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

Genevieve Stradbolt

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

We hear from:

Globe-trotting Richard, who thinks Fallon is concentrating on the wrong thing;
Anna who might be feeling slightly sorry for George;
Jade from Australia who enjoyed Tracy talking with Brad;
Elizabeth from Dorset who has a plot prediction;
Ian from Middlesborough who has an idea about Clive’s motive for his visit to his old dad;
Witherspoon, who was moved by the scene between Alice and George;
And finally Jen from Brooklyn, who is feeling worried about Harrison;

We also have no fewer than seven emails, from David in Carmarthenshire, Clover Slack, Val, Katy in Arbeia, Lilian, Amanda and Vicky.

Plus: we have the Week in Ambridge from Suey, a roundup of the Dumteedum Facebook group from first-time rounder-upperer Jacquieline from Christchurch, and the Tweets of the Week from Theo.

Please call into the show using this link:

www.speakpipe.com/dumteedum

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

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

Or email us at dumteedum@mail.com

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

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Broadcast on:: 06 Oct 2024
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To be. This is a Dumpty Dum production. ♪ Dumpty Dumpty Dumpty Dum ♪ ♪ Dumpty Dumpty Dum ♪ ♪ Dumpty Dumpty Dum ♪ ♪ Dumpty Dumpty Dum ♪ ♪ Dumpty Dumpty Dumpty Dum ♪ ♪ Dumpty Dumpty Dum ♪ ♪ Dumpty Dumpty Dum ♪ ♪ Dumpty Dumpty Dum ♪ This is Dumpty Dum, a weekly podcast about the archers and the goings on of Ambridge. I'm Stephen Bowden, and I'm going to come out with this a better person, I promise. And I'm Jacqueline Bowden, who loves a seminar. And then as you are lovely Dumpty Dummers, a danger to all the pollinators. Welcome to Dumpty Dum, a place to talk about the things that are happening in our favourite Borsage of Village. This week's scripts are written by Kerry Davies, who has introduced us to two new characters in the shape of Zainab and Khalil Malik, and also Genevieve Stradbolt and her working equitation clinics. Coming up, we have calls from Globetrotting Richard, who thinks Fallon is concentrating on the wrong thing. Anna, who might be feeling slightly sorry for George? Jade from Australia, who enjoys Tracy talking with Brad. Elizabeth from Dorset, who has a plot prediction. Ian from Middlesbrough, who has an idea about Clive's motives for his visit to his old dad. With a spoon, who was moved by the scene between Alice and George. And finally, Gene from Brooklyn, who is feeling worried about Harrison. We also have no fewer than seven emails. From David and Kamalvinshire, Clover Slack, Vowel, Katie and Arbea, Lillian, Amanda and Vicki. Plus, we have the week in Ambridge from Sui, a roundup of the Dumpty Dum Facebook group from First Time Round or Upper Road, Jacqueline from Price Church, and the Tweets of the Week from Theo. So let's start by reminding ourselves of what happened over the last seven days with the week in Ambridge from Sui. Hello lovely people, who is Sui Queen or Tart here, and a roundup of this week in Ambridge. Oh, well, it's been another week all round, hasn't it? Dr. Malick's kid showed up, Zainab and Carl Hill. Zainab had a tiff with Ben, and then got stuck by an Asian hornet. Ben went into full-on casualty mode, and administered anti-establishment and painkillers. No blue flashing lights, though. And then Zainab's brother tried to extort money from Brookfield because she was so poorly, but he was quickly found out by his mum, who sent him off to apologise. Turned out, he'd arrive just in time for cake and built Joel's birthday party. She sent him home with sufficient cake to sing the buckle ship, so nothing's changed. Pat tried to explain to Alice why she'd written a character reference. Lillian showed up and things got very icy indeed. This is gonna run and run. Alice later in the week went round to George and told him what he had done to her and how he nearly destroyed her relationship with Martha. Back at the dairy, Poppy chucked an egg at the window and Susan saw her. This was after we discovered that Susan mislabeled the yogurt pots for the shop. Emma reluctantly took some of the random yogurt's home, and Susan later told Will about Poppy. He's gonna try and deal with it. Oh dear, let's say it did not go well. Poppy is very upset at the prospect of losing George. In Brighton News, there is going to be a competition to name the new pub cat, but there's no prospect of a price so far. Let's hope it's better than Prospero the peacock. Emma and Will took down the big hornet's nest once they had been destroyed and Emma went home with cake. What big was this cake? They were feeding the five thousand. And finally some very good news is that Brad has found his tribe of nerds at uni and he and Tracy had a lovely mother-son chat. Then George turned up, and again we were reminded of what a good egg Brad is. So it's a shaking ambush to the very core again next week, we hope. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. I will talk to you then. [Music] Thank you for that, Suey, excellent as usual. So how has your week been, chef in? It's been great, it's been lovely weather. Having had a return last weekend to absolutely chucking down rain and miserable and windy and everything like that, it's been great. I would go back to restart the term as it were, or the semester, as we say here, as they do in the British universities apparently. The term has started with granny cycling starting back. But my florist course that I'm doing has started to work with, has started again. So I had a busy week, thank you. How about you, Stephen, your plans have gone ahead as usual? Not entirely, no. The festival that I'm going to this weekend, I was supposed to be going last night. I got to the station, my train was on time, and then I noticed that there was a train on the other platform. It would have been there for a very long time. Then I noticed that, well, trains were running a bit late, a few minutes late here. And then mine disappeared completely from the notice board. There was no announcement. I went to check and discovered that it canceled my train. And the reason was that it had to come in on the other platform, and all the trains were backed up there. And the reason that train had been on the platform was because apparently somebody had attempted to glass the conductor. And had to be arrested and taken off the train. So it took forever, and that meant all the trains behind were backed up. But I think mine must have been turned round at Gloucester rather than coming through to Cheltenham, and they didn't tell me. That is appalling. And to add that insult to injury, I then got a message from Transport for Wales saying, "Good news. There are no problems with trains between Cheltenham and Chepstow at the moment." Where is the festival? The festival's in Chepstow. Right. So how long a journey is that from where you are? It's about half an hour on the train from where I am. So is that towards Wales from where you are? It's not merely towards Wales, it's into Wales. Oh, you see? My geography of that area of Great Britain. I've never passed through it rapidly on the motorway. But Chepstow is right on the border. But it's just on the Welsh side of the border. So it's Transport for Wales to do it. The tickets are basically cheap. It's hardly worth me trying to get my money back for the ticket. It was only £2.51. It would be £2.10, the return journey, which only got me as far as Gloucester because it was a very late last train. But it did mean at least that I had the chance to guess on top of everything that we're about to go through today. Yes. I think you need to tell people what time are we on Saturday morning, Stephen, with you? Yes, it's five o'clock in the morning. That means that it's an hour until Tangle gets her food. So there may be the odd meow coming through every so often. But we really have got so many calls and so many emails. But I think we probably ought to start with this. Hello, Tiger. And our first call is from Globe Trotting Richard, who is not Globe Trotting this week. Hi, Richard. Not calling in from an airport today. I hope the sign call is just good. In Lisbon. The town was pitching the quality of her case in her bid for the charging station cafe bench. In my limited experience, retail businesses, that's one thing and one thing alone the landlord cares about. And that's the financial solvency of the people bidding and they get guarantees on the rent for a long period. And it's not at all realistic that Harrison going full-time is going to be the thing that swings it. She hasn't got enough money. She hasn't got enough money. Why hasn't she talked to Brian or Oliver or Vince or indeed Justin with help on the business plan or looked for some kind of investor, the tree surgery had well investing and bringing outside capitalist what you need to do if you don't have enough cash. Second thing is about George and this idea of character reference as I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that his profession of the course of justice, which he's been guilty, is serious, there's high culpability because he didn't just do it on the spare of the moment. He also deleted the vice mail. He also made other cock-and-ball story about it potentially being Harry, which means the sustained conduct over a period of time and the degree of planning is grade A high culpability. The second thing is the category one level of harm, the consequences for Alice, it should be found guilty, were potentially custodial and with serious distress and loss of reputation. So in my book, notwithstanding all his other awful behaviours, it's a present sentence. Bye. Thank you for that, Richard. Yeah, Fallon and her business plan. This is always worried me about Fallon. As you know, I'm very skeptical as to what and where Justin will come in to her business plan. But the money, yeah, she's earning a salary now. She's no longer the owner of the t-shop business and I never quite understand. We definitely had a very sketchy idea as to how that division took place apart from. We knew that she ends up with a load of chairs, which presumably by now she's sold. Money wise, if they have a mortgage, they're relying on his salary and part-time salary currently and that's obviously where that story's going with him having to go back to work and whether he can and whether he will. But yeah, she does need to talk to potential investors. Now I wondered about crowdfunding type of investors because that's a very current apparently in the UK. And yeah, I also feel very nervous for her and her investment on whether she will actually get the pitch. Food's one thing, paying the rent's another. I think that's absolutely right, but there are some possibilities here. She may have a certain amount of money squirreled away from when she was running the cafe and I think she will have got some for the equipment that she sold to Tom and Natasha, the T-room equipment that they were using. So I think she'll have a little bit of capital, not a huge amount. She might possibly have a guarantee for the rent from her mother on behalf of the bull. So that would help and I suspect that she probably has taken a certain amount of business advice from her mother on all of this. And because she's been running her business for a while, unlike Ed and Emma, for instance, I think she's got a much clearer idea of the business finances because she will have the experience of the T-room when she was running it. Yeah. So it's not quite as dire as some Ambridge businesses tend to be, but it is a bit questionable. I think she'll definitely be operating right on the edge of solvency and I think that she will rely on Justin and the company looking favorably on hiring local businesses, which is something I think he said he would do at the pitch in the town meeting. I wanted to pick up on the other point that Richard made, which is about the sentencing of George. There's been a huge amount of debate on various places, including among the academic archers where there are some experts and it all boils down to the mitigating factors. And there are certainly some people who are arguing very much that George's actions were unplanned, unsophisticated and acknowledged before anything went to court. And those are all very clear factors in favor of a lower sentence. Now, I think unplanned is open to debate. How do you interpret that it was the initial decision to get into the mess that he was in was somewhat spur of the moment. He did sustain it over a while. He did delete the voicemail message, but nobody knows about that voicemail message. It hasn't come up. So I don't think that's going to be a factor unless it does come up. And I think that Will didn't even know he'd sent it. So the only person who knows it was sent would be George himself unless the police were to do a forensic investigation of his phone. And is there a reason for doing that? I don't know. I think that for political reasons, if nothing else, it's more likely he will get a non-custodial sentence, perhaps community service or else a custodial sentence suspended. So he won't actually serve any time, but we're going to have to wait to find out next week. Yeah, indeed. Shall we move on to our next call? And this is from Anna. Hello, it's Anna here from Berkshire, I've Stephen and Jacqueline, and all dumpedy dummies. Thank you, Stephen, for clarifying the situation with Fallon's business. I do recall now that it was mentioned that it was a contract that she was bidding for. So it looks like Fallon is actually on the up and out. And I wasn't aware of all the food ventures in Ambridge apart from Ian's pizza van, which has gone a bit quiet. So I guess that's because Ian has other priorities with a PTA, but it looks like there have been other attempts with the food trucks. Fingers crossed, everything goes well for Fallon, but I'm with you, Jacqueline. I'm not entirely sure if Justin can keep his beak out, but I'll eat my hat if I'm wrong. So I'm calling off to Tuesday's episode of The Archers. I'm never done that because I am torn with the George situation. Now, I don't typically procrastinate over wrong guns on the show, but I am beginning to feel a bit sorry for George. And I'm saying this through Grittiutee. There was something great about hearing Tracey tear into George, but at the same time, it wasn't great. I guess be careful what you wish for. And I don't know if it's because Tracey was nuclear and one-level and re-gunning for him. And it was so unexpected because I thought she might have been feeling a bit differently towards him because he's family and everything else, but Tracey made some good points about the impact that had on her as well and how she treated Alice. So I can see why Tracey was coming from that place. It was a bit uncomfortable to listen to. And I think it was because George wasn't coming from the same place as someone less say as Uncle Clive, who is just like, "Oh, calm dad. It wasn't that big a deal. He wasn't reacting in those ways." He seems to be truly sorry about what happened. And it does seem to me like he is trying to... I wouldn't say necessarily turn over relief, but he knows that he's done wrong. And I liked the conversation between Brad and George. I thought that was really great. I liked the fact that Brad didn't excuse anything that he did, but was forgiving to some extent. But what I really am looking forward to is a combo between Alice and George. And I expect that will happen on the 10th of October. Isn't it hilarious how many times it's been mentioned that it's the 10th of October? That date is now sealed into my brain with Brad going, "Oh, it's next Thursday, isn't it?" Oh, so I guess it's one of those pop-kind episodes. I'll be getting a few snacks ready to sit down and listen to it. I'm really looking forward to hearing Alice and George speak, because I want to know how Alice is going to approach this. When Alice is speaking to Pat, she didn't seem very forgiving of the situation. I felt she was a little cold, and I really want to hear her feelings on George. I know she said a few things with Chris, but I'm looking forward to hearing her speak directly to George, and I expect that will happen on the 10th. So anyway, that's all for me. Sorry, I'll overrun my two minutes, but I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of the pod. Bye for now. Thank you for that call, Anna. And of course, we have now heard that conversation between Alice and George, but I want to go back to the start of your message, where you talked about Tracy and her attitude towards Emma. And I think that it's worth looking back at a previous occasion on which Emma and Tracy were involved in conversations following somebody being dubbed into the police, and the boot was very much on the other foot back then. This is when Keith Horribin set fire to the Brookfield barn in which Emma and George were staying. This was 20 years ago when George was very small. On that occasion, and I've discussed this before, I think, Emma realised during a Horribin wedding, I think it was Keith's daughter Sam getting married. In Ambridge, Emma realised that it must have been Keith who had set fire to the barn. And she called up crime stoppers. And Tracy went ballistic when she found out that it was Emma who had done that and told her that she was totally in breach of the code of the Horribins or whatever. Back then, it was Tracy who, as to quote, I think her call that was coming on was much more of a Horribin at the time. Tracy was very much on the side of you don't dub your family in. And Emma was the one who'd done the dubbing in and now we're in exactly the opposite position where Emma decided not to dub George in and Tracy is saying that she should have done quite a turnaround. Yes, it is a turnaround, and in fact Tracy's character has turned around a lot, hasn't it, in the last few years? Yeah. Next Thursday, the tent. Why are we all going to be there? What snacks will you have when you're listening to Thursday's episode, Stephen? I will probably have some kimchi and a beer. Halfway goods. I probably won't listen until I'm going to bed. The problem with the art is it comes on at seven o'clock and we generally eat around about eight o'clock our time, so I miss it live usually. So who have we got up next? Next is Jade in Australia. Hello, Dumpty Dum. It's Jade Collar Intering after Tuesday's episode this week, and I just wanted to talk quickly about Tracy and Brad. I quite enjoyed the scene where George came round to the house. I thought it was very telling the way Tracy reacted and what she said, and that her anger with him was a lot to do with her own embarrassment at how she'd behaved towards Alice. And I know we all love the drama, but it would be so much simpler if people acted with a little bit more compassion than she wouldn't have been so mean to Alice, and they wouldn't have had to go gravelling afterwards. And now she's being mean to George, just the way she was mean to Alice. So yeah, that's quite the cycle carries on. And I loved how Brad was so mature and calm as he always is, and I thought it was really great the week. He spoke to George and he showed some kindness, but also said this doesn't mean I think what you've done is good. It was really, really bad, but the fact that he's showing remorse is good. And I think that's the first time anyone that we've heard has said that to George. The other thing that I just wanted to pick up on was I think it was quite, I think, true to life and interesting the way when Pat went round to Alice, Alice had had a really bad day. And I think if all her plans with Martha had gone to plan and she'd had a beautiful day, that would have been a very different conversation. And I just love the way all these circumstances interweave to create the tensions and the dramas, the way that happens in delay, okay, out of time. Have a good week, everyone. Bye. Yeah, thanks for your call, Jade. That was a great year. Tuesday's episode was a brilliant episode to me. I loved the conversation between Brad and Tracy. Tracy's pure gleefulness about having a son at university is a big thing. I was the first person to go to a university for my family and it was a big thing. So I understand Tracy's reaction to that. Brad was calm and lovely with both his mom and with George. It was a great conversation, but Tracy's reaction to George, I think as both Anna and Jade have said, was very typical of Tracy. I was quite surprised because normally she's very much for the family, as we've already said, the extremes that she goes to with her feelings about things are, I wasn't surprised by it in that way, but I did feel that she would be more defensive of her nephew rather than just embarrassed about her reaction to embarrassment in the village. Yes, and a bit later in the week, we had Chris's comment about George, which is even more extreme, an excellent call, Jade. And I think you're right about Alice's conversation with Pat after her bad day. Now the one thing there is that if she hadn't had a bad day and had had a good conversation, it would be much less dramatic and the same I think is true of quite a lot of this that we're doing this to the drama. And I think that what I really liked about this week was the way that, as you say, everything weaves together. And I think that's because this is the sort of thing that Kerry does so brilliantly and it was very much a Kerry week down to the silly name coming in from in this case, I think we'll never hear from again, Genevieve Stradbolt. But it was just the way to weave together. And so you had to have Alice having the bad day with Martha, which wasn't just to feed into the ill-tempered conversation, but it also played into her conversation with George later on, because that is very much at the heart of the impact on her. Though, as she says, it's all a bit complicated because it wasn't just about what's happened recently, a lot of it has about what's gone before. And I think we'll get on to that a bit later on. I think that's coming up. Shall we move on to our next call, which is from Elizabeth? Hi, Steven, Jacqueline, and everybody at Dundee Dam. This is Elizabeth from Dorset Calling. I just wanted to ring in with an extension of a plot prediction that was raised a couple of weeks ago by somebody, a cubs reader, I can't remember who it was, either by email or by phone, about the idea of Harrison and Alice getting together. And I just wanted to throw my full support behind that theory. I don't believe that George is going to go to prison for what he did. I think he's going to be released back into the community with some kind of community service and a slap on the wrist. And I think that both Harrison and Alice will, for very different reasons, really struggle with that. And that this would be, therefore, a good kind of parallel story that would work with pushing them into each other's arms. I think they're going to both struggle with George's lack of punishment, particularly Harrison. I think they both are desperate for life to resume to an almost kind of pre-alcoholism, pre-accident life, and I think particularly they are both desperate to heal their friendship with each other. I think both of them are going to be actively looking for sympathy and empathy. And I think Harrison in particular is incredibly lonely. And that's not a criticism of Fallon, because she is rightly pursuing this cafe opportunity to improve their lives. But it's resulting in the art just doing that incredibly annoying thing where one person is desperately trying to have a really important emotional conversation with the other who is completely oblivious to this and is almost talking over the top of them, or is talking absolute bobbins back at them. It drives me nuts. But I think there's going to be a lot of that reinforcing Harrison's loneliness. And Alice is somebody also looking for some kind of human emotional contact, especially if her relationship with Martha isn't necessarily where she wants it to be at this point because of everything. I think it'll be a good, dramatic opportunity. Thank you very much, Bayne. Thank you very quickly, Elizabeth. And you put forward an interesting theory, which I'm afraid I don't think has got legs. The one possibility, and I think it's not even a very strong possibility, is that there will be some sort of incident involving Alice and Harrison and unplanned emotional moment. But I don't think they have any sort of future together in a relationship because they are looking for totally, totally different things. And you talk about them wanting to get back to a pre-junkness, pre-incident past. But I don't think Alice is looking back at all. I think she is very much looking forward. Harrison, on the other hand, is desperately looking back. And the one thing that he's looking back at is the loss of this pregnancy. And I think that the thing that he really wants is children. And I don't think Alice is interested in having children with Harrison or any new children. She wants to build the relationship with the one she's got. And I think that just as with Pip throwing Rosie in front of everything in her life, I think Alice will place Martha right at the center of her life. And that Harrison won't find the space there, and it won't be his child. And I think that it won't be satisfying for him. So I think that while there's a possibility that when they are both in a heightened emotional state, they could have an incident which would have horrible echoes of the leader's wood moment. I just don't see them having enough in common or looking in life in the same way for there to be a long-term relationship, I'm afraid. But Jacqueline, you may have a completely different view. Kind of have a different view, but simply because Elizabeth's made a brilliant case for it, because my initial thinking about their relationship is there's no way for more or less the same reason that I'm actually completely sitting on the fence on this web. I understand both arguments from both sides of your argument and Elizabeth's argument. Listening to Elizabeth's call, I was definitely swayed, and there might be something there now listening to you, yeah, there might be something there, I say goodness knows, but I am well-known for my lack of being able to predict anything correctly or incorrectly. I'm sitting on the fence on this one. Time will tell as to whether Elizabeth is right or not. That's my answer to everything time will tell we'll see. And Elizabeth, if you are right, you are, of course, very welcome to call in and say I told you so in no uncertain terms, so thank you very much for that call. Next up we have a call from Ian. Hi, Stephen, Jacqueline, and Dumpty Dumas everywhere, it's Ian from Middlesbrough here with my second call and a bit of a long-shot clock prediction that has only a tangential link to what's going on at the moment. I've been listening to the arches for about 20 years ever since a Sunday morning bath listening to broadcasting house that turned into a long-soak and an arches omnibus which involved Emma sleeping with Ed just before her wedding to Will. I've been addicted ever since. What does that say about me? Anyway, I have a recollection that when Tracy first came back to Ambridge with her two delinquent children, she was very much a horror bin rather than the much nicer, a Sats McCreary that she is now. Well, I'm sure I recall her persuading Bert to change his will to leave the house to her alone. None of my arches listening friends, I've mentioned this too, remember it, but I'm sure it wasn't a dream. I've been wondering if perhaps this was something that Bert told Clive during their recent conversations. Obviously, through the medium of interpretative dance, since, as we all know, Bert has no voice, but I digress. And perhaps when Jazza found Clive going through Tracy's stuff, although Clive claimed he was looking for Kylie's address, was he actually looking for the will and has he taken it with him? And if so, what will happen when Bert dies and Tracy can't find the paperwork? Obviously, if I's imagined the whole thing, then this call is pointless, sorry, but I'm hoping someone, let's be honest, probably Stephen, will corroborate the whole thing. I'll leave it with you. Thank you, Ian, for that. As it happens, I have the right to reply first, and I can tell you, your call is very welcome but very pointless, because if I remember correctly, the Stephen will correct you. The house is owned, number six, the green is owned by Housing Association, and Bert was the tenant, and the tenancy was changed into both his and Tracy's name when Tracy moved in so that she has housing right, because, of course, if Bert doesn't remain silent but becomes dead, she wouldn't have any right to live there and remain there, with her then quite small children. So I think it was changed up, but it's a very good thought, Ian, about why Clive came back, because that is a mystery that we may never, ever, ever resolve, but you never know. These things play out a long way, and as I'm very fond of saying, let's wait and see. Yes, exactly. Absolutely right. So housing association property, and I think what you're remembering, Ian, is the discussion around the changes in terms of the tenancy, so that Tracy can get on to that tenancy. And I think there was a bit of discussion in Dumpty Dum back when that happened as to the appropriateness and the lawfulness of all of that, because you can't necessarily do that. You can't necessarily inherit a housing association tenancy. I think you need to meet the terms of the housing association, it's a social housing thing, so you can't just buy it, you can't buy the house. As if it was a council house, you don't have a right to buy, but equally you don't have a right to stay there if you don't meet the terms, which I think means that your income has to be below a certain level, though, I think that even with jazz are moving in, the income of that household is pretty small still. Yeah. So without the reduced rent, the social rent, they would struggle really. Don't we have a kinder? I don't know. I don't know. I'm also a regular colouringist, Claire Asprey, is she a housing, maybe it's planning and housing rather than... I'm sure Claire could contribute to something on that. So maybe you could call in next week, Claire, and give us your views on the situation in number six. Encourating it, her tenancy. And the situation of it generally in number six, the green. Yeah. If you know that, please tell it. Now for a familiar sound. ♪ You'll know how this goes ♪ ♪ Hey baby, I hear the blues are calling ♪ ♪ Toss salads and scrambled eggs, sir ♪ Greetings, Jacqueline. Steven and all of them tea dimmers around the world. It's with a spin in Angus Haggis here, colour intering after listening to Friday's episode. Actually, first husband and I went to see the excellent new film, The Outrun, starring Social Ronan. She plays a young woman struggling with alcoholism, and much of it was set in Earth Day, and there was even a lambing scene. The young woman is different than Alice in many ways, but I think her struggles, setbacks, and victories will help us better understand Martha's mother. Speaking of Alice, a very powerful scene between her and George to conclude the week. It was good to see her measured and in control, unlike some of her other family members. Hopefully her words to George will have a long lasting effect. In contrast to our hosts, I'm still betting on a six-month sentence for him, but we'll hear in a few days. We're also seeing an interfamily feud erupting. I think Alice will be the one to mediate a ceasefire and peace treaty by talking to the likes of her father, aunt, and ex-husband. Meanwhile, we heard a bit more of Martha's developing anxiety disorder. As I would counsel her parents, I don't think it's just due to the separation from her mother, but other factors as well, such as biology and inheritance. But more on that in the future. Finally, a Paul Hollywood handshake to Brad, who explained with good humor some of the details of university life to his mother, then stood up to her, and talked to George with both empathy, firmness, and disapproval of his actions. We do always love a bit of Brad. Talk to you soon. Thank you for that call with us, Boone, and yes, the scene with Alice and George was very powerful. In some ways, it was even more powerful because Alice was obviously reading out her words rather than saying them, and I think that you had this sort of double layer of having thought through what you wanted to say to the court, and then saying it in front of George. He was breaking down. We'd already heard him clearly coming to terms with the awfulness of what he'd done in front of Brad, and I think that it was because we'd had that conversation with Brad that we could believe that this was genuine. George couldn't pull the wool over Brad's eyes, so we knew then that he was showing genuine remorse. And I loved Brad's remark about he was actually feeling bad about what he's done and not about being caught. Yeah, which is what Tony had said, wasn't it? Is he feeling remorseful because of he's being caught? Yes. When Alice bringing home to him through those complex measured words, the impact that he had had on her, on Martha, on other people. So that leaves the relationship between Alice and George in future and what she wants in the way of sentencing. Interesting. I think she would settle down and say she would be on the side of people who don't want them to go to jail, but she didn't put anything into her statement, plead for leniency for George or anything like that. So she's content to let justice take its cause, but I don't think she's advocating him going to jail. I think she just wants everybody to understand what the impact is on her. And meanwhile, we've got the village falling apart. We have that scene in the bowl with everybody at everybody else's throat. We've got Poppy joining the don't grass up your family side of things. So there is division within the grundies. There is division within the Peggy branch of the archers between Pat and Tony and Lillian and these constant evocations of what Jenny would have thought. Oh yeah. Isn't that awful? I hate that. I really hate that people bring up what this dead person would have thought because that person was a person in her own right and Jenny, while she was very stuffy, she wasn't always totally predictable in her reactions to things. So those are the first few calls. There's one more to come along with all those emails. And if you would like to join in by calling us yourself or dropping us a line by message your email, Jacqueline is here to tell you how and all the details are also in the show notes. Now, the first option is to record a message or a plot prediction by going to www.speakpack.com/dumto-dum where you can leave a message of up to two minutes. Alternatively, you can send us a voice note or written message via WhatsApp on 07810 012881 and if you're calling from outside the UK, start with a +4, 4 and drop that first 0. Please try to keep your call to a maximum of two minutes, although this limit isn't enforced like it is on Speak But. And finally, we do have an email address you could contact us on. If you would rather write to us with your views. Same for a maximum of 250 words, the email address is www.dumto-dum@mail.com and do bear in mind you need to be at least 18 to contribute. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month, new customers on first three month plan only, taxes and fees extra, speeds lower above 40 gigabytes in detail. 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 laugh 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. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Need new glasses or want a fresh new style? Warby Parker has you covered. Glasses started just 95 bucks, including anti-reflective scratch resistant prescription lenses that block 100% of UV rays. Every frame is designed in-house with a huge selection of styles for every face shape. And with Warby Parker's free home trion program, you can order five pairs to try at home for free. Shipping is free both ways, too. Go to warbyparker.com/covered to try five pairs of frames at home for free, warbyparker.com/covered. And now we'll have our final call of the week. And this is from Jen from Brooklyn, who is not actually in Brooklyn right now. Hi, everybody. This is Jen from Brooklyn, caller entering from all kinds of noisy hotels in Los Angeles, where I cannot find a quiet spot. But I wanted to call in, been a while, and to say what I think. So I've been listening to Tuesday's episode, so I am a little behind here on Friday night in LA. First of all, I've got two things making quite uncomfortable. Warren is Eris and admitting that he was heavy-handed with an arrest he made, and that he's kind of losing it. I'm much more worried about him becoming a brutalizer than his relationship with Helen. And I can just imagine him with, we know he has some triggers, some sort of points that he might act inappropriately at work, convict him by somebody who doesn't need, or doesn't deserves her's treatment. The other thing that made me uncomfortable, maybe it's just me, but did anyone think it was kind of cringe when Ben was going on and on to Azra about the invasive Asian hornet. I was like, oh, the invasive Asian hornet, it just seemed like kind of weird. And it makes me think of the in the U.S. people, beekeepers sometimes get worried about africanized swarms or africanized hives, and it just has to be a less racist word to talk about that situation where bees become very aggressive because of crossbreeding. Finally, I need to tell you whatever Ben's sandwich is, as a New Yorker, it is a delicious sandwich made with rye bread, pastrami, and sour kraut. And because the sour kraut is such a strong flavor, it is good as a vegan version of how they had it before, and vegan versions is also delicious. And I love that Fallon is doing a vegan business encounter point to the tea room, which sounds like it went from charming to gross when they put the shining box cow pelts on the wall. I don't know if those got taken down. Does anyone recall if the tea room is still decorated with Tony's, cow skins, cow hides? Anyway, that's what I got today, and I hope everyone's doing really good. Hi. Thank you for that, Jen. Thank you for making the effort to call us in when you're away from home and in a different time zone. The tea room is still decorated with cow hides, yeah, I guess so because that's only very recent. No, it was taken apart, was it? I think they were all taken down because Fallon and Emma were complaining about how all the customers didn't like them and the smell. Ah, yes, the smell. I do remember that. Well, remember Stephen. And yeah, I wonder what they've done with them, pretty rolled up somewhere. Thank you for the explanation about a Reuben sandwich. I love sauerkraut, chukrut here, but that sounds like a great sandwich for me. Now, Harrison, he admitted he was heavy-handed with the arrest and, yeah, it is worrying. I think Harrison needs help. I think we've said it quite a few times now. Harrison, this story with Harrison and his work and his own warnings, I predict that this is going to be a very dominant story as we go through this winter, as Fallon's project moves on. Yeah, and it is worrying. I completely agree, I think Harrison is desperate to get out of the police but has not told Fallon exactly how bad things are and is desperately trying to support her in her new venture. So it's a really unhealthy combination of circumstances and it's not going to end well. On the question of nomenclature and hornets and so forth, the idea of these days is we're supposed to be calling them yellow-legged hornets because that's actually a far more helpful way to describe them because it's the distinguishing feature apart from their size, is the color of their legs. So rather than Asian hornets, they should be called yellow-legged hornets. I don't think there's an alternative term for Africanized honeybees because it's about the hybridization with African bees and I think that it's just unfortunate that that turns out to the word African carries such a huge amount of historical and emotional load that it becomes difficult even when there is no link to savory. I think that it's really difficult to come up with an alternative and I think that within Europe, it's less of an issue and so that there hasn't been much discussion about terminology but as I said with hornets, there is an alternative term which is more useful and therefore I think we'll get out there. Those are the calls. Thank you very 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 I'm not going to ask whether we had any emails this week because I know we had lots of them. So which one arrived first? Now the first one is from David in Camarthanshire with the subject line of the 53rd state and it goes like this. Dear Jacqueline, Stephen and all Dumpty Dummers, David from Camarthanshire here writing in with a pea-vish rant. When did Borsucher become the 53rd state? More and more Americanisms are seeping into the scripts, almost on a daily basis. Nobody in Ambridge expects, thinks or supposes anything these days is just I guess, I guess, I guess. Fallon is one of the worst offenders. Residents of Ambridge also spend a lot of time figuring instead of thinking, supposing or imagining. A few weeks back we even had Eddie referencing a dumpster of all things. Recently Emma lamented that she had never wanted for something to happen, this is certainly not a British English pattern but is standard in North America. I might expect cultural influences to impact on the speech patterns of younger residents but these all pervading Americanisms just don't ring true and nobody seems to employ them in my small world's village. Once I began to notice them, I cannot now stop noticing them. Is it just me? With apologies to With a Spoon Tracing California and all of our friends across the Atlantic. David, disgusting of Camarthanshire. Thank you for that rant David and my concern now is that since you've brought it to our attention we're all going to start noticing it and it's going to disturb our listening of the arches from here on out and I think there are some Americanisms and I think they are actually pervading everybody's speech, you're right that it's far more common among the youth but I think that it's creeping up generally because we're exposed to so much US cultural material on the television and in the cinema and it's been like that for a while and I think that every so often we just noticed it a bit more. The one person in the village who used to deliberately do Americanisms was Jolene complete with her name because it was part of her country in western persona as the lily of Laketon Cross. But I think it's probably spread out from her and I think Fallon might well have picked up Americanisms from her, others characters like Emma, I think that would have to be from the television. Yeah, popular culture, they're over here, they're invading us. They're invaders like Hornets. Yeah, definitely. The next email is from Clover Slack and it goes like this. I love the podcast and have listened almost since the beginning. Just a quick reference to another podcast which I also enjoy listening to in which we were reminded of the time when Helen was drink driving in the car with Tom. She hit someone and Tom got into the driver's seat. Later on it was decided by Tony no less that the best thing to do was to continue with this deception to keep Helen out of trouble with the police. Tony must have a very short memory. Also Pat who at least showed some empathy for George. Thanks for the podcast. Well thank you for that Clover Slack, yeah. On our Facebook page at the end of last week I think it was Kate Lyle brought up this story as well. I have to say that it had kind of slipped out of my memory. I do remember Helen and there was Mike Tucker that she hit, wasn't it? When Lillian was laying into paths at Alice's house this week and she said you're such a hypocrite, I thought she was going to bring that whole subject up because but nobody knows do they? I think that's just within the bridge farm lot that Tom took the rap. Yes. That's an Americanism. Which is definitely true, that's only within the bridge farm lot just as the other car crash that was. Oh yes. Height hidden away is only known about within the Grundy household. Yes, exactly. There's a lot of little secrets hidden in Ambridge and that only we know not the rest of Ambridge. It makes up for all the things that we never hear. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Next up is a message from Val with the subject line last time and it goes like this. Hi Steven, your comments about my bath time made me laugh out loud, my hubby wondered what all the excitement was. He doesn't understand my interest in the archers, even more so dumb to them. It's a marmite thing. Thanks for keeping us entertained. Look forward to Sunday. Love Val. Thank you for that message Val and bath time seems to be a bit of a feature of the moment because Ian was remarking about how he became addicted to the archers in the bath. I suspect that there's somebody who never has a bath because like I'm a shower, it's just quicker and more convenient. I must be missing out on things. Yeah, ditto. No, I'm going to start taking up Val. I'm not sure how hot water would fill a bath, but there we go. Next up is a message from Katie and I'll bear at the end of February and it's all. With the subject line what's good for the goose is good for the gander and it goes like this. Hello Steven, Shaqueline and all fellow dumpty dummas. I don't know about you all, but it's been a tough listen up in our bear this week as the fire and brimstone of those around Alice burns on. Alice, raised with the moon on a stick, is seemingly forgiven every trans-braditional with little accountability. What a relief it's been that some in the village also recognise that a very young adult George, with far less resources with his disposal, deserves support too. Lillian's behaviour seems to demonstrate the family learnt nothing from Kate's pleas to treat Alice as a grown-up. If I found out the stables where my child's learning to ride a dangerous animal was being supervised by someone who at best had been turning up rougher's toast and at worst drinking on the job, well Lillian, that would have had your reputation in tasses for me, no George required. Don't we all really want George to become a decent adult who contributes to his community? Neither prison nor purgatory will achieve that. Just as Helen treated George's horrible video in the end, maybe more could act as community parent, taking an opportunity to help the boy become a better man. Lots of love. Katie. Wow, that's a brilliant email and lots of food for thought there. I prefer anything else. I didn't know the expression raised with a moon on a stick, which I now understand means given everything you could possibly ever want in life. Yes, George, the problem is we've seen, we think that he's a horrible little twerp, don't we? Yes. You see, Stephen's, I mean, when we go about this, so are you saying Stephen, because you think that that he shouldn't be given a chance? You know my line on all of this, if George becomes a well-rounded, decent contributor to society, where will be the fun in that? Yeah, that's very true. I do know that. I know that you say that, but I actually, really, this email from Katie really made me think, because it is another point of view, and I do feel that, yeah, that what really got to me was the bit where she says about, "Would you want your child on a dangerous animal?" She obviously feels the same as I do about horses. So yeah, I completely agree with you, Katie, but I didn't think I would. I think that as much as where we end up with George is the process of getting there, and that's where the drama is at the moment, and that's what I think is really good about the story at the moment. As I mentioned earlier, we've got these splits within families. It's not the village dividing along traditional class lines. It's each of the different sections of the village having the same, going through the same issues and coming up with different answers, and there are people being pitted against other people at all levels. So I think this is absolutely fascinating. I think to be realistic, having an evil George in his worst form would not be sustainable in the long term, so he either has to disappear or reform. And I think it's likely that he'll reform, but I just hope that there will always be a certain echo of the old George around because we need villains, we need complicated characters, we need all of that, and his grandfather is getting too old to do all of this sort of thing anymore. So we need a new eddy. Yeah, I do. It's very true. We need somebody who everybody trusts, but doesn't really trust, never know quite what they're going to do. Yeah, I think that is the George of the future. So our next email is comes from Lillian, and the subject line is Azra, and it goes like this. Hi, Jacqueline, Stephen, and all dumb to dumbers everywhere. I have to say, I'm really not keen on Azra. I find her extremely tactless when she took some food over to Linda and Robert to say thank you for helping her with sorting our ideals allotment. To Linda thanked her, she said something like, "Oh, it's all right, it's only my leftovers." And then this week, when Alice took home with the flowers, she said, "Thank you." And then she said, "Oh, I'll just put them in this," as if she was putting them in a milk bottle or something. She just strikes me as being really quite rude. Best wishes and thanks again for the podcast, Lillian. Thank you for that email, Lillian. I listened again to the scene between Azra and Alice about the flowers, and I have to say that I don't quite agree with you. Yes, Azra did say, "I'll just put them in this," but she then added, "I'll put them in something nice later," or words to that effect. So I think she really was just doing what I think a lot of people do, which is saying, "We need to put these flowers somewhere, and then I'm not going to spend time faffing around with flowers. I want to spend time talking to you, and thank you for the flowers, and I will make them all beautiful later," because otherwise what you really need to do is chop the bottoms off the stalks and then stick them in the nice fast and arrange them to make it all look good. And I think that Azra has every intention of doing that, and as I said, she did to Alex a bit more than, "I'll just shove them in this." And I think that she is a bit flustered at the moment because her family have just arrived in the house. Her husband is away in Pakistan, sorting out whatever he's sorting out, and so she is a bit overwhelmed, and she's probably a bit on edge with Alice coming round because she doesn't want to get into medical staff, and it's all a bit complicated, and she's got a really irritating son. I think that rather than rude, I think she's just hoping with the culture shock of landing in Ambridge, and I think she's doing quite well, really. I agree with Steven Lillian. I did great on me that when she said to Linda, "Robert, it's just my leftovers," but if I wish she'd said, "Oh, it's what I made for dinner last night," and here is the fact that she said leftovers was a bit grating, but yeah, I agree with Steven in that I think she's someone who's dealing with teenage children, a daughter who has something going on in her life that she's decided after three levels to take a year off and no conversation about where she's going and university and things. A son who is definitely juvenile, but in fact, I liked him by the end of the week, and he said to David, "Can I come back again?" He's either like any teenager that I've ever known, or his eye on somewhere where the food is good. But maybe he's actually interested in the farm, which will be an interesting time set. Yes, I think that he was quite fascinated by what was going on there, and it will be interesting to see how that develops. Next, we had an email from Amanda with a subject line, "Alice Stroke Martha," and it goes like this. "Hello, Dumpty Dummers. In my first email ever, I raised the idea of Martha having fetal alcohol syndrome as Alice Strankwalt's pregnant. The arches does do long storylines, though I wonder if the difficulties Martha is currently displaying are going to be the start of a journey towards diagnosis. Behavior issues, particularly managing emotions, are common in children with SAS. Love the podcast, Amanda." Thanks for that, Amanda. Yeah, a fetal alcohol syndrome definitely is something that was explored when she was born, but I'm assuming that they do tests to see if the child has alcohol in their body. I don't know because I'm not medical. I assume that it's something that you have to see with behaviors, and I know there are obvious physical signs, which Martha doesn't have. We were told that when she was born, but these emotional difficulties, but I have to keep reminding people she's only three. One of the things that about her being three is the behavior issues happen when children are between the age of three and five, they're finding their place in life, they're pushing the boundaries, they're seeing where the rules are. Now, Martha's been affected by all the different changes, not just Alice and the threat of Alice not being around and Alice actually being rehab, she's had angry Chris, angry Susan, lovely Neil. She's had hate, she's had Jakob, various people had been caring for her, now a small child take all those things on board, even if they can't communicate those things, there's lots of changes in life. So Alice is here blaming herself for all of this, and I don't think it's just about Alice. It might be a lot to do with the FAS, and I take that on board very, very thoroughly, but I want us to think about how Chris and Alice are behaving towards Martha. Alice brought Martha home very distressed from a day out, Alice was distressed, Martha was distressed, they put her in front of a cartoon with pliny bassoonie music while they could talk. I'm sorry, that's not the way to behave with the child who's distressed, it's not what I would have wanted to do and I'm not a child expert, rearing expert, but I have had four children, be it on your knee with a book and a cuddle and a biscuit. Yes, I think that it's a legitimate question to ask about fetal alcohol syndrome, and it doesn't manifest itself until the child is a few years old, or certain aspects of it. As you say, there are physical impacts which may be detectable earlier, but the behavioural stuff may well not show until now or even a bit later on. So I think it's definitely something with this sort of hanging over Martha, and whether any of this at the moment we are seeing is connected to fetal alcohol syndrome, or is just a child responding to stressful situation with her mother under stress, her father under a certain amount of stress, if perhaps a bit less, and quite a lot of disruption to her routine, particularly as she's nearly at school, doesn't she? Yeah, I would have thought she'd been pre-school nursery. So I think it's still an open question, I think it's a legitimate point, and as Amanda said, she did raise it at the time shortly after Martha was born, I think that would have been, and I think it's still there. You're absolutely right, Amanda, that the archers does do long story lines, and this could be one, or it could be something that just goes away completely. We'll never know. Well, we'll find out. And finally, we had an email from Vicky with a subject line, greetings from New Hampshire, and it goes like this, dear Dunty-Dum, writing this from our new England leaf peeping trip. The colours are extraordinary, especially when the sun is glowing on them, which it has been mostly. I find it a bit weird, able to listen to the latest archers episode in the afternoon with the time difference, I'm easily confused. Now this is before I've heard Friday's episode. It seems likely that if the script writers are trying to be realistic, George will get a suspended sentence as the prisons are full. I'm still not clear if he really is feeling any true remorse about what he did, or if it's just because he was found out. Anyway, if he does get a suspended sentence, it will be interesting to see if it changes him, as he will have to behave himself. If Harrison does go back into the police full time, he would be in a position to track George's every move as well. Perhaps he will become deserving of his nickname of Harassment. What do you think? Love to all, Vicky. Thank you for that email, Vicky, and I've been in the States, and it is weird because you end up listening to the archers at two in the afternoon, and that's the time when it's a normal archer's time for the repeat episode, but actually it's the episode being played for the first time, and it can be a bit confusing, so you're not alone in that. We've discussed the position with George and his sentence because other people caught including Richard, called in about that, and I think we also discussed the question about whether he's really feeling remorse about or whether it is just because he has found out, and I think our conclusion here is that there is genuine remorse going in there, but I am interested in your point about Harrison, whether Harrison will perhaps, as a matter of annoyance, because George doesn't let her custodial sentence and Harrison thinks he deserves it, whether he will persecute George. I don't think other people have suggested that, and it could be very interesting because George will have a bad reputation, and so he might find it difficult if Harrison is being unjustified in his treatment of George, making the case that he is actually innocent because he's done so much harm in the past, and he may not get much sympathy, so that would be quite an interesting development, I think. It would be an interesting development, it's a good idea. I just wanted to say that a lot of our listeners who haven't listened for many, many years might not know why Harrison is called "harassment", it was because he arrested Fallon and then asked for a number and actually harassed her into making contact with him, so that's why people call him "harassment", a strange start to their relationship. So that's all the emails, which I think we've had more this week than any week that I've been doing for just a record number. As we've mentioned a few times now, Patreon backers of Dumpty Dum get an ad-free early release version of the podcast around 6pm on Saturday. This is not her for a guarantee, just an aim as there may be weeks where other demands on my time mean that I can't do the edits until later. Patrons also get a weekly email about Dumpty Dum and the archers, and this week we feature the part three of a very deep dive into Larry Grundy. If you'd like to join the band of Patreon supporters, you should head over to patreon.com/dumptydum and sign up. Patreon doesn't deluge you with emails or other messages, and if you're unsure about all of this, please let us know if there's anything 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. Any extra money will go towards a Dumpty Dum get together, and the sooner you sign up to Patreon and pledge a few pounds the sooner that will happen. Let's move on to Facebook and give a warm Dumpty Dum welcome to people who've joined our Facebook group in the last week. That's down from the twenties or so that we've had in recent weeks. And those two are Frida Nichols. And Stacy McCook. Welcome to both. Now don't be shy about joining in and never hesitate to start a new conversation. And of course, it's never too soon to start posting chorro in a ring and emailing all within the same week. So let's hear what's been going on with the Dumpty Dum Facebook group this week from the other Jacqueline, who is in New Zealand, Chiora Jacqueline. Another Dumpty Dum is everywhere. It's Jacqueline from Christchurch here. This is a roundup of the Facebook page after Thursday's episode. Gillian Rogers is wondering if the young offender system that taught John Watts a successful chef with a huge social media following to Goode. Maybe this will be George's future. Hannah Warren suggests George could work at Fallon's new tea room. Joan Dimes Reynolds muses, "Well, George would certainly welcome working more closely with his ideal woman, Fallon. Maybe this is George's social media, influencing campaign, taking an unusual turn." Victoria Bourne invites Jim slash Rosie to "read it and weep" as the Brookfield sunflower is put in the shade with a pic of a huge bumper crop of enormous sunflowers, complete with 10-year-old child for scale. P.S. I did not grow this, but it is huge, prize-winning for sure. Not to be outdone by said 10-year-old child Elizabeth Baker sent a pic of a crowd grand-dad dwarfed by their 12-foot lockdown sunflowers. Introducing Zaneb, who nearly ran over best, had a stand-up row with Ben and got stung on the face by an Asian hornet. Emma Louise Woodhouse confessed to being a person who gets a monthly beekeeping magazine here. Yes, it's definitely a thing. Here's a leaflet about Asian hornet, also now being called the yellow-legged hornet. Emma Louise again. I think it's quite unlikely Zaneb would have been stung if she was just standing near a hornet. Nurse Ben to the rescue though, so their nearly in love already plot prediction from me. Our very own Jacqueline Bertot adds, "We have been battling these little demons for the last 10 years, as a victim of anaphylactic shock following stepping on an nest, I can tell you, it needs to be taken very seriously for all our sakes." Chris Gibson comments as David meets Azra's son, "So it looks like both of Azra's children need to be stung by hornets." Natasha Surn has some advice for Pat, "No one is cool about it, Pat. Stop seeking validation." On the other hand, Brenda Spencer writes, "She is not seeking validation. She's simply having the courage to explain her position directly. If she had needed validation, she would never have done it." Leslie Hay is questioning, "Where's Alan in this opportunity to urge compassion, forgiveness, redemption, and reconciliation? Get sure to bet. She might have learned how to do that by now." Hot on the heels of table gate was touched upon this week. Gillian Rogers questions, "That egg was for Susan, wasn't it?" Chris Gibson wonders, "Are Poppy and Keira about to become real characters? And how can you get some free yoga?" Regarding the Tracy, Brad, and George slinging match, Helen Blackburn comes down firmly on Tracy's side, "Go Tracy, Brad, you need a good shake." Ruth Shoe Tower commends Brad, but is wary of George. I like how Brad saw that George, whatever he had done, needed someone to talk to and took him for a walk, but I wanted to drag him back when George tried to talk him into taking over his video "Business" in case he has to go to jail. That was the old George again, taking advantage of Brad's outstretched hand and it looked like a big red flag to me. Catherine Langley thought Brad was sensitive, caring, and perceptive. I look forward to hearing Alice speak to him, it could be very positive, which leads us nicely into Richard Lucas's poll, "What will Alice say to George?" Some of the options are, "I've done bad stuff too, you need to own your wrongdoing." I don't forgive you, but don't want you to get banged up, among others. Head over to the Facebook page to cast your vote/see the results. Thank you for all your wonderful comments, picks and polls this week. Keep them coming, bye for now. Thank you Jacqueline, an excellent debut and we look forward to hearing you on the first podcast of each month. 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. I had to turn down quite a few people this week because they didn't answer the questions. And if anybody out there would like to write us a review, please do. There's 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 to tell three of your friends about us, even if they're not currently archers listeners. Who knows, it might be the start of a long obsession. Now onto Twitter, where you will find us @dumptydum. Make sure you include the archers hashtag using a capital T and A, so the visually impaired who use screen readers can enjoy any archers based tweets. And as well as @dumptydum, I can occasionally be found @wenlockhouse. And we can both also be found chatting about the archers on Blue Sky, where I am at jberto.bsky.social. And I am @wenlock.bsky.social, so let's find out who has won the Twitter medals this week with Theo. "Toy-twig pushcat, or should that be X-X these days?" Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen and Dumptydum as everywhere. It's Purple Pumpkin here with tweets and skits of the week. This week, on Twitter and Blue Sky, there was a lot of discussion about Jill's birthday and her cake. Purple People wondered if Patricia Green was recorded at home, as her background sounded different from the other actors. Some like Les Archers at Leasley Too, worried that despite us being told that Jill is looking good, she's sounding rather frail. And most, like Carol Maynot at Carol Maynot, were impressed that she could bake such a large cake that it fed all her family Ed, Emma and Khalil. Luckily, as Dr. Marie Gilroy McPherson at Scott Screeva1 said, "It was big enough for Leonard to jump out and wish her happy birthday." A number of people, such as Zanderl@zanderl.bsky.social, commented that David introducing himself to Khalil as Mr. Archer didn't narrow things down much in Ambridge, or even at Brookfield, while others, like Winston Texas at Winston Texas, were more amused by David's self-belief that he's been around the block. And on this week's agricultural storyline, John Kavanaugh at JohnCav20922342 wondered how they killed the hornets. Was it with a giant SWAT? Ceramatics at Sarah_matics said no, David bored them to death. And finally, on the cat naming, Jen Stephen at ambridgeponyclub.bsky.social had asked Chad GPT to name the kitten, and it was quite definite that Toby is the name of the fictional kitten from the long-running British radio drama The Archers. Tony lives at the Bull, the local pub. He was introduced as part of ongoing storylines, revolving around the pub's owners and regulars. The Bull is run by Kenton and Jolene, and so on. Is this a case of the infamous hallucination by Chad GPT, or is it simply remembering some pub history that the rest of us have forgotten, perhaps Stephen can advise? But now, over to this week's medals for blue sky skits and ex-posts, all of which we continue to consider as Tweets of the Week. In bronze position, it's Catherine at CatherineEJR.bsky.social. A national B unit, how adorable, is this patriotism I feel? The silver medalist is Colin Kynink at Albee Star. I need to know more about Asian hornets, please talk about them more, including maybe about a special app, maybe for a whole episode, please. And the gold medal goes to Sarah Maddox, at Sarah_Maddox. I can hear the groomed speech when Ben and Zaynab tie the knot, it'll all be about blooming hornets. And on that AP cultural note, that's it for this week. I hope to see you all on #TheArches on Twitter or blue sky next week. Thank you for that, Theo, and congratulations to all who were mentioned in this week's round-up. And don't forget we're on Instagram @dumptydum. Please send any of the arches or podcast-relevant photos to the Dumpty Dum email, and we will publish them with credit to you, and that's dumptydum@mail.com. We will be recording next week at our normal time, crack of doorknall Saturday morning, so please get your calls in by midnight on Friday, UK time as usual. And as we come to the end of this episode, we need to say thanks to all our wonderful contributors and to the team of Dumptydum as behind the scenes. We need to say a great big thank you to you all who are listening to us too. We love making this podcast and sharing our love of the arches around the world. And we must say thank you to Kim, Durham and Sonny Ormond for their voices, and pay our respects to the original creators of this podcast. Thank you so much for listening and joining us today. We are now off to have lunch at that cafe and play place near the chocolate shop. So it's Aravua from me, and it's goodbye from me. Dumptydum, dumptydum, dumptydum! Neat new glasses or one of fresh new style, Warby Parker has you covered. Glasses started just 95 bucks, including anti-reflective scratch-resistant prescription lenses that block 100% of UV rays, every frame's designed in-house with a huge selection of styles for every face shape. And with Warby Parker's free home trion program, you can order five pairs to try at home for free. Shipping is free both ways too. Go to warbyparker.com/covered to try five pairs of frames at home for free, warbyparker.com/covered. 8Cast powers the world's best podcast. For every 35 is a running conversation between two good friends, me, Dory Shafirier, and me, it leads you. In this wild time to be alive, we're a show about the many ways we take care of ourselves. Sometimes that might mean upgrading our skincare routines, or it might mean more rest, or stretching. We talk about all of it. With each other, and with our thoughtful and funny weekly guests. Bound you're making really is just a reflection of how you think about yourself. Cream blush is the best thing you could do for your life. Howl Sway, you need to build my business for me. Alright, so we aren't actually 35 anymore. But we are still the show called Forever 35. Find us wherever you listen. New episodes drop Mondays and Wednesdays. 8Cast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. 8Cast.com [BLANK_AUDIO]