like a bed that feels firm, but they want soft? Sleep Number does that. You want to sleep cooler while they like to feel warm? Sleep Number does that too. JD Power Rink Sleep Number #1 in customer satisfaction with mattresses purchased in-store. And now, during Sleep Number's biggest sale of the year, save 50% on the Sleep Number Limited Edition Smartbed plus special financing for a limited time. For JD Power 2023 award information, visit jdpower.com/awards only at a sleep number store or sleepnumber.com. See store for details. This is a Royfield Brown production. Find others on Apple Podcasts. [Music] This is Dumty Dum, a weekly podcast about the archers and the goings-on of Ambridge. I am Stephen Bowden, who's still out with a plate meter, but I'll be back soon. And I'm Jacqueline Berthu, who had to Google "Nail Jules" and a teddy this week. And then, as you, our lovely Dumty Dummies, who are out shopping for the weekly music festival. Welcome to Dumty Dum, a place to talk about the things that are happening in our favourite Borsicher village. This week's scripts were written by Nailah Ahmed, who managed to sneak in some agricultural storylines. Coming up, we have four lovely calls, from Ross, who knows why Justin was getting mates rates. Tracey in California, who is appreciative of how the various stories are unfolding. With a spoon, without Angus Haggis, who is pleased that Alice is in rehab. And finally, Julia, a first-time cholera with thoughts on the whole, Alice to Denise John's situation. We also have an email from Lillian McCarthy, plus we have an emergency version of the week in Ambridge from Jacqueline, a roundup of the Dumty Dum Facebook group from Ben, and the Tweets of the Week from Theo. So let's start by going straight into the week in Ambridge. This week in Ambridge was brought to you by a lot of ducks and other cute animals, all ready to be exploited by George. And we had some very twatish behaviour from Justin, and yes, you've guessed it, George. Alice did with duplicitous in his long conversations with Paul, so he made my twat list too. It was also a foodie week, pastries and quasants featured along with chocolate-covered strawberries and picnic food. I don't know what that is, but I'm guessing that's what my sister calls "bage food". This gets featured heavily too. They have a biscuit drawer at the vets. Well, it's not for me, but each to their own. So the week began with those ducks, and a boat, and the picnic. Trouble is, we also had Alice and Denise all loved up. They've gone and done it, their relationship has been concentrated. Lucky for us, it was on Saturday. The weather in Ambridge this week was totally out of sync with the rest of Northern Europe, hot, sunny and dry. Perfect haymaking weather according to a nostalgic meal. George was a total twat about showing off his six pack and filming everything. Quite frankly, Ben, who was supposed to be on study leave, not enjoying himself in a haymaking field, was very patient with him, as was Neil. I might have dropped a bail from a great height, should I have been there. However, I was quite pleased to know that he was sunburned by the end of the week. The haymakers celebrated with beer and fruit cider, which seemed to tip George over the edge. We've surprised Ben and Neil, but not us, the loyal listeners. On Monday, it was Lillian's birthday. manicure and nail jewels apparently were quite a pick me up for her. I'm guessing she doesn't do much gardening or food preparation, nor much housework, the silent staff must do that. Justin is still slightly in her bad books. Carlotta is at the stables, and by the end of the week, she had properly pushed her silent feet under Alice's desk. Lillian is still agonising about Alice, and Justin was, well, British. He's still trying to get back in her good book, so agrees to anything at the moment. A word of advice, Lillian? Fill your boots. We learned a lot more about Denise and John's family life from Paul. I'm with Paul, I must be an old soul too. Curling up on the sofa with a giant bag of crisps holds much appeal. Tumble is, my dogs would be there before me, and fat nest of the cockers family, or is anyone's for a crisper too. Cara is offback packing cross Canada, so she'll be silent on the uproar that we know is coming. Buying more biscuits prompted Denise to announce the end of their marriage to John, who has become decidedly less silent this week. But only to us, he doesn't seem to have learned the art of communication with his wife. I agree with him, though, marriage isn't all fireworks and fifty shades of grey, thank goodness. When this was quite an episode, we had Joy, Jazza and John in the shop. The jump we're all concentrating there. Oh, and Joy's philosophical commentary along with those biscuits prompted Denise to tell John it was over. Joy was spying, and John worked out who was the viper in their marriage. Child care arrangements for Martha featured large in the Carter/Grendy households. Paul Martha, she must be feeling totally discombobulated. The BL board meeting was not the highlight of Stella's week. The crusty old men did what crusty old men do, we learned about green washing. Then she had to go for a drink with them, and had to turn down a Thai feast with Pip. And all she wanted was a slice of toast and to crawl into her PJs. We ended the week with David almost putting his foot in it. But he made up for it later in the day. Pepper and Stella had a giggle about the grooming required to be a humble farmer. But for once, it was actually quite sweet. Well, it wasn't totally quick, were they? All in all, we had more farming, more veterinary stuff, and more biscuits than we have had for quite a while. But there's still a lot of questions that need answering. Thank you very much for that, Jacqueline. And I should say that we wish Suey well in her recovery from dental surgery, which is what knocked her out this week. Yeah, poor Suey. She's really, really struggled. And she was expecting to be able to do the week in average, but the drug's knocked her out. There we are. That's an emergency cover. I hope I don't have to do that every week. So apart from that, how has your week been? It's been very rainy here. In between gardening in the rain, I've been dashing in and out into my sewing rooms. There's a trail of Madebu, her basic place. But other than that, I've been mainly based at home. It's been absolutely glorious for me. How about you, Stephen? I can hear Tangle's discombobulated, isn't it, Sue? Tangle hasn't been fed yet because we're recording so early. She gets fed at six o'clock, and it's not six o'clock yet. But she'll settle down once. She has been. She had to go to the vet this week. Oh, no. I discovered that she was having trouble weeding, and there was a little bit of blood in her litter tray. So I rushed to that. But it seems as if it was probably just some sort of cystitis in her bladder. And this is something that nobody knows what causes it 90% of the time. So she's been given some anti-inflammatory drugs. And she's improved, I think, though I suspect she's peeing somewhere that I haven't discovered yet. Yeah, so I could do with her here. I could do with her here because I think we've got a mouse in our cellar. And the dogs go in and out crazy. And then I keep thinking, why don't I have a cat? Dogsy useless. I'm not sure that Tangle will be much good with her mouth. She probably prefer to curl up with it, purring away rather than trying to eat it. Oh, dear. Well, all I want is to find out where it is. And of course, in the cellar there are freezers and other shelves with things on. And lots of places for mice to hide. So apart from Tangle's little problem, have you had a good week otherwise? I had to escape the house completely yesterday. The work on my bathroom and bedroom was a point where they were cutting into the concrete floor. Oh. And so the flat was going to be absolutely full of a lot of noise and also a fair amount of concrete dust, which has covered everything in the hall or my shoes and so forth. So I went for a long walk. I ended up walking 45 kilometres round Cheltenham. Good gracious. Good gracious. That's amazing. Well, well done you. They're obviously the couch to 45 kilometres is working fucking for you. Yes, I'm on the last week of couch to 5k. So I did a 30 minute run on Thursday, which I'd normally do on Friday, but I thought I'd go for the walk on Friday. So I took my run first run of the week a little early and then I'm running again tomorrow. But it would be a wedding to go to today. I was going to say after a wedding party, that'll be good, but it should be. Anyway, that's quite enough about us. Let's get on to the important bit, which is you, a lovely call or in a rush. And first up, after the familiar sounds of Lillian, will be Ross. Hello, Tiger. Hello, Stephen and Jackie, and everybody at Dumkey Dum. This is Ross from South Wales. I've just been listening to the latest Dumkey Dum episode. And Jackie was wondering how calm Justin was getting mate's rates. And my recollection is that before the key surgery thing was up and running, Emma decided to go off and have a chat to Justin about the pros and cons of it. And she thought she was going to have a conversation with Justin on the basis of friendship and was taken aback when he told her how much his hourly rate was or something for financial advice. And so they compromised, sort of, on Justin having an hour's work from them at some sort of discount when they were up and running. All of it suggests to me that as someone else was it Richard was saying, they should have got a proper statement of what they were going to do for him. She said that the alarm bell should have run then, I think, that there was no way he wasn't going to take advantage of them. So that's what I remember. OK, anyway, I do hope they get their business on a town footing. Otherwise, the next storyline is going to be when they go bankrupt. Yeah, take care. Thanks for all the interesting discussions. I do enjoy them. Thanks for that, Ross. Yes, you're right. Well, remembered on your part and it all rang bells when I heard your call. Yeah, I think they should. Well, as we said last week, they should have been a bit more certain with Justin about what the position was in doing that work. But Justin was an absolute, as I said, in my round of a rampage this week. You know, he's not my favourite character, oh, by a long talk. And he's definitely acting up with everybody at the moment. He's even letting Stella down this week. Yeah, Justin, he's a burden. Yes, and I'm still not convinced why Stella believes that he is sincere about the green stuff. I don't think that he's ever been sincere about anything up till now. But I might have a little bit more to say about that whole board just to land, board meeting business a bit later on after we've heard a few more calls. Connects. Next up, we have Tracy from California. Hey, Tracy from California here. OK, I want to say that I'm really glad that Alice went to rehab. I was so, so happy to hear that. And I'm glad that Susan's tough love conversation helped. I'm not a fan of Susan's character, but I do appreciate the consistency with which they write her. And the fact that sometimes they'll surprise us. I was really surprised to hear that coming from Susan. I mean, she is a little bit bitter, but understandably, like so many people's lives have been turned upside down. So I appreciate that. And then also, I'm just so rubbing my hands together, looking forward to Emma having to eat crow. Cara Terrible sign is the perpetrator. I also want to appreciate the fact that the writers did not subject us to hearing all the smacking and rustling noises between Denise and Alister, you know, getting down with the get down. I really didn't. I'm so thankful because those scenes always make me so comfortable. But I'm glad to see that they're finally getting together. And I'm hoping that, you know, they'll be a little less messy with letting her husband know. But I know they won't because this makes for good drama and good radio. I'm also looking forward to some more mundane topics like cow getting out or pig. I don't know, pig neck or chiefs coming up missing from the town hall or whatever they call it. I don't know, but I like the like, non dang stuff. That's why I started listening to Rogers and I really enjoy it. So anyway, I'm appreciating the balance, loving the show and glad to have a place to chat with other people in a nerdy way about how much I love it. Have a great day. Toodles. Toodles to you, Tracy. Yes, we did have some agriculture this week, some mundane hay making, although it was punctuated by George and the incident with the fruit cider, where he suddenly seemed to be all paranoid about the site of a fruit cider bottle. It is beginning to get to him. Yeah, it's almost like he is suffering from the same sort of guilt that Lady Macbeth suffered from, which resulted in her obsessively washing her hands to get Duncan's blood of it. Absolutely. And George is now doing the same. He cannot get rid of fruit cider. It is appearing to him in all places and emphasizing his guilt. And we don't know how that's going to play out, but it certainly is going to trigger something when Alice's case comes to trial. Yes, it will. I love the hay making this week. I found Neil's pure enthusiasm for it was absolutely fabulous. I love Neil as a character and I enjoyed him and the fact that him and Ben could have a bit of a giggle about George behind his back in the kind of, you can almost feel Neil and Ben rolling their eyes at George's antics. George was just, he's just such an annoying young person. So confident. And what about the tedda? I never knew that machine was called a tedda, did you? You would. You'd know. I've heard of a tedda before. In fact, when I was on my walk yesterday, I went through a couple of fields where they had obviously just cut some hay and it was all lined up in lines, which I think is all a tedda. The tedda had been and done that so that I had to step over, they hadn't kept the right away free of obstruction, so I found myself stepping over these ridges of hay that the tedda had left, but it wasn't too bad and one field, the hay was really quite pale and I think it must have been cut last weekend and then there was another one where it was clearly only the previous day that it had been cut. Of course, when Stella and Pip turned up and they found the kittens, even Stella was also very nostalgic about the whole haymaking and the smell of the hay and everything and it is very evocative. Hay was cut and he, the first time, probably in about May, so probably due for another cut soon and now I looked up in French what a tedda is called, it's called a flaners. The arches does educate us. I thought a flat flaners was a female version of a flaner of somebody who wanders through the streets. Indeed, they are, I think, so yes, I think there's many words, it's a bit like the word for a tortoise. We have tortoises, turtles and terrapins and it's a tortoises. Yes. It's just the one word for everything, so it's a bit like that, it's confusing. Now, one of the things Tracy said, and she said this expression before and I'd never heard of it until Tracy said it, Emma eats crow, is that as in crow the bird? Yes. It's an expression which I think has originally from the southern states of the United States. We would say, I mean, eat humble pie. Right. Oh, yeah. If you say humble pie, I get that, but I meant to ask if anybody knew what eats crow meant the first time she said it a few weeks ago, so yes, and I am with you, Tracy. Thank goodness they got it together on Saturday night. It was bad enough, the canoodling in the boat with all those ducks. Yes, we're going to have, I think, a bit more about those two in one of our later calls and indeed in the email from Lillian. But let's move on at this point to our next call and you all know how this goes. Y'all know how this goes. Hey, baby, I hear the blues are calling toss salads and scrambled eggs. Greetings, Jacqueline, Stephen, and all of them two demers around the world. It's with a spoon without Angus Tagus today, as I am at Kennedy Airport awaiting my delayed flight to Fort Lauderdale to visit my nearly 94-year-old mom who resides in a residence not unlike the laurels, only she's now in the memory care unit, but she's actually in pretty good shape and she so will call stuff short and long term. Point of interest. I actually grew up minutes from this airport. So Alice is off to rehab, hoorah, which means we won't be hearing directly from her for about a month or so. Interesting, there have been illusions, mostly from Susan and from Dunsey Demers on social chatter, that rehab is only for the wealthy, or otherwise there are a long, long waitlist for a bed. I assume through the NHS. Here's one advantage to the American decentralized healthcare system of services and insurance. There are many, many types of substance abuse rehab places in America, both inpatient and outpatient. While some Ritzy places don't take insurance, I believe most do take commercial insurance plans, because that's what patients have to use. So it sounds like it's easier to find a rehab bed in the States than in the UK. While we await Alice's sober return, we have to endure the torture of the process of the truth regarding George being revealed. Here are some questions. Will Alice remember? Will fluthing Chris solve the crime? Will Neil put the pieces together? Will George Confessal and a sudden burn, heend-driven whale of guilt? Will Susan and Emma continue to deny, deny, deny? Script writers, will you please put us out of our misery and resolve this? Will this all occur on the day President Biden finally drops out of the presidential race? Talk to you soon. Well, thank you for calling in with a spoon whilst you're travelling. I hope your trip to see your mum go as well. Yeah, Chris, let's talk about Chris. He's definitely still thinking about the mystery side of bottle. He's still trusting Alice as only I think he does at the moment. Even Adam was skeptical a few weeks ago about where she was going, where furious wasn't only when they were in court, but I find it quite fascinating that Neil and Emma have kind of shutting down Chris every time he tries to talk about it. Is that because they are suspicious about the side of bottle? Or is it because they just don't want stuff to be raked up and they want to draw a line under the whole crash thing? I think they're convinced that Alice was driving, they've got no reason to believe otherwise because to believe otherwise would be to believe that somebody George had set the whole thing up and their concern is that if Alice pleads guilty, she will get off without a prison sentence. But if she pleads not guilty and goes to trial, that she's far more likely to end up in prison. Susan isn't scarred by her memories of that. Chris is scarred by Susan's previous incarceration and has expressed his views about what the impact would be on Martha given the impact on him from when Susan went into chat. So I think that's the main driver for it rather than anything more complicated. I think they just don't want her to go to jail and they don't believe that she didn't do it. I think that maybe Alice will remember something and then they'll be able to put two and two together and realise that the only person it could have been was George, even if Alice doesn't remember it being George, the fruit cider will be the giveaway there. Yes, well it's obviously a big thing, the fruit cider, especially for George at the moment. But what did you think about the conversation that Neil and Chris had when Neil was encouraging Chris to look at Hannah after the quick hit and think about Hannah because she obviously likes him. I found that a slightly weird conversation to have and in fact I talked to my brother this week and I asked him, have you ever had a conversation like that with dad where dad told you my dad and I think of Neil as being a bit like my dad would never have a conversation with a son or a daughter advising them about moving on. It's just not his style, my dad's older than Neil obviously but not that much older and certainly of the same type of generation. Neil has a vested interest in Chris's future because of the large quantity of free babysitting that he and Susan are having to do for Martha at the moment. I think that he sees Chris moping after Alice, he knows that Chris is still in love with Alice and doesn't think that's a good idea and wants to get him off it. Yes, I think going as far as pointing him in the direction of somebody else is interesting. Step too far? Possibly a step too far. My father would never have done that but my father's not that much like Neil so I don't think that's teeny relevant. No, no but thanks for the call Lonnie, lots to think about even managing to get in a bit of your own personal history and a mention of present Biden. Yes, well we're not a political podcast so I don't think we'll go down that route nor will I respond to with a spoon's comment about the American insurance based health system which is fine as far as it goes but if you don't have insurance it's all pretty terrible and I suspect there is no available as your mental health care under the US system for those who don't have insurance who are likely to be those who need it the most but I won't go down there. No, don't go down that road Stephen. So those are the first few calls, there's one more to come. If you'd like to join in by calling us yourself or dropping us a line by message or email, Jacqueline is here to tell you how and all the details are also in the show notes. The first option is to record a message or a plot prediction by going to www.speakpipe.com/dumbtdan. Alternatively you can send us a voice note or a written message via Whatsapp on 07810-012881. If you're calling from outside the UK start with a +44 and drop that first zero. Please keep your call to a maximum of 2 minutes. Or finally we do have an email address so you can contact us on if you'd rather write with your views as Lillian McCarthy has done this week, maximum of 250 words please and the email address is www.dumbtdan@mail.com. A do bear in mind you need to be at least 18 to contribute. I have a secret. I wore the wrong foundation for years. Then I discovered Ilmakiage. Their AI powered quiz makes it so easy to find a perfect match customized for your unique skin tone, undertone and coverage needs. With 600,000 5-star reviews and 50 shades of flawless natural coverage, this foundation is going viral for a reason. And with Try Before You Buy you can try your full size at home for 14 days. Take the quiz at ilmakiage.com/quiz. That's I-L-M-A-K-I-A-G-E.com/quiz. 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, a typical noon user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary. Science Mark Bitman, host of Food with Mark Bitman, there are so many ways to save on quality items at Whole Foods Market every single day. So here's some hints for doing that coming into back-to-school season. 1. Check out the weekly sales at Whole Foods Market.com. Gets refreshed every Wednesday, so be sure to check them. 2. Remember to look for 365 by Whole Foods Market, snacks, salads, and more. 3. Just walk the store and look for those little yellow signs that mention low price. There's one next to the responsibly farmed salmon right now in the seafood department. There are so many ways to save at Whole Foods Market, and now you know. Now for our final call this week, and this is from a first-time call runner-up. Hooray. Hello, my name is Julie. I am a first-time call of Inura. I'm a long-time archer's fan, and I've been listening to Dum-T-Dum for a while now. I've realised that recording a message, a voice message, is much harder than you would think. This is about my tenth of time. Anyway, the reason I'm calling in is I really wish that Denise had extricated a soul from her marriage to John before her and Alistair clearly took my next step. I really think that even if she'd have been honest and said she'd fall them for somebody else, and that made her realise that her marriage was definitely over, that Paul moving forward would be a lot more accepting of her relationship with Alistair. And I also think that Alistair really, I believed Alistair would have wanted her to have been out of her marriage before they did the deed, so to speak. Otherwise to me, it feels like Denise just wanted to make sure of Alistair that there was a kind of proper physical connection between them before she actually burned her boats with John. She said the marriage has been over for a long time, so I really don't understand why her and Alistair have gotten themselves into this situation. I suppose it's a soap opera and it's thought to be far more entertaining if there is controversy and people are falling out and there's a loss of intrigue and the usual shenanigans. But maybe I'm a bit over-fashioned, I think you should not overlap in your relationships. And that's all I wanted to say really, and I'm hoping this is a go, this message because I don't think I can do another one, okay, thank you. Thank you for that call, Julie. It was a successful call this time, so no need to worry about that. These breakups of marriage are always incredibly complicated and very rarely are done in an ideal way. So there are lots of things that you ought to do in a particular order and they're all very difficult things to do. So I think that actually getting it right is always going to be challenging and it's clear that this isn't the best of circumstances and it's also clear and probably understandable that not everybody is exactly making it as easy as possible for all those involved. John has now turned out and we know from his conversations with Denise on Friday in particular. He's not interested in making this easy for her and Alastair, and I suppose you could argue there's no reason why he should. And then they're trying to protect Paul, but it might be that Paul will actually recognise all of that, though, all the evidence to me is that he is completely oblivious to what's going on. Yeah, so I agree. I think Paul is a good guess. Well, welcome, Julie. Thank you for being a caller, right? Yeah. It's very nerve-wracking when you speak pipe for the first time or the second time or the third time because you hear all your fluffs, but it's not as difficult as you've shown as we might think. Denise, should she have got out before? I don't know. It's a very difficult moral stance. Now, I'm not going to say too much about it, I've just remembered Lillian centres an email, which is actually about the same subject because we could preempt that if we talked too much, but I've found the hanging on of waiting for Paul to find out in a situation where he works with both Alistair and Denise, I found that a bit unbelievable. I know people say Paul's very self-centred, blah, blah, blah, and he's been very much in the last few weeks, stuck in his misery, but now moving on from the breakdown of his relationship with Etienne, but I'm not so sure that how many people who leave somebody for somebody else haven't tested the waters, is that a good way of saying it? Yes. It's a big step to take and you don't want to take it when it might all be for nothing, but you can't tell that until you've gone for many people, it would be too far. Yeah, exactly. I understand your point of view, Julie, completely, but maybe it is a bit so popular-ish and actually we never refer to the arches as soap opera and Dundee Dan. It's a docu-trauma. But, yeah, great call. Thanks for calling in. I'm sorry, we can't be more enthusiastic about- so I can't be more enthusiastic about what you said. Now, before we move on to emails or one email, I just wanted to pick up on something that nobody has called in on, and since we only had four calls, I thought that would be a room for me to go on to a little rant, and this is about Stella and the BL board, because contrary to the impression that Stella gave this week, this is not her first time dealing with the BL board. In fact, when we first met Stella, it was in the context of renegotiating the home farm contract with BL at a board meeting, and at that board meeting, she had Justin trying to influence her ahead of the meeting. She then went into the meeting. She set Justin and Martin Gibson at each other's throats, and sailed through the middle getting home farm, the contract at the existing rate, rather than getting less money for it, that as the BL board had, I think, intended, and she completely skewered Justin when he thought that he had something over her, because it turned out she's already told Brian all about their previous engagements with each other when she ran a farm for Damara in Cambridge So that Stella was confident, able, successful, brilliant, and then suddenly we've had this rather pathetic Stella, who is terribly nervous about taking on this non-executive position on the board, and needs a pip of all people to keep her bucked up and enthusiastic, who seems to be having trouble dealing with Brian, even though she is much better able to deal with him when they didn't know each other as well, seemed to have trouble dealing with the board when she previously wiped the floor with them. So I found the whole thing very poor and very lacking in continuity, so I found the whole thing, and in fact, this isn't the first time that Stella has been made a much less strong character than she started off with, and it's really disappointing. Yeah, I agree. She came in, as you say, as a very, very strong character, but it just goes to show you getting to a relationship with Pipparch and it saps your lifeblood. That's one way of looking at it. I can tell you're annoyed by that, Stephen, but well done for telling us your thoughts. So those are the calls and the rant from me. Thank you so much for calling in. We always say this show is about what you the listeners think, so please do tell us how the week was for you in Ambridge and call in next week. Now let's look at that one email that we received this week. It's from Lillian McCarthy with a subject line, Denise and Alistair, and it goes like this. Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen, and all done to gumbers everywhere. At long last, Denise has finally bitten the bullet and told John the truth. However, after months of listeners imploring her to do this, she's now coming under fire for having told John the truth. I think this is largely because John is coming across as a very likable character. But we the listeners have only just made his acquaintance. We haven't had to live with his indifference and his tendency to take Denise for granted. There's nothing more demoralizing, I would think, than being trapped in a relationship that isn't working for you anymore. And I really think we should cut Denise some slack on this occasion, even if she does laugh like someone who smokes 60 a day. Stwishes, Lillian. Thank you for that email, Lillian. And I tend to agree with you. And I also think that John, having started off quite likable and certainly in terms of his engagement with Paul, he does seem to be a good father to Paul. But as I mentioned in response to Julie's call, I think that at the moment he is just being deliberately awkward. And I'm not saying that he's not unjustified in that, but it does mean that he is trying to make things difficult for Denise, trying to make things difficult for Alastair. And if he really wants to get back with Denise, I think that he's not going about it in the right way. And I think it was telling that when he asked whether that was still possible, Denise just was silent for a while and never really addressed it because she's clearly decided that it's all over. And I think I tend to agree that we should cut her some slack on this occasion. If it has been a long marriage and if for a number of years that hasn't really been anything there, they may have been living their separate lives. And then the opportunity has come for one of them to find a bit more fulfillment. And Denise has taken it. And I'm not saying that's the right thing to do, but it's, I think, an understandable thing to do. I can see it from Denise's point of view. When she referred to the conversation when he cried, when he was in San Lucia, saying we need to work harder on this, but he hasn't worked harder on anything, has he? Not that we've heard. I know we've heard more of him talking to Paul and yeah, as you say, a great dad to Paul, very sympathetic person, very empathetic with Paul and understanding, but not able to communicate. I'm actually saying we can work through this, but as Denise said, without talking about it. So yeah, whether he's, as we then many long marriages, people do go their separate ways. You do find others. He's obviously a man. Was that the expression that came up a few weeks ago? Middle-aged man in Lycra. That's right. He's obviously a middle-aged man around Lycra. But I also found that he's gone to the village shop in a village where he knows his wife works and his son lives, gone into the shop, and then he's confronted by someone like Jasa, who obviously knows who he is and knows about him. Obviously, he knows the secrets as well, so that might have made us feel slightly more awkward that Jasa was going to say something. But yeah, he wasn't actually very personable to joy and to Jasa either. I felt that he was kind of a bit, yeah, well, I'm here, but I'm not with you if you see what I mean. I also didn't like the fact that he said to don't eat too many biscuits. Nobody should say that to anyone. I'm not a biscuit fan myself, but, you know, it's something you say to a 12-year-old or a two-year-old or whatever, not your wife. I found out I was quite front-in for Denise when he said that. Yes, they were short-born biscuits, so they probably weren't very nice anyway. There. Okay. They weren't savory biscuits. But thank you very much for your bail, Lily. The other thing about Denise is a lot of people on the Facebook group are very irritated. By the way, she says, "Allister," that's a funny, another criticism that's thrown at her. Dear me, we're so picky as listeners, aren't we? I think what matters is whether Alastair cares about how she pronounces his name. He might find it endearing. On the other hand, it could get irritating. Yes, exactly. Drive your bonkers in the end. Now, as we've mentioned a few times, Patreon backers have dumped it, I'm getting an ad-free version of the podcast. After positive feedback from our patrons, we're now aiming to make the Patreon version available from around 6pm on Saturday. This is not how we're a guarantee that maybe weeks went other demands on my time, meaning that I can't do the editing till later. Patrons also get a weekly email about dumped it down in the archers, and we are looking at more special features for those of you who are willing and able to support us in this way. If there is anything you think we might be able to provide as bonus material, particularly if it will make the difference between backing us or not backing us, please do let us know. All the money from Patreon goes towards covering the costs of making the podcast, including the subscriptions for the Virtual Studio and the editing tools that Stephen uses. We are planning that any extra will go towards a dump to dump Get Together. The more of you, the more of you who sign up, the quicker we will be able to put Get Together together, and Patrons will have priority access to tickets. 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. Emma Digory, Amy Davidson Lock, Hugo Horvath, Karen Marshall, Susan Harvey, Alison Clues, Carl Butler, Kate Wilson, Maria Schifner, and Darren Law, and as ever, there were also a few other people in his membership request we had to decline, because it didn't answer the questions. So, let's hear what's been going on in the Dumpty Dum Facebook group this week, with a roundup from Ben in Shanghai. Nihal, Stephen, Jacqueline, and everyone else out there in Dumpty Dumland, it's Ben here in a swelteringly hot Shanghai, where the Mercury is currently hitting a daily high of 38 degrees to bring you a roundup of everything that's been going on on our Facebook page. We started to see the rumblings of a sweep state pointing towards when, not if, either Emma, Ed, or indeed both will fall out of a tree, or have some other mishap with a chainsaw, with many predicting that their smug happiness cannot continue for much longer, because as, of course, they are grundies, after all. In the wake of election fever, we've seen a return to the polls this week, as Laura Grayling posed a serious question to the country, which was, who do we feel was most responsible for the events of the Night of the Crash? And in true democratic fashion, a wide range of additional voting options were added over the course of the week, with perhaps the most outlandish being by Catherine Bartleby. That's why he's skipped town. However, the nation has spoken, and it seems that we all believe George is responsible, but not to blame for the crash, and most certainly should not have put the blame on Alice. Denise and Alastair's slow-burning love-trist has been making some waves this week, with many seeing the story-liners boring and dull, or others such as tea-brown archivist confessing that she loves them. And finally, as the holiday season comes upon us, eagle-eyed Barbara Williams believes she spotted our beloved Lillian's car when she was out and about in Devon, an adorable little Fiat 500 with the perfect number plate of PU-51-CAT, or Pusscat. Until next time, we'll be talking to you all from Rome, it's Tatian from Shanghai. Thank you, Ben, and 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 that you're a real person. Now to Twitter, where you will find us @dumptydum. Make sure you include the Arches hashtag using a capital T and A, so the visually impaired who use screen readers can enjoy any Arches-based tweets. As well as @dumptydum, I can occasionally be found at Wenlock House. And we can both also be found with the Arches friends on Blue Sky, where I am, at jberto.bsky.social. And I am at wenlock.bsky.social, so let's find out who has won the Twitter medals this week. Tweet, tweet, Pusscat, or should that be XX these days? Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen and Dumptydum is everywhere. It's purple pumpkin here with tweets and skits of the week, and my thanks as ever to everyone who tags @dumptydum to make sure we see all the best ones. This week, on Twitter and Blue Sky, people really only focused on three parts of the week in Ambridge. First was Pip and Stella. Was Pip, as usual, focused on herself and Rosie, as Matt Matt Mark II thought when he had her saying, "Stella, I hope your meeting went well. Can you come round and look after my child?" Or was Alison McNab at Alison McNab right to think Pip was actually very supportive in the right way. Plus, she didn't throw a strop about the wasted tie takeaway. The second most attended to storyline of the week was the teaser about the fruit cider and George's reaction to it. There was a great thread with pictures started by James A at Exeter Dormouse, in which George's brain is saying, "Don't draw attention to the fruity cider. Don't draw attention to the fruity cider, and yet his mouth draws attention to the fruity cider." As Angela Dobb at LMS Bossy said, he mentioned it once, but I think he got away with it. And finally, Denise and her love triangle was Winston Texas at Winston Texas right to say that John shouldn't be so indignant when it seemed he didn't put any effort into the marriage for years. Or was Patricia at Olympians on the money when she said Denise deserves more of probium, like Brian experienced when he was being a cad. If you want out, have the decency to break it off with your husband first. You'll have to join in the discussions to have your say. But now to this week's medals for blue sky skates and ex-posts, all of which we continue to consider as Tweets of the Week. In bronze position, it's run-etropic, @_NoName again. George has a dream about a giant cider bottle wearing a police uniform, shouting, "You're nicked." The silver medalist is Lottie von Fuchshausen, @Lottie von Fuchshaus.Bsky.Social. To shame this, I'm likely to be a scene of Denise and Schuler comparing how boring their husbands are. And the gold medal goes to Gillie C.L. Now that is what is known as a "Dear John" episode. And on that punning 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, Theo, and congratulations to all who were mentioned in this week's roundup. And don't forget we're on Instagram @dumptydum, where we are starting to be a bit more active. And on that note, please send any of the archers or podcast-relevant photos to the Dumpty Dum email, and we'll publish them with credit to you. And that's dumptydum@mail.com. We'll be back once again next week and recording at our normal time of crack of dawn on the Saturday morning, rather than pre-dawn, like we did today. 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 the team of dumptydummers behind the scenes, and we need to say a great topic, thank you to all of you who are listening to us. 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 Sonny Ormond for their voices and to our podcasting parents, Lucy V. Freeman and Royfield Brown. Thank you so much for listening and joining us today. We are now off to butter our toast and took ourselves in, so it's aurovoir for me. And it's goodbye from me. Hey, it's Paige Dessarbo from Giggly Squad. Hi quality fashion without the price tag. Say hello to quince. 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