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

Slippery Ripples

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

We hear from:

Tracy from California, who had some demands of the scriptwriters at the start of the week;
Philippa, who has firm views on Chris;
Witherspoon who hasn’t been impressed by the men of Ambridge this week;
Globe-trotting Richard who has thoughts on tree surgery and Brian’s treatment of Neil;
Gillian who had made some predictions at the end of last week and has seen pretty much all of them come true;
Clare from Clapham , who encourages us to be evangelical about The Archers;
Ian from Middlesborough, a first time caller-innerer who thinks that The Archers is superb at the moment, but has a worry;
And finally Tracy from California again, with her thoughts on George;

We also have emails from Lilian, Vicky, Emma and Purple Pumpkin

Plus: we have the Week in Ambridge from Theo, and a roundup of the Dumteedum Facebook group, and the Tweets of the Week also 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 22m
Broadcast on:: 15 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Hello, this is dumpty-dum, a weekly podcast about the archers and the goings-on of Ambridge. I'm Jacqueline Bertou. I have to ask you, how the hell are we going to deal with this? And I'm Stephen Bowden, and my recycling bin isn't full. And then there's you, our lovely dumpty-dummers rambling around, trampling upon random sunflowers wearing hivis. Because you know you can get away with anything in the hivis jacket. Welcome to Dumpty-dum, a place to talk about the things that are happening in our favourite Bausachia village. This week's scripts were written by Liz John, and she has had a large cast to play with, although she took the words out of my mouth when she made Susan ask, "How are we going to get through this?" Coming up we have calls from Tracy from California, who had some demands of the script writers at the start of the week. Philippa, who has firm views on Chris. Winnerspoon, who hasn't been impressed by the men of Ambridge this week. Globe plotting Richard, who has thoughts on tree surgery and Brian's treatment of Neil. Gillian, who had made some predictions at the end of last week and has seen pretty much all of them come true, hooray! Claire from Clapham, who encourages us to be evangelical about the archers. Ian from Middlesbrough, her first-time cholera, hooray! Who thinks that the archers is superb at the moment, but he does have a worry. And finally, Tracy from California, again, with her thoughts on George. We also have emails from Lillian, Vicky, Emma and Purple Pumpkin, plus we have the week in Ambridge from Theo, a round-up of the Dumpty-Dum Facebook group, and the tweets of the week also from Theo, who is certainly making up for her absence over the last couple of weeks. So let's start by reminding ourselves of what happened over the last seven days with the week in Ambridge from Theo. Hello, Dumpty-Dumners everywhere, it's Theo here, Purple Pumpkin on Blue Sky and Twitter, stepping in for Suey with a round-up of the weeks going on in Ambridge. The main focus this week was all the fallout from people discovering the truth about George, Alice and the crash. We started with Chris and Alice. Initially, it was good news that charges against Alice have been dropped, but then they discovered why. Alice reacted with calm, or was it shock, and generosity towards Neil and Susan and what they must be going through. Chris, not so calm. He let Emma have it with both barrels, forcing her to confront what each day of extra pressure has meant to him, Alice and Martha, and all because of her waste of space of her son. Can the Carter-Siblings relationship ever recover? Maybe they can learn from the newly loved-up Alice and Susan that harsh words can sometimes be forgiven. Next up, Fallon and Harrison, and another case of she took it calmly and reasonably and he, well, didn't. Having heard rumours at work, Harrison went to see George in his garden and physically threatened him for killing his baby, and oh yes, almost drowning his wife. Fallon was furious with Harrison's lack of control which just might cost him his job. Alice and apologise to each other and made up. Later, Alice and Fallon discussed Fallon's fears, and Alice confided that her biggest regret from drinking is losing her relationship with Chris. She gave some hope to all those who longed to see a rapprochement for the Carter ex-spouses. While Harrison nearly lost all control with George, Brian seemed the most likely to do the loud actual harm. He reenacted the scene that had Vince threatening Ben when he yelled at George while hammering on a locked door, and gave himself an angina attack along the way. Luckily Tony and St Neil were on the hand to try and calm him down and give him his medication, and Dr. Malik later reassured all listeners that Brian had come to know actual harm. Back inside the cottage, Will was pandering to George and being generally wet, but Neil came to break the news of Will sucking by bridge farm, dissuading them both from reporting Harrison's behaviour and ending up comforting his wayward grandson with love and hope for the future. Mike Will changed his mind about making a complaint against Harrison given that Sergeant Burns has used information from Chris to have Emma and Will questioned about an assisting an offender. We'll have to wait and see. We had some light relief in the form of Brad and Jazza helping Alistair redecorate green acres, and Brad enjoying fresher's boot with the other maths boys. Jazza spotted a giant sunflower on Brookfield land and plans to enter it in the flower and produce show to compensate for being disqualified for using a breadmaker for a previous entry. Seems like a great plan. Their redecoration plans were scuppered when Robert was sent round by Jim to check that no one had moved exactly those pieces of furniture that Alistair decided that he must move to fit in with his plans for a green feature wall to make a cozy love mess with the knees. Owen Robert has been doing inexplicable things with dog poo and may have cheated to win a litter picking prize. And while Brad and Mia started their separate university journeys, Alistair and Brian went together to rule his graduation and learned that he's joining a graduate finance scheme in the city, so I don't suppose we'll see much of him in Ambridge. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next week. Thank you for that, Theo. So what have you been up to this week, Mr Boden? It's been a fairly busy week. Pretty much as soon as we finished recording last week, I went off to the morning march show. Ah yes. And there will be pictures of that coming up on our Instagram as soon as I can get them organized and sent over. There are high-powered agricultural machinery like no-till drills. I had a long chat with some people from a tree surgery company about starting off in tree surgery and the things that Ed and Emma will need to focus on and particularly what their next bit of kit needs to be, which is a stump grinder. Ah, very good. And I admired the baking sections, including class one, lemon drizzle cake, which had the biggest selection of things there, and then some of the other classes like homemade wine made from roots, which there were only three entries and they were all from the same person, so they won first, second and third place. And then... Partnet wine, famously a killer, I believe. Yes, yes. I think one of these was beetroot wine, which struck me as really dodgy. And then I went off a couple of days walking in Harrafordshire during the week, including the Mortimer Trail, which runs from Ludlow to Kington, I was staying in Kington, and that's 30 miles, 50 kilometers. Wow. And I walked the whole thing in a day and there was a diversion because one of the woods was closed due to ash dieback, which is something that I think that Ed and Emma, if I haven't talked about it yet, will certainly start talking about because that's putting a lot of tree surgeons to work. And then I got slightly lost. I got diverted accidentally onto the Harrafordshire Trail, rather than the Mortimer Trail, so I ended up doing about 60 kilometers in a day. Oh, it's gracious, Steve. I've got back to Kington. Yeah, it's gracious, Steve. And Larry, you make my week look very miserable and very lazy. So what did you do in your miserable and lazy event? We started out with the chassis committee meal on Sunday, which was, as you mentioned a few weeks ago, a beef tongue hot meal. It's a classic country meal that we have here, and not enough volunteers to serve the meal. So it was, you went and collected it. It was all very well organized because normally in these things, if you go and collect a meal, you go with a bag full of pots and pans to fill it with, but they'd put it all into almost like sushi boxes and there's pokeball things that you see in train station stackeries. So it was all very well organized. The tongue was pretty awful. I'm not a fan anyway, and just the look of it in this kind of gloopy sauce was enough for me. So my dogs had a very rich meal for the next two days, so I'm afraid to say nobody here will have heard that. So dandria in beautiful, because they don't tell anybody. But the rest of the week, I've been working like crazy, finishing a quilt that I made for the bride and groom at the wedding I'm going to next week and getting other stuff organized. And getting ready to fill Lowick's car, which we're taking with us, because it's a hybrid, and it's never done a long run, with all stuff that we have to take to England, especially when you're going to a house party with my sister and five other couples. So it's mainly clinky stuff. But yes, we're ready for our long drive tomorrow up to Rotterdam. And we'll find out all about that in a couple of weeks time. In two experiments, right. But it would better get on with the really important stuff. Who is our first color winner? Our first color winner is somebody for whom has been a lot of demand to hear from. And that's Tracy in California. All right, push cap. Tracy in California. Much like everyone else, I'm celebrating the big reveal. And I have some demands for the archer's writers. As the union rep of United Archer's listeners, Local 392, we have two demands. At least a full week of Emma suffering public judgment as the full truth unfolds about how she helped George and everything that went on. And then also we need an entire episode of Neil and Usha giving George a first class telling us for being a selfish, rude, obnoxious, near-to-well lacking humility and self-awareness. So that's one. So hopefully the writers will meet our demands. Also, the narrative is that George was trying to be helpful to Alice. And it was truly an accident. Well, what if he lied about how much he had to drink? Or because we know just how truthful he is. And they did say he was going to a party. Maybe he drank some other stuff at the party. Or if the cheap cider was stronger than what he's used to. Sure, Alice tried to get out of a car, but maybe his driving ability and his ability to navigate such a situation was impaired by alcohol. How might that shift our ideas of George's culpability? So those are just my thoughts, too. Thank you very much, Tracy, for that call. It's good to hear from you again. And in fact, we'll hear from you again, again, later in this podcast. You raised one character who hasn't been mentioned and yet ought to be, and that's Usher. Because I know that we love to tease about the fact that whenever something happens involving the law, Usher says, "That's not my area of responsibility." Her actual responsibility is criminal defense. And so George is the sort of person she ought to be or could be representing. And yet we've tended to hear more about people's barristers and we have about their solicitors a lot of the time, certainly in terms of anything other than the divorce and child stuff and what Alice has been going through. So apart from what Alice has been going through and her divorce. But George needs a criminal defense solicitor. Usher is a criminal defense solicitor. Usher has not been working for Alice, and so there's no conflict there. So it is interesting that nobody has even mentioned her name in or said much about George needing a lawyer. I think they said at one point that they needed a proper lawyer for him, but no more details about that. And it seems a waste of a character. Indeed. I do think it's a waste of a character. Also, Usher is a very strange and Alan. In fact, I would say Usher and Alan, it's very strange that they are missing at the moment as a couple for Usher for all the reasons that you've just stated. But also Alan, because we've seen Harrison in a terrible state the last few months. And Alan was his go-to standby, supportive when he found God and helped him and did the baptism and talked to him a lot then. And we've heard absolutely nothing. And I think that's the one thing about this whole story that jars with me that this is a couple that should be here. But as far as Tracy said, Neil, I think the telling off of George and the handling by Neil this week has been excellent. We've got people that talk about that. When the accident happened and that very hot week in May, we were recording. I remember speculating about actually has George lied about how much he drank. Obviously, it's too late. We'll never know because there's no forensic evidence possible at this far distant time. But yeah, it's a good point. Was that what was motivating George? He wouldn't perhaps never admit it. So who knows? I don't think George was lying about how much he'd had to drink. And there are a couple of factors in that. Cheap cider is low alcohol because the amount of duty you pay on it's going to depend on how much alcohol's in that. I'm pretty sure that fruit cider was at best 3.5% alcohol, certainly not strong. George doesn't like it. He didn't want to buy it, but it was all he could afford. He said he'd had one when he called Will and he left the party early because it wasn't much fun. And I think that if there had been other alcohol around, he might have stayed longer. So I'm pretty sure that he was not over the limit at all. I just think that it's possible he lied. As you say, we'll never actually know because you can't do the blood tests at this distance. But I don't think it was. But what I remember from that is that he was motivated not by the desired health Alice, but by the chance to drive the car. And that was his main thing in that. And he's been charged with perverting the course of justice and with a dangerous driving charge. I'm not sure exactly which one it was. But either way, I think he's perverting the course of justice is what's going to matter. So in a way, the exact details of the driving are going to be lost and much less important. But he's I think he's confessed to everything. So we're not actually going to get into. No, we're not going to know all the nitty-gritty, are we? No, but we are going to get into a bit more perverting the course of justice, business, given Harrison's actions at the end of the week. But we'll probably come on to that in a while. I think we shall. Should we go to the next one then? Yes. And this one is from Philippa, who called in in response to my Facebook post about the restoration of the speedpipe account. In it, I asked whether Chris was overreacting, whether Neil was being even more Neil than usual, whether Chelsea would have a big party to celebrate turning 20 on Tuesday, and whether Lottie would remember that she's supposed to be friends with Pip. And here's how Philippa responded. Hi, it's Philippa. I think Chris is 100% not overreacting. I think Neil is as usual the voice of reason. I didn't realize it was Chelsea's birthday on Tuesday. Perhaps she probably would. Perhaps she definitely needs to buy her brother a drink, I reckon. And as for Ian's WhatsApp score group, it must be absolutely enormous. Come here, bless Lottie and a positive Pip. That'll be great. Thank you. Bye. Hey, I'm going to take those in reverse order, Philippa. Thank you for your call. Less Lottie, even less Pip. Yep, I agree. Chelsea should buy Brad a drink. I like the scenes with Chelsea and Brad, and I think we should have more of them. I thoroughly enjoy the two of them to gather. So I don't know about buying Brad a drink. He doesn't seem like a bit of a drinker and a party animal. After all, he wouldn't even have a drink with Alistair and Jazza in the week, would he? Because he was saving himself for the fresher's ball. Oh dear, mathematicians are to fresher's ball. Neil, always the voice of reason. And Chris isn't overreacting. So I think Philippa and I are singing from the same songbook. I'm not so sure. I think Chris is overreacting. You know we're going to play that. I think there are two people who have not covered themselves in glory. There's a Chris and Harrison who are making this far more about themselves than they should be when it's actually far more about their partners. And I think neither of them were involved. Neither of them were there. And yet they have decided that they are the ones who have been most affected by all this. And I'm not happy with either of them. And the combination of the two has led to what I think is going to be the big development of the next couple of weeks on top of what's happened to George. Yeah, well, I think you're probably writing that to that extent. But Chris, to me, has just reverted to type. Chris has returned to angry, instant action, anger, harsh words, Chris, that we've actually commented on that he's been much calmer since Alice was in this latest crisis. And he was calm and reasonable and following the accident, he was very calm and reasonable. And to me, he just went back to being the Chris of old. But can you blame him? Can you blame him, Stephen, for saying what he said to Emma? I think that that was understandable. I hope that they can patch it up, though. I think that he, yeah, he was blaming Alice a lot. And now he stopped blaming Alice, but instead of it making him better the way that Alice is so much better and combat it, he's just using it to hit out at other people, and particularly his sister. And I think that she was in a difficult position. Yes, she made some wrong decisions. But it's interesting that Ed, who in some ways was even more betrayed than Chris, seems, indirectly, we've only heard it indirectly, to have been taking it a lot better. He will, Ed's not an angry, he's not an angry reaction person, as he is more of a sulker. Yes. And Emma did say this week that it's been hard with Ed, and they're not doing a lot of jobs together. I think that's another development that we're going to see that side of the story. Basically, I think I'm always going to see Emma having a complete and utter breakdown. I think she is going to be very much at the heart of things. It's going to be really difficult for her. Luckily, we have such a superb actor in the shape of Emerald, O'Hamerham, that it's going to be great to listen to. Yeah, absolutely. But I did have, I was taking it back at one thing she said this week. She sent squacious, I forgot the child's name. She sent the little girl to the shop for her to get some milk and bread. And at that point, I'd forgotten what kind of age this child was, that she was in senior school. Keira. Oh, that's it. Thank goodness you're here for to remind me. She's in Keira to the shops, and this mental image of a three-year-old, totally no longer with a bath skid and then no from her mum. But there you are, he says. Yeah, no. For me, Poppy is still about three years old, but I'm sure she's probably about 12 by now. Yeah, we're going to see her school by now. Almost an adult now. Yeah, he's not. She had a vote, didn't she, in the what to do with whatever it was they were voting on? The money from selling Bartleby. That's it. That's the one. Anyway, that is more than enough, again, of us, Chatty. Let's get home with Witherspoon. Y'all know how this goes? Hey, baby, you're here. The blues are calling, toss salads. That's scrambled eggs, sir. Greetings, Jacqueline, Steven, and all dumty dummers around the world. It's with the spoon and Angus. I guess here, call her "innering" after Wednesday's episode. Well, so far this week, except for our Neil, it's not been a good week for the men of Ambridge. We're coping much worse than the women. First at the head of the line is George, of course. There may be a scared little boy in there, but the way he copes is by being the most obnoxious young man in the world. He's been treating his family members horribly. Did you note the things he said to his father today? We know people want to pile on will, but I think he's trying to keep George from going off the rails. Well, hasn't responded perfectly, but I think we need to give him a break. He's the one who has to live with the creep right now. So, is there any far away relative on either side of the family that they can send George to whose name doesn't rhyme with hive? That would be much better for George himself in the collective blood pressure of the men of the village. Harrison, you may have dodged a bullet by Neil convincing George not to take the near assault or was it an assault to the authorities, but it's time for you to take a sabbatical and get some mental health treatment of your own. We've talked about Fallon having PTSD, but I think it's Harrison who truly has the diagnosis. Next, Brian, go and see your cardiologist stat. That episode of angina was a little too close for comfort for this doctor/hard attack survivor. Sounds like you need a stent placement. Coincidentally, following last night's debate, stop being such a male chauvinist pig. Look, that's a term I haven't used in a while. Finally, Aleister, if you want a newly designed house for you and Denise, go buy or rent one yourself. You sound like a spoiled teenager. Talk to you soon. Thank you for that call with us for a minute. It's hard to disagree with anything that you say. Can George be sent off to a relative who doesn't rhyme with chive? Yes, there is a rosy mabbot in Norfolk. I was going to say we're back to Norfolk again, aren't we? Clara's sister. So they could send him off there. What rosy will have done to deserve George is descending on her. I don't know, but that's about the only relative I can think of. If you go through George's four grandparents, Neil never had any family whatsoever. He turned up in 1973, a single young man staying with Martha Woodford and Joby Woodford and has been in the village over since, but I don't think we've ever heard anything about any of the family whatsoever. So he's out. His grandmother, Susan, well, obviously we know all about that lot, and that's Clive and Keith Horribin, among others, so not really the sorts of people that he needs to associate with. And then on the other side, we've got Clara Grundy, as I said, she's got the sister rosy mabbot from the block inside. And then Eddie Grundy, and again, we know roughly what that family is like, including Uncle Alf. So I think Rosie Mabbot is the only option for him to go anywhere. I don't know whether he'd be allowed to be sent away. Isn't he bailed? Isn't he supposed to stay in the area? I don't know. He's bailed for now, and I think he'll have to hang around until they've got a trial date and they've got plans for him. But I suspect that particularly if he's not likely to get a stodial sentence, and he's first-time offender and so on. So he might well not get a plastodial sentence, and I know I'd be very surprised if Emma or Will were heading for a custodial sentence for their part in all of this instantly. But moving on to Brian. Brian did go and see his doctor. That was- Was forced by Alice to see the GP? Yes. And I think that given that it was angina, given that he's on medication for a ten-way, given the circumstances were fairly obvious, stressed and so forth. I suspect that was all he needed. I think going in to see a specialist cardiologist would probably be over the top, given the state of the NHS. But it is. It is probably followed up regularly anyway. So probably in the next few months, because having had a husband who's a heart attack survivor and trained as a medic, we know we follow these things through and they keep getting followed through. And you have your little spray with you and that you spray in several forms in several places, including the car and everything, and for any attacks. But yeah, I think Brian is heading for more health problems. The other thing is- I was going to just say surprisingly, I completely agree with the spoon about Will. I think that yes, again, he's done some silly things, but the way George has treated him is not justified and I'm prepared to cut him a little bit of slack at the moment. I never do that for Will. No, you never do that for Will, but I found Will insufferable this week. In fact, I would say that I would never want a child to say that to their parent. But in some ways, George was justified because I thought Will on that scene at that beginning of the day when they do want to cook breakfast, do you want to go for a walk, Robert? Oh, so insufferable. It's the last thing George wants. I just find Will very irritating. I was going to say that if the call hadn't come in on Wednesday, do you think with the spoon would have added Robert to the list? Yes, Robert has been really annoying this week and all the Robert stuff, both the litter picking and the sorting out of Alistair's plans for Green Agers, have just felt like a complete distraction from what's going on. It's been a bit weird, to be honest. That's been a bit weird. It's almost like he's been parachuted in to make sure the character is around, but Robert without Lindy is a bit weird anyway. We're hearing here say of what Lindy says, but we've seen in the past Robert having the clash with Jim over the birds and the hide and bird count. We know that that is a part of his character. He's obsession with the doorbell stuff and the cameras after the dog attack. He is a bit of that kind of character, but this whole thing is a cheating little jack out of something deliberately or not admitting it. Yeah, just feel that it is just over the top of his character. So maybe we're just waiting for him to settle back into after his little absence, back into normal life. Yes, I hope that happens because like many people, I'm just not happy with new Robert. No, I'm just not engaging with him. Let's put it like that. Who forgot next? We're somewhere in Europe next. Hello, Richard, calling him from Belgrade. I stand corrected by Stephen the confusing disrespect and disagreement. Obviously it's fine to disagree with each other. That doesn't mean we're disrespecting, but each other says thank you. Thank you for that. No, I don't think you were disrespecting my sister, but don't know what I even think they can get away with it. I was wondering about the tree surgery business and what's going to happen with Will Emmer and Eddie in some precious mode. Will being unreasonably hostile and what will happen if he gets into more and equal trouble for somehow being associated with converting the question justice charge? No, Georgia's pleaded guilty. Being guilty was telling people everything that includes who knew. I didn't notice that they never ever seems to do any marketing. I noticed Stephen Point said I just could be that here. It doesn't mean it happens. But you're thinking the start of the business, that'd be making sounds cause getting knocked backs. Somehow that's never happened. Moving swiftly on, Brian was really aggressive towards Neil in the context of hunting for George to yell at him. And he stuck up for Alice at the time when Alice was thought by him and others to essentially really bad. So he should have really been understanding it. Just attacking Neil and it was reasonable. Lost. I forgot to say that. I wonder if Will try and call in his loan or investment in the tree surgery business, because in Ambridge, Vince was able to get his money back from David and Ruth when he fell out over the mental health breaker. That's all from me. I get that good work. Thank you, Richard, for that call. Going to the marketing of the tree surgery, they did do flyers, didn't they, at a show when Ed and Emma had to go off and do an emergency clearing of the road and to the village, a leaving will to get rid of flyers with the children. But that's the only way. The village fight, was it? I cried. I see I've still got my mind on more modern show and other shows. Yeah, it was the village fight. We know, but that's only very locals. Yeah, I assume they're doing stuff. But I wish they would talk about these things. I know Richard is a business advisor and in that world of promoting businesses. Yeah, he knows his stuff. And yeah, I would assume that they should be doing more. Will withdrawing his loan. Now, this was something I suggested a few weeks ago. When there was the falling out between Ed and Will and Emma about the name, Will was calmer than expected, but he still is very proprietorial about the tree surgery business. So I'm wondering whether all of this, Ed, will just break in the end or Will will decide to flounce off. So I agree with Richard. That is a distinct possibility. We're about you. So I think differently on that, I think that given that Will and Emma are currently on the same side of the problems that they're facing, both of them are being vilified for having known about George and not told anybody. And that's both in terms of their relationship with people in the village, but also with the law. I think this is going to bring them close together rather than further apart. And so the last thing I think any of them want to do is destroy that business. I think the relationship between Emma and Ed is under stress. But as I've said before, I think that nothing so far has been said or done that can't be mended. So I don't think the business is at risk. In terms of advertising and so forth, I think they get most of their work from this contact of theirs, effectively, they're taking a call for Hank. Yes. So they're taking work off Hank who appears to be getting more work than he can deal with in-house. So I think that will continue to be a useful source. And it sounds like a lot of it is one person jobs, because they've talked about Ed and Emma doing different jobs during the course of the week. I mentioned at the beginning that I had spoken to some tree surgeons at the Morton Show. And the one thing that Emma and Ed are not currently equipped to do, though I suppose Hank might be able to provide them the equipment, is to remove tree stumps. Because if you cut down a tree, say somebody's got a tree in their garden, a laylandi or a fruit tree that's died, it's one thing to take the branches off and then take the trunk down and to chop all that up into sensible pieces. And that's what their chainsaws are for. We were then left with a stump in the ground. And most people, and I speak from experience for having had half a dozen laylandi that I really didn't want and had them cut down but we were left with a stump. So we didn't do anything ourselves because they were right up against a wall. And it was a wall that was part of the outside world. We were responsible for the wall, but it wasn't internal to us. And so if we'd taken the stumps out, the wall might have collapsed. So we left it in for the time being at least and subsequently sold the place. But you do need to get stumps out. You're going to be asked to do that. And so what they're going to need at some point is a stump grinder. And we'll put a picture of a couple of stump grinders up on Instagram in a few weeks. But the big ones are fairly major piece of kit. And the smallest one for a sort of small garden trees and so forth cost you about £5,000. So you have to trail it. So you have to have a decent size lorry or truck to trail them, don't you? This one would fit inside a trailer rather than a flat bit. And it's just a normal size fan type thing. So it's not too bad. It's probably smaller than a motorcycle in terms of length. But you can, however, if you know the right places to go, you can hire them about 80 quid a day. Yeah, I was going to say that we've had trees taken down in the last two years, owned the tree surgeon suggested that we try to kill the roots and stopping them from springing back up. And then in two years time, which would be this winter, hiring and removing with a stump grinder or getting him back in to do it. But it's not his preferred sort of work, because of course you end up grinding lawns to deaths and especially if the weather's wet and stuff like that. But in fact, here there's an old wives tale and I've used it and proved that it works, is we have something called ladybug, which is the a bit like a sour milk buttermilk buttermilk. And if you pour it into the tree stump, which has got holes cutting it, or either with a chainsaw, a zigzag, like a draft sport or a chessboard and or whole drill holes into it, you pour your lady we bow in and then that goes down and kills the roots, making it easier. I've done it on a willow and a lime tree and neither of them have re-sprouted. But the biggest problem was I had to put the stuff in at night after the dogs had been put away because little fat nester, the cockerspanol, thought Larry Bo was for him. But it's definitely worked. So this winter we're going to be grinding trees ourselves. So there are more pictures for the Instagram. Great. Let's move on to a call from Gilliam. Hi, Jacqueline, Stephen, and Dumte Donnes. This is Gilliam from London. I'm just calling to follow up on my last email from last week. I've predicted that Chris would cut off contact with Emma, which he's done. I predicted that Brian would have medical episode, which he has, although thankfully not too serious. I also predicted that Harris would do something stupid regarding George and lose his job. And he did either. I don't know whether he shocked George or whether he shoved George, but certainly to me, to my ears anyway, the constitutive assault and Will and Neil know about it now. Now that Harrison has told Will that there might be police action against Will and Emma, I predict that Will will do something to put Harrison into the frame by having taken the section against George and that Will will try and preach for Harrison to lose his job over this assault and that there will be more repercussions coming out on this. It was great to hear the graduation scene with Alison, Brian, and Rory, and great to see that Rory's graduated, and that will bring some mightness into what's otherwise quite a desperate time, quite a scary time for another people in Cambridge. Thank you for that, called Gilliam. And I agree that the combination of Harrison's assault on George, and even if he never touched him, it would still be assault, not necessarily battery, but it was definitely assault. That plus Harrison's threats to Will and Emma about getting them picked up by the police for perverting the course of justice is just adding to the whole richness of this storyline. In fact, it's becoming more and more like at one of those Icelandic sagas where you have generations of people settling in, whichever corner of Iceland the saga is set in. And then you have some precipitating incident, which then triggers a whole cycle of revenge and quite often litigation. Icelandic sagas often involve people taking each other to court, and then being unsatisfied with what happens at the court and then choosing to go for revenge instead, and lots of people end up getting killed. But this is a sort of vorsature version of Laxdyla saga, and that sort of complication, it's just perfect for that sort of thing, that form of literary work. And the more I look at what's going on at the moment, the more it feels like one of these vector sagas. And it's going to be fascinating to see how it turns out. As I said, in the Icelandic sagas, you get a lot of people killing each other, and I don't think that's going to happen. You might not even get the outlory where people are sent away for the rest of the lives from Iceland, and typically come back like Clive Horribin before their outlory is served out, if it's a minor outlory or a tall, if it's a major outlory, and then it all gets worse. So I think there's a lot of scope for complication and for scars to be left across the village for years, decades to come. Oh yes, a great comparison, Stephen. I want to talk about the last thing that Gillian talked about, which was the dimensions. It was the Rory's graduation. What was all that thing about the timing? I don't know, it just all a bit bizarre. We've still got this, we don't know what Rory's course was in. No, it wasn't engineering. That's one thing we know, but I think we'd have known about that, because I think we'd have known about that, because Alice did engineering, and there would have been comments about Rory doing the same as his sister. But no, we don't know. It might be something like economics, financial marketing, and so forth, but he's now a little bit of a city. Could've been geopolitics or anything like that, or it could have been history of art, or just plain history, because the graduates going into graduate schemes can come from all walks of necessarily need to study finance, economics, etc. And as Purple Pumpkin Theo said in her round up of the week in Ambridge, I don't think we'll be seeing very much of, there's not a lot of prospect of Rory coming back to Bausacha in the near future. That's another little line of a person that will be perhaps brought back in in later years, or perhaps when Brian has gone, there'll be another storyline about that, about him, who will bring him. I watched the series Shard Lake, which is where Arthur Hughes has been spending a lot of his time. Very good. I thoroughly recommend it, and I suspect that there will be more series of the same thing, because I don't know how many books are in the series, but... I've only ever read one Shard Lake book, but it was massive. Yes, they are long. I've listened to some of them as audiobooks rather than reading them, and yeah, they do go on. They're about 20 hours in an audiobook. Well, very good, very entertaining, and really goes to show great act Arthur Hughes is, and we've been very lucky to have him so far in Ambridge, but if we don't hear from him for a while, I hope he comes back still as Arthur Hughes. Indeed, but something we can hear from on a regular basis is Claire from Clapham. Hi, Dan Todum, it's Claire from Clapham here, just wanting to say how marvellous Neil is. I know this is not on a unique opinion. Neil is marvellous. Oh, God bless him. I wish more people in life were like Neil, but Harrison and Fallon, I just thought relaxed. I thought their marriage was getting back on track, and now it's all completely blown up again. I just want to slap Harrison for saying what's George done to him, because what he means is his baby, what George did to him was save his wife from drowning, but he's not seen that, is he? Oh my gosh, since he's all going to get so much worse before it gets better. But on the bright side, I was I think at work this week, and some person who I have never had to just talk to talk to the artist with, said, "Oh my God, the artist is so exciting." And they're really new to it. So it just goes to show that when exciting things happen, people take notice and they get cooked. So it's a really good time, everyone, to go and be a bit evangelical about the archers, because God only knows, we know there are times when it is pretty dull, but it's not dull right now. Also, it's a time to hook everyone in. I even gave my daughter a lowdown, although it hasn't encouraged her to listen. Anyway, keep up the good work, speak to you soon. Thanks for that, Claire, completely agree with you. I go through phases of being evangelical about the archers, and then I'm embarrassed because this one of those, somebody says, "I listened to that thing for a week," and it was one of those weeks that it was a mere week. And you feel really embarrassed that you ever mentioned the fact that you're addicted to this thing, and you make a podcast about it. And this week would have been a good week for someone to listen to, but there were so many characters, you needed too much backstory. But, yeah, we need to get more people listening and more people involved, and more people listening to something you've done. Where I was staying in Herefordshire, I mentioned to my host that I listened to the archers and did a podcast about it. Turned out she is a very keen archers fan, but she only ever listens to the omnibars. And so I had to be very careful not to say anything about what had happened on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and then before I'd left Wednesday and Thursday, so that I didn't give anything away. And it's been an exciting week, so it's quite difficult to talk about what's going on without getting into developments this week. And then there was another, it was a very small bed and breakfast with just three rooms, and there were two other guests on Thursday night, and they were also archers listeners, and I persuaded them to check out Dumpty Dum, so maybe they're listening. Oh, good. What were your fellow guests called? It's Maria and Zoe. Oh, good. Well, welcome, Maria and Zoe to the listening. If you're listening, I've got a cousin who I happened to mention that I did a podcast with you about the archers, and he's an archers listener, and he also lives on a kind of farm and everything, although they only have horses now. But he often sends me little private messages about Dumpty Dum, so I think he listens in secret because his wife is not a fan, and then I think he remembers to make a comment, but I'm never allowed to say anything out loud or in public about him listening to us. It's his secret thing. Go back to your call, Fallon, and Harrison. A lot of people have had views about Harrison this week, but not many people. Somebody, one or two people on Facebook page have talked about Fallon and her attitude, but how have you felt about Fallon this week? I felt desperately sad for Fallon because she is trying to move forward in her life. She is trying to set up this business in the charging station, and now she's worried about whether or not she'll even have her home to live in, because would buy in cottage, as she said, they can't afford to live there without Harrison's salary, and if they split up, the same is going to be true, and she probably end up moving back to the bull, which isn't really a conducive location for setting up a new business and trying to run that, not with Kenton prowling around all the time. I'm desperately sad for Fallon at the moment. Yeah, I do feel sad for her, and in fact, the conversation he had with Alice where she said, "Oh, what has happened to that kind, funny man I married?" brought it home to me that she is really, really struggling, but try, as you say, trying to get back to normal, trying to get her hormones back to normal, trying to get her heads back to normal, having nearly died, and Harrison is dismissing the fact that she nearly died. It's about my baby, so we're just irritating. I might go as far as shockingly going along with a spoon's line that they need therapy. I never say anybody needs therapy, but I think perhaps with a spoon suggested that Harrison has PTSD, I've been saying that Fallon has had something like PTSD. I think they do need to sit down and talk about it, and I suspect that Allen isn't enough, so this circumstance, particularly as I think the Fallon would probably see Allen as being one of Harrison's supporters, not in a negative way, in a very positive way, but therefore not as somebody who can really work with both of them, and they probably do need to do it together. They might need separate counseling as well. Yeah, I think couples therapy would be good for them, but maybe it's gone too far. Maybe they won't be able to speak together with somebody else about their problems, because they see it from a different point of view. But yeah, I agree that feeling sorry for Fallon, although she has been a bit harsh at times. She's not recognizing the fact that he is absolutely struggling. Yeah, I think it's because of the pressures of her trying to move forward, and she's got a pretty foul work situation at the moment as a ghastly manager. Yeah, exactly. There's nothing in Fallon's life that isn't slightly difficult at the moment. There we go. Those are the first few calls that are a couple more to come, along with all those emails. If you'd like to join in by calling us yourself or dropping us a line by message or email, Stephen 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/dumbtdumb, and as we've mentioned, the issues we were having with Speakpipe now have been resolved, and you can leave a message of up to two minutes. Alternatively, you can send us a voice note or a written message via WhatsApp on 07810 012881, and if you're calling from outside the UK, start with +44 and drop that first zero. Please try to keep your call to a maximum of two minutes, although this limit isn't enforced like it is by Speakpipe. And finally, we have an email address that you can contact us on if you would rather write to us with your views. Please aim for a maximum of 250 words, and the email address is www.dumbtidumb@mail.com. Bear in mind, you need to be at least 18 to contribute. Endless ways to make your moments sparkle, from classic and timeless jewelry gifts, to creating the custom engagement ring of her dreams. All the prices you won't find at a traditional jeweler, and right now, you can save up to 40% on fine jewelry and 25% on engagement ring settings. During the Blue Nile Anniversary Sale going on now, go to www.bluenile.com to shop the Blue Nile Anniversary Sale and save up to 40%. That's www.bluenile.com. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big row as man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend. My friends still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in. The place to be. To be. This is an ad from BetterHelp. As kids, we were always learning and growing, but at some point, as adults, we tend to lose that sense of curiosity and excitement. Therapy can help you continue that journey because your back to school area can come at any age. And BetterHelp makes it easy to get started. With affordable online therapy, you can do from anywhere. Rediscover possibility with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. And now we have a call from first-time cholera. Ian. Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen, and everybody else in Dumpty Dumland. This is Ian from Middlesbrough, first-time cholera. I just wanted to say how much I've been enjoying the arches recently. I've been listening for just over 20 years now. I think the script writing and the acting has been absolutely superb, especially this week. I do have a little fear, though, that we're heading for some kind of a clear out in the similar way to how Emmerdale had their plane crash all those years ago to get rid of lots of characters they didn't want. We've had this car crash, and it's hard to see how Harrison is going to stay in the program. Surely his attack on George will come out. He'll be sacked. Fallon will get rid of him, and then Will and Emmer will almost certainly be going to jail or, in my eyes, should be. And there were so many other characters that I think are going to be affected long term by this storyline. It's hard to remember a story that's had such a long term effect on so many characters. At least, if we do get rid of some characters, we might last find out who the gills are. That's all. Bye. Thank you for that call, Ian. I really do agree with an awful lot of that. I think that it would be good to know who the gills are. We have been promised a gills storyline for a while. Harrison, yes, of all the people involved in this, he's the one that's got the least personal ties to the village apart from through his relationship with Fallon, and if he loses his job, if he breaks up with Fallon, either of those that learn both of them would, I think, be enough to make it quite difficult for him to stay in Embridge. He wouldn't have a particular reason to. In fact, he'd have plenty of reason to leave the village. I mentioned earlier, I don't think it's very likely that Will or Emma will get a custodial sentence for what they did. I know that Susan did for sheltering Clive, but he was on the run, but I think that that was far worse than what they were doing with George, and I think they would probably be able to top some sort of defense sufficient to get them suspended sentences or probation or community service. They could do community service doing a tree work for nothing as community service. That would be quite a neat way forward. So I don't think we're going to lose them. And of course, being Grundy's, they are absolutely Ambridge. I mean, she's a horror bit, half horror bit, absolutely Ambridge, solid, and couldn't go anywhere else really. I'm not sure whether there's anybody else who might leave the village on the back of all of this. We've lost Rurias, we were saying earlier, probably, for the foreseeable future. But that's the point that you made about this effecting so many people. It's affecting people who are absolutely the heart of Ambridge. They can't escape from each other. They are tied to each other through all kinds of ties and links and so forth. And again, it's this Icelandic saga thing. They are going to have to work out how to do it, how to get on with each other. Yes, they are going to have to. But I was thinking about the phenomenon that we have in the arches of people going silent or temporarily silent. For example, Brookfield, we don't hear much from Brookfield. We heard David this week, but we hadn't, we had Ruth a few weeks ago. We haven't had Pip, thank goodness, for ages, or for a while. Yeah, and we go through these phases. So maybe not necessarily losing characters that are integral, but the storyline changes, the focus changes. So that's how we get away with moving on from one family to another. And so we learn about the whole whole village from all different points of view. The Peggy, of course, is retired as an actor. Jill is an elderly lady. She's not actually retired I don't think yet, but we're going to lose her naturally in the coming years. We don't hear much from what's her boyfriend called? Leonard. Leonard, I was trying to call him Lionel then. I don't hear anything of him nowadays. Whereas that was like a little focus story a few years ago. So I think that's how these kind of movements of people are handled in Ambridge. So it is an interesting, yes, I agree. It's about time we knew a bit of a story about the people who bought home farm. But thank you very much for calling in Ian from Middlesbrough. And we look forward to hearing from you again. Yes, that was an excellent call. And now for our final one of the week. And this is a return to where we started with Tracy. Tracy from California here. So I think George got off easy on the come to Jesus combo with Neil. Neil was firm for a second, but I felt like he didn't sustain it thoroughly enough or address enough before George started crying. Because in most situations with young people, if you have to give him a firm talking to, they're just going to have to suck it up. You cry, you let the tears flow. That's fine. Go ahead and cry. But you're going to hear about yourself. And I didn't feel like Neil went far enough personally. I feel like he needs a Usha up shake because Usha is going to stick with it. I'm also waiting for Will and Emma to be told about how their excuse making for George has contributed to how he's turned out. You know, they keep talking about how George is just a kid and just a kid. And being just a kid is doing something like spending all your money on candy and designer tennis shoes. George isn't young. He's a reprobate. That's not his youth. That's because he just lacks morals and it's a terrible person. And I know that's hard to admit about your own kid. But at some point, everybody got a week up. I also it's interesting in the conversations how folks keep saying that George talks to his parents like most kids talk to their parents nowadays and I'm not buying it. I'm sorry. They especially when he was asking Will about his tiny mind and talking about are you thick or something? Never. Are you kidding me? There would be slow singing and flower bringing if any kid in our family ever spoke to their parents or anybody else like that. George lives with his poor parents doesn't contribute and has a consistently bad attitude and is devious beyond belief. He's just a terrible person. And at some point, people are going to have to come to terms with that and try to address it from a real place. That's it. Oh, Tracy, thank you for that second call. Slow singing and flower bringing. That's the best euphemism I've heard in years. Absolutely fantastic. I just love your calls. We've got such a great way of putting the story across. Yeah, you don't like George. We don't like George. I think we're all in agreement. Now, Neil, wouldn't Neil have been, couldn't he have gone further by telling him off? I think Neil did what Neil does best, gets a point across very succinctly and doesn't go any further. But he will stick at it. He will say things again to George in the future. But yes, very, very good. Yes, it was a fantastic call. Thank you for calling again. And please do keep on calling. It's clear that everybody loves hearing your views on these things and the way that you express them. Just brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, Tracy. Thank you. We love all our call owners, but some of you makers laugh out loud when we hear the calls, which is just wonderful because after all, this is all very serious. So those are all the calls for this week. And thank you all so much for calling in. Now, we always say this show is about what you, the listeners think. So please do tell us how the week was for you in average and calling next week. I know we did have lots of emails and text messages this week, didn't we? We had loads of them. And the first up is from Lillian with a subject line of that's your Lottie. Now, Lillian sent it in last week, but it never arrived. So she's kind of you recent it and it goes like this. Hi, Steven, Jacqueline, and all Dunty Dummies everywhere. I am very concerned about Lottie's motive for getting closer to Ian and Adam. I don't trust her at all. And I am convinced that she's trying to come between Ian and Adam. I don't say she will succeed, but I already sense that she is causing tension between Adam and Ian, especially when Adam was running around getting drinks and stuff for them. I know Adam is not popular with fans of the archers, but I did rather feel sorry for him. Many thanks for a great podcast as ever. Best wishes, Lillian, P.S., Jacqueline, please don't think you have to say "twit" all the time for fear of offending. We are all adults after all, as you pointed out. Oh, well, I'm gonna take out the last point first. I knew I was offended by my language a few weeks ago, and we've had a conversation and I have reminded her that we have to be over 18 to join into Dunty Dummies. So, hey, ho, but "twit" is actually a word I use a lot when I'm not using twat, so it just comes naturally to me. Really, Lillian, it just happens. To go back to Lottie, yeah, I've been suspicious of the Lottie story. I don't know what's going on there. And as we said, last week, I think that Why isn't Pip in school? She's got a child of the same age as Lottie's child, so... Yeah, Madison making friends with Zander doesn't make sense when she's close friends with Rosie. Nah, not at all. Really weird story, but thanks for the email and sorry we missed it last week. Don't know what happened. There was a blip in the universe. Next up, we have an email from Vicki with a subject line of ripples, and it goes like this, "Pile. It's only Monday and already the ripples through the village are beginning. Someone on Facebook has called this an unfolding tableau. I hope this week we get someone new finding out every episode. So far it's been Alison Chris and Fallon and Harrison. We still have to hear from Brian, Adam, Kate, the Stables, and what Justin will do about Cal Otter, Bridge Farm, who employed George, Eddie and Clarrie, who are the other grandparents. Oliver, Jolene, and Kenton because of what Fallon went through, and Alistair and Denise and Mick, it's endless. How will George come through this? Alice is being surprisingly calm so far. I hope she's okay. The astoundingly good writing and acting continues. Aren't we lucky? Lots of love from Vicki. Thank you for that, Vicki. And yes, we found out a little bit more. So from your list of people we haven't yet heard from, we now have heard Brian's reaction, and it was quite a severe one. And we've heard what Bridge Farm think because they've handed George back his fleece and don't want to see him again. But yes, we haven't really heard what Adam thinks or Kate or Lillian and Justin or Eddie and Clarrie or Oliver Jolene and Kenton. We even had scenes with Alistair where it didn't come up. So we didn't really have any comment from Alistair on those developments when he was talking to Jazza. Again, we haven't heard much about Jazza's reaction. So yeah, there's still plenty to come. And I think that that's a great thing about this. It is something that they can spread out through a few more weeks. And any trial, I think, is still going to be months away. So we've got an awful lot of time for people in the village to react to the news and to react to each other and to take sides and to start feuding and so forth. And it's just such a rich thing. We've said that many times. It's such a rich tapestry of stories and personal interactions. And it is, I think, going to be absolutely demonstrating how powerful the archers can be as a drama. And you need maybe not all 70 years, but you certainly need decades of backstory to make this work the way it is. Yeah. It is absolutely brilliant writing and acting. Also, Alistair is being calm. I'm not sure that it's surprisingly calm, Vicki, because she's been in rehab. She took that rehab very seriously. She didn't mix with other people. She didn't take it as an opportunity to make new friends or whatever. She did it thoughtfully and with help from the therapists or the staff at the rehab place. She came out, calm. She came out of their calm and ready and determined to make another go of it with Martha. And she's focusing on Martha. So I think that any emotions she might feel otherwise are being expressed by other people. And didn't she say, "I'm the only one with low blood pressure this week." I think she is not surprising to me. I think she's going through a very thoughtful and meaningful looking at life stage, Alist. Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Thank you for that, Vicki, then. Next, there's an email from Emma with a subject line, "My Plot Prediction Again." And Emma says this, "Hello, Stephen and Jacqueline, and all dumb to dumb listeners. It's Emma in the Midlands writing in again about Fallon, Harrison and Alice following Monday's episode. I wrote back in March with my plot prediction that Fallon and Harrison were heading for a big breakup and that Alice and Harrison would get together. At the time, I think I was on my own with that idea, but I would love to know if anyone else thinks it's back on track after tonight's episode. Surely, Harrison is going to get into big trouble at work after scaring and threatening George. But there's no way he can pivot to being pub landlord with Fallon, as I think she has woken up and found she's married to a man she no longer recognizes or even likes very much, however good the sex is. And Alice, well, she seems to be destined to break Chris' heart over and over again, so why not this time by getting together with his best mate just at the moment that Chris believes she might be turning back to him. I think the odds on my plot prediction just got stronger. Anyone with me this time? Loving the show, keep up the good work. Emma. Yeah, I'm with you, Emma. I agree. There was a definite connection between Harrison and Alice in their making up scene this week. And as we've talked about, earlier, Fallon is not coping with the Harrison that she now lives with. And that would be a way in which to go against Ian's prediction that Harrison leave the village, of course, is to put him in a relationship with somebody else, like Alice. I do feel that Harrison won't disappear necessarily. And so having him with Alice would be another way of moving forward, but that they were always friends before all the incidents with drinking and the smell that she tried to have with him and all those kind of things. But I think that we're one step closer to your prediction. Let's put it like that. I think that it's possible that there will be a clinch, an incident, possibly more than a clinch, between Harrison and Alice and Fallon may catch them at it. And I think that that will trigger them to realize that, well, for Alice to realize that it isn't right, that she can't continue to live in Ambridge where Fallon is going to continue to live and be a relationship with Harrison. So I think there might be something that actually drives a final nail into that whole coffin, temporarily at least drives a wedge between Fallon and Alice and sends Harrison away completely, as if there weren't enough reasons for all of this to happen anyway. I don't think it's a long-term relationship. I just don't think they brought enough in common. I think that they might feel that they're thrown together in feelings of desperation around stuff. Alice isn't going to offer Harrison the chance to have children, I don't think. So I don't think there's a future there. I just can't see it happening. As I said, it might be a bad moment, a bad night, a bad weekend, and then it'll all comfort Terry at flying apart. We'll wait and see. Thank you for another prediction, same prediction, but yet again, Emma, thank you. Now, finally, we had an email from Purple Pumpkin with the subject line, "The School Gates", and it goes like this. Dear Jack and Stephen and Dumpty Dummers everywhere, it's your pal Purple Pumpkin here with an emailer in about a point discussed in last week's podcast. As part of a same-sex couple who became parents not quite as late as Adam, and all be 18 years ago, I wholly sympathise with Adam's concerns and the realisation that being parents brings with it a whole new set of coming-out experiences, for example, in health care and in school. I'm happy to say we face absolutely no overt homophobia from other parents, but there was an awful lot of explaining of our family to the other children, a lot of asking if one of us was the grandma or the auntie. In fact, when aged about seven, our daughter asked if we could just explain our family to all the others in the school so she didn't keep getting asked where dad was etc. As for WhatsApp groups, we did indeed both join, maybe because there was no automatic assumption about the mama doing all that stuff. But so did both halves of divorced couples, I just checked and our final group had about 40 members. Now if this storyline and the arches makes a few more people in conventional families explain different only structures to their own children instead of expecting the Adams and Ian's or Zandas always to explain, that will get a big thumbs up from me. I'm surprised though that Ian didn't know about themed days and assemblies given his relationship to Martha and other small children. Keep up the good work, your pal, PP. Thank you for that Theo, that's one of your three contributions to this week's podcasts. You've clearly come back from your trip of a lifetime holiday to really just step into everybody's shoes. So thank you for this one and for the treats of the week which we're still to hear. Yeah I think you're absolutely right that it's not reasonable to expect that a couple in a less standard, less conventional relationship would have to do all the work about explaining their situation. It would be treating it as something other and different and abnormal almost and I think that we need to recognize that there is a normal range of family structures and so forth and I think that we wouldn't expect a racial minority couple family to have to explain about race in a school. I think it's everybody's usually to understand about that so it's a similar sort of thing here that we just need to recognize that society is full of different structures and so forth and that everybody is equally responsible for understanding them and learning about them and just putting all the burdens on the minorities and these will always be I think minorities but there's a difference between being a minority and being abnormal. Yeah I know I've fully support what you're saying Theo and I think it will come but it will take a long time. Yeah and stories like this yeah but it made people stop and think hopefully thanks to that Theo very much appreciate your point of view having lived through the similar circumstances and still living through it and yes as Stephen said welcome back we're going to call this the Theo show so as we've mentioned a few times now Patreon backers have done to them now get an ad-free early release version of the podcast around 6 p.m. on the Saturday. Now this is not however a guarantee it's just a name as there may be weeks when other demands on Stephen's time mean that he can't do the edit until later although you did manage to get it out pretty sharpish last week even going to the Morton show so well done Stephen. Patreon's got a weekly email about Dumpty Dum and the archers which this week looked at some of the more absurd stories we have had in Ambridge. Please do let us know if there's anything that we can do that would make the difference between you backing us or not. 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 I use. We're planning that any extra will go towards a Dumpty Dum get together so the more of you who sign up the quicker we will be able to put it together together and pictures will have priority access to tickets. Now let's move on to our Facebook page and give a warm Dumpty Dum welcome to the following 22 people who've joined our Facebook group in the last. Jonathan Gray-Torrex, Grace Clark, Nick Fletcher, Rachel Brown, Janice Lomas, Jim Manchester, Darren Pullman, Moidey Burridge, Bethan Gulliver, Sarah Wheatley, Sarah Burton, Penny Torbett, Dina Burgess, Nancy Chillingworth, Jade Hunt, Stella Popowitz, Leslie Bartchum, Dina Louise Stuart Harvey, Richard Pooley, David Gray, Fiona Bell and Susan Sprague. Welcome to you all. Don't be shy about joining in and never hesitate to start a new conversation. We actually encourage you to go fully merchant and start posting, call or entering, and email or entering all in the same week. So let's hear what has been going on in the Dumpty Dum Facebook group this week. Unfortunately, Ben and Shanghai, who's turned us just to do the roundup, is swamped by work at the moment. So instead, you'll have to put up with a roundup from me. Hi, this is Stephen with a roundup of the Conversations in the Dumpty Dum Facebook group this week. With a new spreading about George's arrest and confession, Al Cam set us a challenge. Can we list everyone who is not or will not be affected by the accident-stroke George-stroke Alice storyline? I love all these ripples. I'll start us off. Robert. Some suggestions were uncontroversial. Jane Collie suggested Vince while Laura Jackson nominated Leonard. Laura's other suggestion, Helen, Henry and Jack, gave rise to quite a bit of debate. Helen may well be upset that she trusted and employed George noted Leslie Daley and will potentially be having to do more work on the farm. Bring back Johnny Phillips added Rosie Taylor. Jackie Fier suggested Jim. Ruth Pearl wondered whether he would be affected by Alastair and Denise being there. Was their relationship escalated because of it? She asked. Sarah passing a miter thought she was on safe ground nominating Hilda, but Andrew Burgoyne pointed out that she'd be replaced in the Ambridge's most hated list. There were quite a few other suggestions, but as somebody called Jacqueline Bertot noted, "I think in a small community like Ambridge most of the people we know quite well are touched by the story." And that, as Al Cam pointed out, is the genius of this storyline. Two characters came in for a bit of criticism this week. "I used to like Robert," said Julia Delich. His personality just seemed to have changed. "He was a bit of a jerk today," agreed Claire Campbell. Paula Louise went further. He's not as kind and wise as the old Robert. He's all arrogant, grouchy and spiky. This means he'll no longer be that calming cells or voice of moderation when Linda next gets on her high horse. I can't ever imagine this Robert affectionately referring to his "Lindy." "New Robert, it's a no from me." Jonah Titchmarsh chined in too. "Nope, sorry. The break hasn't made me rate the New Robert anymore. His voice is all wrong." And Sally Owen felt that a humane, humorous, somewhat nerdy man has turned into a pompous, busybody. Meanwhile, Arby Hamm wasn't happy with behaviour of the local bobby. George needed to complain to bortonship police about Harrison's conduct. Even reported as an offence, that was way out of order, regardless of the circumstances. Sarah Spillsby agreed. I'd call Harrison a spanner. A phrase used at the sixth form to denote someone foolish, but he's not even that useful, so it would be an insult to actual spanners, which are very useful in plumbing scenarios and understand. His high feelings are perhaps understandable, but any sense of professionalism was void. Also, does he not forget his relatively recent telling off from work? Or man, you pure fool, age? Suzanne Steele went further, Harrison, Harrison, Harrison. Trained in defence tactics, aka he could easily have killed George, not okay, not fit to be a police officer anymore. Time to quit before you're fired. But Helen Blackburn was more sympathetic. I don't like Harrison, but he's a very troubled soul at the moment and needs some support. In other conversations, Amanda Kightly posted about some flowers being sold for charity. Bonnie McLean thanked Dr. Dummens for their advice about gin. And finally, Hugo Horvath posted a clip from an old Radio 4 program called Music Therapy, which featured Zadysmith's brother, Doc Brown, performing a rap trailer for The Archers. Let me take you for a roll through the hood, Borsichur, where they're up to no good. And on that bombshell, I'll return you to the studio. Thank you, Sarah. And thank you so much to everyone on the Dump to Dump Facebook group. If you would 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. And if anybody out there would like to write us a review, please do that too. There is a link to 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 a few of your friends about us, even if they're not currently archers listeners. You never know, they might be the start of a very long obsession. Now we're moving on to Twitter, where you will find us at Dump to Dump. Make sure you include the archers hashtag using capital TNA. So the visually impaired who use screen readers can enjoy any archers based tweets. As well as at Dump to Dump, Stephen can occasionally be found at Wenlock House. And we can both also be found with the archers friends on Blue Sky. But I am @Wennlock.B Sky.Social. And I am @jberto.B Sky.Social. So let's find out who has won the Twitter medals this week with. Guess who's back. See you. Tweet tweet tiger. Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen and Dump to Dump is everywhere. It's purple pumpkin here with treats and skits of the week. Back from my globetrotting and with thanks to Michelle for so ably keeping my seat warm last week. This week on Twitter and Blue Sky alongside general praise for the actors and script writers, we've mainly been treated to the Neil Carter Appreciation Society. As @JohannaS.B Sky.Social said, "What a perfect set of thoughts, feelings and actions he is." This was counterbalanced by those who think that along with a new voice, Robert Snell has acquired a new personality. Bruce the Bunny at BrucetheBunny.B Sky.Social said, "New Robert is a right grump," speaking for many. And despite the script writers' best efforts, very few people felt as Brenda Selwyn at Brenda Selwyn.B Sky.Social did. She confessed to feeling a tiny bit of sympathy for George when he was crying on Neil's shoulder. That was a rare perspective, with most people finding his lies and blaming of others unforgivable. I particularly enjoyed a thread on Blue Sky in which kitty St. Orbin at kittster.B Sky.Social, who is a barrister, explained exactly what the sentencing guidelines mean for George and what role any remorse from him and speaking up by Alice might have in determining his sentence, along with the most recent developments in the approach to sentencing young adults, who are treated differently both to children and to more mature offenders. It's worth a look if you're wondering how all this will play out for George. Finally, I'm glad to see that the move from Twitter to Blue Sky is bringing people back to the joy of the archers. Paul Johnson at PaulDMJ.B Sky.Social said he had kicked his dependency on the archers many years ago. Now though, there's a group on Blue Sky that talk about nothing else, and he's binge-listened to the last two omnibus editions. Welcome to the fold, Paul. David Bell at DavidBell1.B Sky.Social said he'd never listened to any episode of the archers in his life, but there are so many posts he's becoming increasingly invested in knowing what George has been up to because it clearly isn't good. Julie Bacon at JulesB.B Sky.Social urged him to come and join us. It won't be long before you're saying hello you two. I think we'll have him converted soon, guys. But now, over to this week's medals for Blue Sky's Keats and Ex-Posts, all of which we continue to consider as Tweets of the Week. And this week, they're all about one smaller version that took place among the drama. In Braun's position, it's AirScaper at AirScaper. Great, an episode about a display cabinet. This sort of thing is why I love the archers. [Music] The silver medalist is Ian, at Ruth at Ian. Come on, Brad, the ancient Greeks who are top mathematicians, these are your people. [Music] And the gold medal goes to Pickwick the Dodo at Leslie Hustler 1. I love the relationship between Jazza and Brad. They have no idea what the others are on about most of the time, but they respect their interests enough to take them seriously. The thing they have that binds them together is the love they both have for Tracy. And on that sweet 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. Ah, you was a very sweet note. Well done. Now, don't forget we are on Instagram @DumTidam. Please send any of the archers or podcast relevant photos to the DumTidam email, and we'll publish them with credits to you, dumtidam@mail.com. And I'm hoping you'll be doing that, Stephen, this week, so I can get those up on Instagram. I will send you a few. Thank you. Next week, Jacqueline will be a way to attend a wedding in a remote corner of Scotland where apparently there is no internet. So I will be joined by a special guest co-host, regular chorinara, love Jazza singing. We'll be recording at our normal time of Crack of Dawn of 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 thank you to all our wonderful contributors and to the team of DumTidamas behind the scenes. And we need to say a great big 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 have to say thank you, as always, to Kim Durham and Sonny Ormond for their voices and pay respects to the founders of this podcast. Thank you so much for listening and joining us today. We're now off to do some small acts of protests to make society better. So it's goodbye from me. How'd this are about, probably? Do I haven't read that before? This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? 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