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

George's Doom

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


We hear from:


  • Katherine, who wonders whether Lilian should have been barring George;
  • Jacquieline in New Zealand, who has predictions about what was to happen on Thursday;
  • Katherine again with an observation on the workings of the legal system in England and Wales;
  • Jacquieline again, with words of praise for Susan;
  • Michelle, who has been enjoying the sounds of the storyline; 
  • Fiona, who is very satisfied with George’s sentence; 
  • Alan, who wonders what George will be like when he comes out of prison; 
  • Glyn, who wonders what impact George’s sentence will have on the rest of the village; 
  • Gennie with a G, who has been thinking about two victim personal statements, and what they reflect; 
  • Marie, who doesn’t think that the sentencing will fix things between Fallon and Harrison; 
  • Witherspoon, who thinks that George’s experiences haven’t been quite what goes on on Law and Order; 
  • Paul in Olney, who has enjoyed the acting; 
  • Gillian who wants it all to be over - the kitten-naming contest, that is; 
  • Ian from Middlesborough, who is happy with the sentence and with the acting; 
  • And finally Claire from Clapham, who is reflecting on the interactions between Lynda and Khalil;


We also have emails, from Lilian, Jef and Purple Pumpkin


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



Please call into the show using this link:

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Or email us at dumteedum@mail.com


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Broadcast on:
13 Oct 2024
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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my hundredth mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com/switch, whatever you're ready. $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 of seat details. 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? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary not available in all states. This is a dumpty-dum production. [Music] Hello, this is dumpty-dum, a weekly podcast about the archers on the goings-on of Ambridge. I'm Jacqueline Berto. You can make mine a cinnamon chai latte. And I'm Stephen Bowden, and I'll have plenty of time out after tomorrow. And then those you are lovely dumpty-dum as shooting the breeze with friends and neighbors. Welcome to Dumpty-Dum, a place to talk about the things that are happening in our favorite borsettia village. This week's scripts were written by Naylor Ahmed and she certainly gave us some scripts this week. Coming up, we have calls from Katherine, who wonders whether Lillian should have been barring George. Jacqueline in New Zealand, who has predictions about what was to happen on Thursday. Katherine again, with an observation on the workings of the legal system in England and Wales. Jacqueline again, with words of praise for Susan. Michelle, who has been enjoying the sounds of the storyline. Fiona, who is very satisfied with George's sentence. Alan, who wonders what George will be like when he comes out of prison. Glyn, who wonders what impact George's sentence will have on the rest of the village. Jenny with a G, who has been thinking about two victim personal statements and what they reflect. Marie from Winchester, who doesn't think that the sentencing will fix things between Fallon and Harrison. With a spoon, who thinks that George's experience haven't been quite what goes on, on law and order. Paul and only, who has enjoyed the acting. Gillian with a geek, who wants it to all be over the kitten naming contest that is. Ian from Middlesbrough, who's happy with the sentence and with the acting. And finally, Claire from Clapham, who's reflecting on the interactions between Linda and Khalil. We also have emails from Lillian, Jeff and Purple Pumpkin. Plus, we have The Week in Ambridge from Sui, a round up of the Dump to Dump Facebook group from Ben in Shanghai 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. It's Sui Queen, our tot here and a round up of this week in Ambridge. Well, it's been another week all round, hasn't it? Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way after a very emotional statement from Fallon and obviously very different assessments of what happened. And George's motivation by the prosecution and defence, George had the book thrown at him. After the judge mentioned framing both Alice and Harry Chilcott and he's gone down for a year and two years concurrently, so likely out in a year. He's been sent to grown up prison rather than young offenders and will be in a wing for under 21s. He called Emma on Friday and is obviously terrified. Emma spent much time wringing her hands and saying, "Why me? Why us? Why George?" Emma, you need to think about how you brought him up and why he is who he is. Susan told her to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Brad is worried he might be in trouble after agreeing to babysit George's business without having a drone license. There was an ominous crash when he attempted to fly the drone. No real harm done. I hope we get to be a little tinkering after we have Jill last week. In other news, the ball are still trying to find a name for the pub kitten and seem to reject everything suggested either in the box or on the bar or online. The world waits for a pronouncement. Larry Love is back though we didn't get to hear her. Instead, Eddie and George did stuff with the turkeys so that Larry Love can process them all in the fullness of time. Predictably, Eddie messed up his best trousers. Well, we could all see that coming a mile off. Alice brought Chris's cricket coaching book. That's very difficult to say. Round to Hannah's explaining that Martha had got her hands on it and it ended up in Alice's car. Presumably, this is a new car. Or have the police given Alice her previous car back? I couldn't work it out. Anyway, Alice told Hannah to go for it with Chris if she liked him. Linda was played by Azra's children. She is apparently very raw wolf or something else beginning with her. There have been many R words this week. Adam made some rustic sandwiches at the tea room after failing his brownie guide little hostess badge and making the incorrect tea. Well, so, shake your numberish to the call. What do you think? I enjoyed it very much. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next week. Talk to you then. [Music] Thank you for that, Sue. Yeah, shaking ambush to the core. Wow. So, how was your week, Dylan? The biggest development for me this week was the arrival of my mattress. Hooray! So, on Wednesday, it came in lunchtime. It only needed six hours to re-inflate itself having been rolled up tightly and stuck in a box. So, I was able to sleep on it on Wednesday night. And so, for the first time since late January, I was able to sleep in my own bed, which was great. Are you feeling better for it? I'm feeling quite a bit better for it. I haven't actually been able to have a lie in it because I've had to get up early each morning, including this morning when I had to get up at crack of dawn to do this recording. But tomorrow morning, I've got nothing really dragging me out. I will probably go and see some stuff at the Charlton Literature Festival, but I will be able to have a proper lie in and actually appreciate the new mattress, the new bed and the general comfort and Tangle is enjoying it as well. Oh, that's lovely. I'm glad to hear that. That's a good step forward for you in your little household, isn't it? That's pretty much the end of all the work that's been going on for... As long as we've been doing this podcast. Almost, but yes, just a bit more than a year since the kitchen was started, so that's good. We started doing this regularly in about September last year, so there we go. Gosh, organization. How about you? How has your week been? I had the highlight of my life, I think, on Thursday night, when the Aurora Borealis showed its face in Sanguine, very, very beautiful. Visible to the naked eye at the beginning of the evening, but quickly disappeared, but I've already read enough online to know that you could get shots with your camera phone and everything. So I had a very short night's sleep because I couldn't just couldn't tear myself away because once before, in the late '70s, I came back on a very late train from a walking trip and the train stopped somewhere bizarre like Doncaster, and there were no other trains, so I phoned my pair of phones for my phone box, and my dad very kindly came and drove it and got me. And we saw the Northern Lights that day, and it was very brief and we were driving along, and we were both absolutely amazed. But ever since then, I've always wanted to see them again. I thought it was going to be a trip to Iceland or Sweden or something. And no, here it was in Sanguine, so I was delighted. I know a lot of people have seen them around Europe and the States this week. So, yeah, a great highlight of my week that was. Anyway, I think we have a lot of things to talk about, so we ought to get on with that. OK, first up is going to be Catherine. All right, Pusca. Hi, it's Catherine, and we're the other night, Friday's, I see. It was listening to the incident in the pub, and I'm really interested about the role of the public, and now I know dramatic events and local pub, et cetera. But that aside, it's interesting in the moral role that the publicans seems to be expected to adopt in banning people that they disapprove of. And I'm thinking as Lillian was so irritatingly smug and judgmental, do you think that modern-day publicans in villages would do this nowadays, ban people because of something outside the pub's remit, because there was a potential effect on customers. I get if an event happens in this public, an assault or something. But I thought this was interesting this way that they're deciding that they can exclude George from generally public spaces in her role as a landlady. I'd be interested to know what you think. Thank you for that, Catherine. Your call actually came in very late on Saturday after our deadline, so we couldn't include it in last week's podcast, but we've carried it over to this one. In terms of what the publican or, to be more specific, the licensee can do, they can ban anybody they want for any reason whatsoever, provided it's not actually an unlawful reason, like for grounds of racism or sexism or something like that. But they can ban people if they choose to do so, and I don't think they have to give reasons. So from a, can they do it? Yes. Do they do it? Again, I think they probably do. It's been a while since I lived in a village with a village pub. But when I did, it was quite clear that the landlady in that case, Jenny, was setting fairly strict rules, and if she didn't want you there, you had to go and you had to go to the next village in that case for a drink. And even then, you probably would be known about, if you cause serious trouble. They'd know about you, and so they wouldn't serve you in those pubs either. The thing about small rural communities is people know who each other is. Yeah, I would like to go away from that. And it was good that we had you call to make us think about it, Catherine, because it's about the family and about the community, isn't it? And the ostracizing of George by people around him and of Will. The way Lillian was with Will and Ed. Yeah, I think it's quite a human reaction. I didn't know whether it was legal or whether they were allowed to do that, which you've just said they are. So, yeah, thanks for your call, Catherine. Shall we move on to our next call? And this one is from Jacqueline. Hi, Jacqueline, Stephen, and all Dummy Dummies. As Jacqueline here calling from Christchurch, I'm calling in after Wednesday's episode. I wasn't sad that Will and Ed got some flack from Lillian and Kenton as a pub last week. It wasn't very long ago that Will was saying stuff like, "I'm sure people will be a bit cross, but they'll get over it." I don't feel that Will has really had enough of it. Sorry, that's my dog's mommy. Enough of condemnation for people for his actions. I was quite glad they got a taste of that. I'm hoping Alice can take the lead within her family for how to move forward. I think if she's been forgiving, then they will eventually all get in behind. I think Harrison is going to struggle with the punishment tomorrow if the punishment isn't strong enough in his eyes for what's happened. I think that will be the nail in the coffin for his police and career if he is on the victim's side for a change and then doesn't feel like it was severe. I think he's really going to struggle with that. I really hope Emma doesn't go down the whore us. This has happened to us because we're poor, getting squashed root and almost morph into an eddy kind of mindset that will be very, very boring. I'm really interested in how the script writers are going to knit the village back together after this. It just feels like the repercussions go on and on and on forever. So I'm wondering if Amber just ever going to be a happy place ever again after tomorrow. Anyway, that's it for now. I hope everyone's had a good week and looking forward to tomorrow. Thanks. Thank you for that Jacqueline. Yeah, I really want to talk about Emma, but I think we've got quite a bit about Emma coming up, including another call from you. So let's leave that one. So will Amber ever be a knitted community again? Yes, it will. I'm sure it will. But there are going to be factions within it that are not going to be able to move forward very easily. Of course, the Aldrich's might well be the Aldrich, the larger Aldrich family. Alice is family Lillian. They might well be very gleeful about what has happened. And so there'll always be a rift between them and the gronders. There always was a bit of a rift, the them and us. But the fellow rest of the village? Well, Lillian, the implications we already know are in the pub and we know Fallon's been very badly affected. So they're for Harrison, and then that's back to the pub again. Wide, wide reaching. I think there will be good stories to come, but I think it's going to take some time to heal. What do you think? You say that there always has been a rift between Lillian and the gronders. She and the gronders used to be really close. She used to go drinking with Joe and Eddie. Yeah, she's definitely a cider should go or wasn't she when they set you up. So it'll be interesting to see how that relationship evolves. I suspect it's been weakened a bit since the demise of Joe. Yeah. But I think there are going to be a lot of relationships under stress. The one that we'll probably talk about in a bit is the one between Harrison and Fallon, where I think that we haven't heard anything about how that's going to go. And I think that's quite an interesting one for reasons we'll probably get on to in a later call. But yes, the entire village, this really did, and we've said it before, it really did shake the village to the core and to a much greater extent than Nigel falling off the roof did, which just shook one family a bit. Yeah. And they've moved on, apart from perhaps the way that Freddie is somewhat due to having lost his father at the age of ten or eleven. Yeah, we'll just have to see. I think these repercussions are going to be a long time coming, and that's the strength of this particular story. Yeah, absolutely. Now Catherine, having called last weekend, came back in again with another call, and it goes like this. I just heard the sentencing, and it was very interesting to hear everyone's surnames, wasn't it? I didn't know Fallon was Rogers. What's that about? It's an interesting thing in British legal system that you go to prison there and then probably left for a minor Victorian or even earlier times. I remember reading a feature about Scandinavia and prisons, and they have a thing there where they recognize that lot of accommodation and job is a big risk factor in reoffending. And so to avoid losing your home and your job, you book into prison sentence at a time that's convenient for you. But yeah, obviously Angus Toby's got a really good role somewhere else or more likely he's going to university. Hasn't got time to do the archers. So he's got two years and a year run concurrently. So two years reduced to a year, so be out in a year's time. So what's that next October? Let's hope that we hear from him a little bit before that, but yeah, it's really sad, isn't it? I've got three boys and this was really moving for me. Have a great week, everyone. Thank you for that call, Catherine. Yes, the legal systems in different countries are quite different and the Scandinavian systems are generally a lot more gentle when it comes to prison sentences, shorter sentences, less likelihood of going to prison, a smaller prison population. And as you say, arrangements so that you can serve your sentence at a time within reason of your own choosing. Whereas in England and Wales and I think Scotland as well, you go straight down and are taken off to wherever you're going to go to prison. And the US I think is somewhere in between in the offerton. If you've been sentenced to a prison term, but you're appealing that you can stay out of a prison until the appeal goes through. So each system is a bit different and it reflects, I think, the long history of punishment in each country. Yes, indeed. And I think how many people have been affected by the story, Catherine, you mentioned having three boys. I know other people that have got children who, boys, maybe the same age as George, who have really, it's really struck home with people. And that's the power of this story because it's touched so many of us in so many ways. You can see it from lots of people's point of view, victims and non-victims and parents and mothers and fathers. And yeah, it's been a very powerful story. And yes, as you say, Catherine, very, very touching. Catherine said she thinks that he'll be out after a year. At the moment, I think a lot of sentences are being, only 40% is being served. And then you come out and the rest of it is effectively suspended and you may come out with conditions. So that will be about nine and a half months for George. Oh, right. So there we are though. We might have George back very soon. Oh, the other thing, Catherine, as was following Rogers, she hadn't realized it was Rogers. Isn't that Wayne's surname? I'm not sure what Wayne's surname actually is because he goes by Tucson, which is obviously a stage name. But Jolien has always been Jolien Rogers. But again, I also thought the Rogers was a stage name for Jolien, named after Kenny Rogers. I thought she'd taken it from that. So I think her real name is Doreen something or other. But whatever, I think, perhaps when Fallon was born, Jolien decides to give her Rogers' surname. And she can register whatever surname she likes. Yeah. I think you can in the UK, whereas here you can't at all. So there we are. Let's go back in here again from Jacqueline. Hi, Jacqueline again. After Thursday's episode, now all my predictions are wrong. I just wanted to say amazing parenting by Susan tonight. When she said to Emma, this is what facing up to it looks like. I thought that was absolutely brilliant. And after due time, I hope that can help Emma. Also, I've sent her twice today. And the second time I had headphones. Did you hear the applause when the verdicts got read out? I hadn't noticed that first time around. Okay. Bye, everyone. Have a good week. Thanks. Bye. Great to hear from you again. Yes. Amazing parenting from Susan. Her insistence that she stayed to support Emma and George. Obviously, but Emma really. And then talking to Emma the next day, getting her out of bed and getting her going. She was doing the mummy tough love. And Emma eventually accepted it. But yeah, it's going to be a hard one. This for Emma. I think Susan is vital in her supporting her. The applause. I didn't hear it first time around. But yes, I did when I had listened and had phones. Or who do we think that was? I suspect that it was probably Lillian and Adam. Yeah. Me too. But in terms of the of Emma, I think she's a personal. We've probably heard the most of since the sentence was handed down. And she's obviously not in a very good place at the moment. And I'm a bit worried when it comes to what's going to happen next. Because she is in a high pressure, high risk job with working with chainsaws. And we've always been on the edge of our seats every time she or Ed has gone up a tree. And now we've got this hanging over them. And I do worry that Emma is going to end up doing something very unlucky as a result of all of this. And I hope that it isn't something that's just too bad for either her or for Ed. Indeed. Yeah. I think there's lots of predictions out there. Jatley was mentioning the applause. And that was probably one of the things that struck our next call. Hello, I'm Dermot Dermot. Michelle here. Well, what a week. Whilst I listened to her last night's episode, Thursday's episode, I couldn't get over. Not just the words. But the sounds of it all. And it made me think how fabulous the foley work has been throughout the entire storyline. Right from the start, we've had the plinking of the coins on the counter when George purchased the cider, the frankly terrifying sounds from inside the car with Fallon, the sound of water surrounding her, the thrashing of the rescue attempts. Then the moment everything took a turn, I think none of us could have predicted the clinking of the seatbelt. Then we were all completely devastated to hear the sound of Alice shuffling round in a cupboard. Then the sound of her pouring a large glass of something she shouldn't have. Since then, we've had the knock on the door for George. And then last night, the clinking sounds of George being shut inside. Let me echo in it so it all's horrid. Not the work of folio artist, but that guttural scream from Emma was incredible. And it was up there for me with the Kirsty Tom wedding. It brings me to reflect how much better this all is for being on radio as we can only imagine the scenes and it makes it far worse. It just makes it so much more impactful. The foley work comes second to the rising and acting note. My goodness, George and Emma, Emerald and Angus, hats off to them for Thursday night. That really was something else on that note. I hope you all keep warm and well. Can't wait to hear the thoughts of all my fellow dumptubers. Thank you for that call, Michelle. And yes, the foley work was excellent. I think a lot of us who are at the dumpedy-dumb academic archers mash up in Birmingham a few years back will have heard a talk from the woman who does the foley work. And she described some of the things she had to do, including crawling around on the floor between the legs of the various actors being a cat or something, things like that. A dog, a dog, I think, a hunting dog. Yes, and so yes, it's a very impressive thing that she does and she's absolutely brilliant. And in a week or two's time, we'll probably mention the academic archers again, because we now have the dates for their conference next year. And while it's not going to be a formal thing with dumptubum, we will definitely be looking to do some dumptubum activities alongside that conference. But to get back to your call, the sounds, the acting, the scripts, everything has come together really well. And it hasn't been pure George and his fate this week. We've had the two other storylines and we've had a few calls in about those, the interaction between Linda and Ezra's children. And also, of course, the critical one, the naming of the pub hat. But we also had a lot of interaction, at least two sessions of interaction between George and Brad this week and the sounds of the drone and the crashing into the tree, excellent again. And in fact, I'm surprised that nobody has called in about them because I've found them very, very touching, even the slightly funny notes at the end of one of the thinking about Room Wednesday. No, Tuesday, Tuesday, I think it was, when Brad said, "Oh, after you've said all those nice things, you're going to kiss me." A very teenage boy, very close cousin, friends, or whatever their relationship is. I feel worried for Brad that he hasn't said no to George, but that's another story. But yeah, I agree with you, Michelle, the sounds and how listening to something like this on the radio really gets into your head. And if you do list on headphones, you get so much of the background noise and the foleywork does come out. Yeah, brilliant foleywork and a very, very good and interesting call, Michelle. Thank you very much. And for our next call, we're going to dive right into that sentence. Hello, Fiona here, second time caller in a row. I just wanted to ring in and express my utter satisfaction at the sentence George was given for perverting the course of justice. This is a massive crime, quite rightly taken, really seriously. The sentencing is on a par with murder and manslaughter and rape. It can be a life sentence. George did what he did. You could argue he did it in the heat at the moment. I'd have a little bit of sympathy for that. But he continued the shirard. He continued the perversion for months. And he didn't even in the end go into the police willingly on his own. He had to be taken in by his mother. So I think is absolutely right. And I thought those people who thought he'd get a suspended sentence because it was a first offense were way off the mark. And I'm relieved for the state of the justice system that he did get the sentence he got. You wouldn't expect somebody to get a suspended sentence for murder. And I just don't think it would be a realistic or right for somebody to get a suspended sentence for perversion in the course of justice. I feel quite passionate about this, quite strongly, as you can probably tell. I am, however, a little perplexed by the dangerous driving sentence. In fact, I'm perplexed by him being prosecuted for it and found guilty. What was dangerous about his driving? He was driving along quite sensibly to assume until Alice started opening a car door and trying to get out. He completely instinctively and naturally leaned over to try and pull her in. And that moment I understand is when he appeared across the road. I do not understand how that can be dangerous driving. In fact, I don't know if there's anything that Alice could have been charged with, but I don't see that crime as his fault and I think that's a pity. But the two years is well and truly deserved as his mark of his character in general. It's more than deserved. So yes, very satisfied with it. Bye. Thank you. Thank you very much for that, Fiona. It's been great to hear your passion, how passionate you are about the fact that George has been sent down. But Stephen and I, we didn't think he would be. I was honestly shocked when the judge sentenced him. Not quite as shocked as Emma, I don't think, but it was a surprise to me. So I don't feel the same satisfaction as you for it at all. I'm worried about the effect on the wider Grundy family and how they will manage themselves and manage George in the future. And I'm still worried about all these repercussions around the village. So somehow I don't feel your passion for unsatisfaction with the sentence, but everybody's different effects everybody in different ways. There's been a lot of discussion about the appropriateness or otherwise of the sentence that George was handed down. I was initially thinking that he wouldn't get a custodial sentence for dramatic reasons as much as anything. Yeah. I think when you look at the sentence in guidance for this, I think that where we ended up with was almost right on the perversion of the course of justice. Some of the mitigating factors were mentioned by the defense barrister, including critically the fact that it had all come to light and been resolved before anybody had been wrongly sentenced to prison. So had Alice been convicted and then it had come out, that would have been far worse for George than it actually was. There's a lot of debate about the extent to which this was premeditated or not. Obviously he started down the course of perversion of course of justice on the suburb moment, but he did sustain it for a long time. The one thing I think was probably missing from the judges summing up the sentence was the fact that George did plead guilty and he did plead guilty at the earliest possible time, and that is important, and I think there's quite a big chunk taken off your sentence as a result of that, something like a third off. That should have been mentioned even if it was going to be three years and it's been taken down to two. On the dangerous driving, we simply have not got the information available to us. I don't think that it was as simple as you suggest Fiona. I think that he was in a high performance car, not a supercar or anything like that, but a decent car, and I suspect that he was driving very fast. The person who would have known how fast he was driving would have been Mick, because Mick would have seen him coming towards him and had to swerve away to go off the bridge. Alice was a distraction, but George was the one who put Alice into that position, so I don't think that's Alice's fault. I think that's entirely George's fault as well. If he had been speeding over a narrow bridge, and then because he was distracted by Alice, he didn't see Mick coming, he was going at speed, Mick had no option but to swerve out of the way and ended up in the river. I think that it could easily have been a very serious attempt, and George wasn't found guilty. He accepted the guilty plea right off, so it wasn't really a matter of the circumstances. If he hadn't been driving dangerously, then he could have perhaps played to a case of driving without due care and attention, rather than dangerous driving. So I suspect that there is evidence that he was driving dangerously, which is why he got that severe sentence. Yeah, interesting. The thing that I don't think was taken into account was the fact that he did say Fallon's life, and that was, it's not a mitigating circumstance in the accident and how it happened, but he acted in a way which was heroic on the day. It was the rest afterwards, the lying, the cover-up, and in fact Harry's Chill Cop came up in the court case, didn't he? Which I was surprised about, because I didn't think anybody much knew about that, so maybe he admitted to that as well. The police knew all about it because they went and interviewed him and had classified it. Yeah, that's true. He did, had forgotten that, so is Stephen. But still, I'm still saying, I don't think he should have gone down like that. I think that he should have been sentenced to a term of imprisonment, whether it should have been two years. I don't know, as I said, there have been various arguments on social media, and I think that the one thing I do know is that the BBC will have done their research. And apart from the oddity of not mentioning the guilty plea, I think that they must have had confirmation from legal professionals that that would have been a plausible outcome. They've done research on so much else, so I think anybody who suggests that this was sloppy by the BBC doesn't understand how the arches is made, something as fundamental as this to the storyline. They will have got that plausible. Yeah. There will have been a range of options. It's going to depend a lot on how the judge interprets the situation, the sense of guidance. And remember, it was guilty plea, so we didn't get the full court process. We didn't hear all the evidence. There's an awful lot that we will never actually know what might have been said. Instead, we just had Fallon's victim personal statement. We had Alice's victim personal statement, and we knew about some other things. And well, that would have been a witness statement rather than a person. Yeah, I think they read his title, didn't they, in the court? They mentioned his name. The prosecution has talked about Mick and the fact that he, Michael. Yes, Michael. I made me stop at the news, Michael. So that was part of the prosecution to summing up, and then the defence summing up mentioned other things. But all we really had was the summing up. It's really good. Well, thank you for calling in again Fiona. And I think we've got Alan next. We do. Well, I dumped the dumpters. This island for Ramsgate. Just reminiscing over last night's edition of the arches, where George got sentenced. Two years, but in a male prison. And not a young offenders, like he thought he was going to do. At one point, I thought Fallon was going to be his saviour and say some good things about him. But she didn't. She spoke the truth. And now George has going to pay the cost. What he'll come out like after. We only wait and see. Call again soon. Bye for now. Thank you for that call, Alan. It's interesting that they've made this point about an adult prison versus a young offenders' institute, because the young offenders' institutes aren't exactly wonderful. I know it's not quite as bad as when they made the film Scum with Ray Winston. Young offenders' institutes are no picnic, and I think a well-run prison, a youth wing on a prison is going to be better than a young offenders' institute. I was stopped by everybody saying, including the programme, that the prisoners would only be up to the age of 21, because I think youth wings tend to be up to the age of 25, because you don't have that many under the age of 21. Whereas a young offenders' institution is 15 to 21 years old. But either way, it's going to depend very much on what he can do. And I think we've got somebody, one of our emailers, mentioned something that is relevant to that. What prison does to people is going to depend a lot on them as well as on the second touch of the prison. With all the overcrowding that's going on, it's not great. No. And we know that George can be very bombastic and very full of himself. And he's also frightened to make him even more full of himself, so he might get into trouble straight away. We've had that call from him already, and he didn't sound as if things were going brilliantly there. He was not in a good place, was he? And I think we'll probably talk about that call a bit later on. But Alan thought that Fallon might save him. She thought she might come up with something in her personal statement that would save him. And really, when I heard it, as I said, he did save her life. But then she turned the knife a bit, didn't she afterwards? I thought she was fair to do so. I think that she was right that he was in there and rescuing it was partly because of the problems he'd caused himself. And he was obviously quite conflicted about it. But he hadn't really turned the corner that he subsequently turned at that point. And so I don't think that Fallon was wrong to suggest that his motives were very much self-serving. Oh, no, I was not suggesting otherwise. But it was interesting that when they said that Fallon was going to be there making the personal statement, you could hear his cringe and his, "Oh, no, not Fallon." But what she said, the solicitor Sharon did she, she said, "Fallon Rogers will be making a statement." Oh, George, that really hurt. Should we hear next from Glenn? Hello, Duntedham. It's Glenn here, calling an on Friday afternoon. So George has been sent down effectively for two years, of which I guess he'll probably serve around one. I think we must assume the arches team has done its research and the sentence is in line with the current sentencing guidelines and in accordance with precedent for other similar offences. And so we shouldn't dwell too much on that. Whether we agree with the prisoners of punishment or not, it is what it is. The more interesting question is what the effect on the rest of the village is going to be. In terms of Emma, I suspect she is going to take over from Eddie as the leading villager who thinks the whole system is against them. And whether this will lead her to bend the rules a little bit more in the future rather than keep the rules will have to wait and see. Alice, I wonder if she'll see this as a new start. And whether if she does see it as a new start or another new start, she might think about moving away from the village now with some additional new found confidence, which would lead potentially the way for Hannah to pursue Chris a little bit more than she is doing at the moment. And I was hinted at earlier this week, well, we shall have to wait and see. Thank you for the podcast, keep up the great work and stay safe everyone. Thanks for that, Glenn. Yeah, great call. Alice, a new start. Actually, I think that is a really, really great call and a great shout out there, Glenn, because she is known in the question world. We've just had various different people training and other people who've got horses ever interacted with her. She's got a good rapport with people because she's known them all her life, maybe moving on to another equestrian establishment will move her away. And yes, that would really open up the way for Hannah and Chris, because that conversation where she gave Hannah permission to chase after Chris, and I felt that was a very mature move on Alice's part. So moving her out of the village might be a way of letting that happen. I'm not sure that she needs to. I think that she's moving on emotionally. I know that a lot of people think she ought to get back together again with Chris. I have never thought that might sound. You've always said that, Steve, and you've been quite determined about that. But I think that she can effectively give Hannah the green light as she has done. Yeah. I think that she can make it clear to Chris that there is no future between them because Chris is still carrying some sort of torch for her, but I don't think she actually needs to move away and somebody needs to take on this stables. Neither Lillian or Shuler is going to be around forever. Shuler is already gone, but still owns a big chunk of the stables. So I think Alice is the natural successor there and will be owning and running the stables for the next few decades, so no need to move on. We will have a lot of time to understand exactly how this is going to ripple through the village and the repenting of other people. We talked about Emma already, and I'm not sure that she's going to become the new chip on her shoulder. I think she already is. I'm sorry. I disagree. I think she already is. She's got a massive chip on her shoulder. Well, she's got a chip on her shoulder about other things, and yes, she did the sort of justices for other people, not our sort of people type of thing, but I don't think that's going to be defining her because I think that's going to be very boring. I think she is going to return to eventually the track she was on before when she joined the parish council, and she was at that point looking as if she was going to become a power within the village. Yes, and a model citizen. Yes, up to a point. Oh, yes, I mean, as far as Emma could be, she was trying to turn a page on her previous misdemeanors or life choices, should we say, and yeah, she moved forward, much encouraged by Neil. Now, we haven't heard much of Neil in all of this, have we? No, I think we're just going to have to wait and see what happens next week in terms of further reactions to this. I think we got another week of that interleaved with, of course, the vital question of what the kitten is going to be called. Stop it. Let's hear now from Jenny with a G. Hi, everyone. It's Jenny with a G from Coventry. I just wanted to say a couple of things about the court scenes yesterday. I know we didn't hear Alice's impact statement at the court and we'd heard it the week four or earlier in the week, and then we heard felons. I thought felons was excellent, really honest, really open, absolutely pinpointing the impact that the accident had on her, and then comparing it to Alice's, I'm sorry, but the impact that the crash had on Alice and her relationship with Martha wasn't about the crash. That's about Alice's alcoholism and the impact that that has had on Martha and her relationship with Martha, she's been at rehab twice now, and talking of rehab, actually, it was the impact of the crash that forced Alice back into rehab for a second time, and actually the fact that she is sober again as a result of the crash. So not everything in terms of the impact on Alice was negative, although it was immediately, and I just think comparing it to the impact that it had on Fallon is not the same kind of thing. Obviously, it had an impact on Alice's reputation and potential impact on the stable's reputation, but I think blaming the crash on ruining her relationship with Martha is just not correct, because having an alcoholic as a parent is going to have long-term consequences, and it wasn't the crash that turned Alice into an alcoholic, in fact it was Alice's alcoholism that was partly to blame for the crash in the first place. And finally, just a little note to Stephen, my name is Jenny with a G because it's short for Genevieve, that really bizarre name, obviously. Thank you. Speak to you soon. Bye. Thank you for that call, Jenny, and I should point out that I didn't say that Genevieve was in any way a bizarre name, I just thought that it was quite a fun name that Kerry introduced within the shape of Genevieve Stradbolt, whose name I gave to last week's episode. And of course, Genevieve is most well-known, or certainly used to be, when I was younger, as the title of a film about a car on the London to Brighton, perhaps a car run starring Kenneth Moore, a film which I think has probably dated quite a bit and doesn't appear on television and nobody watches it anymore. And I like the name Genevieve, and it didn't surprise me at all to learn that Jenny with a G was short for Genevieve, because there aren't that many other names start with a Gene and spelt with a G, so I like the name. It's not bizarre. You're sounding defensive, Elizabeth. And let me also say I agree with your views, particularly on Fallon's witness statement, but I don't agree that Alice was in any way responsible for the accident. She had parked up somewhere and had gone to sleep off, and it would probably have taken more than sleeping off her binge drinking, and she'd done this several times before. She had no intention of being in a moving vehicle at all, and it was entirely, I think, George would put it into that state. Now, that isn't to say that some of the things she put into her victim personal statement weren't a bit self-serving, and yes, some of the things that she attributed to the crash were things that were present already. But I don't think that means that the impact was anything other than entirely negative. I don't think that the fact that the crash caused her to go into rehab was necessarily a positive experience, she went into rehab because she was horrified at what she thought about her own self-awareness, and she'd been effectively gaslighted by George because of the way that he had gone about things. I wouldn't like to say that anything George did in this incident was positive for anybody, and I know you've said he went in and he saved Fallon's life. I'm sorry, he caused the accident. He wouldn't have had to go in and save her life if he hadn't done that. I don't think he gets positive points for that, even if you might reduce the negative points slightly. It's not a positive thing, and I think that he doesn't deserve any brownie points for that. I can see where Jenny's coming from, because yeah, Alice in her, when she read that statement to George, definitely put her estrangement from Martha down to the crash. And I agree with Jenny that actually her estrangement with Martha has been caused by her return to drinking, because she's an alcoholic. The fact that she was able to go off to rehabilitation again was a good thing, probably for Martha, although the long-term effects on those separations, or maybe the short-term effects on those separations will play. As we said last week, yes, she's three, she's three. But I did feel it was slightly unfair on Alice, too, in her statement, to tell George that it was George's fault that she was estranged from her daughter. That's not saying I'm giving George any sympathy. Oh. Those are the first few calls, and there are still more to come, along with all those emails. Now, if you'd like to join in by calling us 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/dumbtydumb, and there you can leave the message of up to two minutes. Alternatively, you can send us a voice note or a written message via WhatsApp on 07810012881, 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 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 dumtydum@mail.com, and do bear in mind you need to be at least 18 to contribute. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, Price and Coverage Match Limited by State Law, not available in all states. Getting engaged can be stressful. Getting the right ring won't be at www.blunile.com. The jewelers at www.blunile.com have sparkled down to a science, with beautiful lab-grown diamonds worthy of your most brilliant moments. Their lab-grown diamonds are independently graded and guaranteed identical to natural diamonds, and ready to ship to your door. Get $50 off your purchase of $500 or more with Code Listen at www.blunile.com. It's www.blunile.com, code Listen for $50 off. And now we'll hear from Marie. Hello, Jacqueline, Stephen, and all Dunty Dummies. It's Marie, calling from Winchester, and after a very long break, I got really, really behind with episodes of The Arches and also Dunty Dummies. So I've just been sort of trying to catch up and finally I have just in time for the sentencing, which is a real damn shock. I mean, three years, wow, I don't think any good's actually going to come out of that. He was already starting to turn a corner. This whole experience has been very humbling for him, I think, and he's actually showing signs that he's empathy and I think some good was starting to come out of this, but this sentence is just going to come crashing down and ruin everything now. I also think that Harrison will be so gleeful and Fallon, probably not as comfortable and that void between them, that elephant in the room, is just going to continue getting bigger and bigger and bigger, isn't it? That's what I called in about last time and I don't see them staying together. I really don't. I just think they're poles apart now, they can't. How can they ever meet in the middle again? I don't know. Anyway, I've been absolutely loved by catching up and listening to your dumedy dums. They've been great, actually, and I hope to get back to doing a bit more contributing, and yeah, I hope you're keeping well and back. Great. Thanks for getting back to us, Marie, it's been good to hear from you again. Yeah, it's quite interesting to see what the reaction of Harrison compared to Fallon will be. I'm hoping that's going to come up in the next week or so. We're going to start getting a bit of feedback on that. I can imagine Harrison being quite gleeful, as Marie says, and Fallon less so because when we look back at her statement in the court, she talked about Harrison, and I think Harrison will appreciate the fact that she brought up his feelings into her statement. We've always said both of us, Stephen, and we always said we think they should stay together, the story should continue with them as a couple, being more supportive each other, somehow finding a way around this chasm that they've got at the moment. And maybe a little bit of this statement, the way she talked about him, would be the first step back on that. I don't want them to split up. I think they were a good couple. They were a good couple, and I know not that many of our dumpty dummas are totally in agreement with that, but Marie, she did predict a breakdown of their marriage, and we poo-pooed it then, and I'm poo-pooing it now. Yeah, I agree. I thought that the way Fallon described the impact on Harrison was very much an olive branch to Harrison, an attempt to reach out to him, an interesting way of doing that. And Jacqueline, in her first call before the sentence had been handed down, was saying that Harrison will be very upset, and it might finish his career if he felt that George had got off too lightly. I don't think there's any danger of that. I don't think anybody thinks that George's sentence was too light. I think people either think it was about right or it was too severe. So I think that Harrison will be satisfied whether he will actually be gleeful. I don't know. I think that he wasn't in court himself, so he hasn't seen the impact on George, for instance, but I think that if he saw how George was reacting, he might feel that sending him to prison while the right thing to do wasn't some thing to cause delight. I think he's going to be very complicated. I think that it'll be interesting, but I do think, as you suggest, that for Fallon and Harrison, it's a step towards reconciliation, which is the direction I think it ought to go in. And we've both said that we think that it should. And ideas of Harrison going off with Alice or Fallon going off with Ed don't like either of those. No, me neither. We actually got a slight hint on Friday of Lillian's reaction, because she was in the pub with Kenton and Jolene, who obviously been directly affected by this plus of Fallon. And they were definitely chinking whiskey glasses or and Lillian wants to open a bottle of champagne. They were gleeful. Lillian was gleeful. And I think that is one of those impacts that's going to be talked about Lillian earlier on. And you said that I had said she was going to be, there's going to be a rift between her and the Grundiz. That's why I think there's going to be a rift between her and the Grundiz. Although as she said, she was very, very under feet under the table with Joe. She was a good time girl with the old man who just wanted to drink, sit and drink and chinwike. And she was very good at that. But I am worried about that, how's that's going forward with her? I think she's going to be deeply conflicted. Now next, we've got a transatlantic perspective on all of this. Y'all know how this goes. Greetings, Jacqueline, Stephen and all Dumtee Dimmers around the world. It's with the Spoon and Angus Haggis here, caller entering after Thursday's riveting episode. Well done script writers. Okay, first, I'll give myself a little pat on the back for predicting that George would get us custodial sins. But I didn't expect the judge to throw the proverbial book at him. I was surprised and thought it was too harsh, but maybe a Dumtee Dimmer had passed a note to the judge regarding the other crimes we know that George had committed over the years, stealing money and blowing up a mailbox and being generally obnoxious to others. I'm not a legal expert, but I have watched a fair bit of law and order episodes over the years. We always see that once a defendant pleads guilty before the trial, there's some negotiating between the prosecutor and defense attorney, and the prosecutor offers up a compromise sentence that he suggests to the judge. None of that happened over the last month. Does it not work that way in Britain? Also, thinking about it, George had pled guilty to reckless driving in addition to the other charge. Why did he do so? There seemed to be much less evidence supporting that one. Was George actually speeding? Were there skid marks indicating such? I wish the scriptwriters had dug more into that aspect of the case. Just to say, Fallon's impact statement was very powerful. Now, will we hear much from George over the next one to two years? Will there be visits from his family that will be recorded? Will George leave prison rehabilitated or a more hardened criminal? I'm actually most worried about Emma. There's clues that her trauma and anger will lead to a change in her personality, to becoming a person who becomes disrespectful of the law. What do you think? Talk to you soon. Thank you for that call with a spoon, and there are some very significant differences between the England and Wales criminal law system and the American system. One of those differences is plea bargaining. That's almost completely unknown within the UK system. We just don't do it like that. The possible exception, I think, would be that in George's situation he pleaded guilty both to the perversion of course of justice and to dangerous driving. In theory, he could perhaps have volunteered to plead guilty to driving without you care and attention, and the Crown Prosecution Service might have decided that that was better than trying to actually prosecute him for dangerous driving when he hadn't pleaded guilty to it. But it would have been a gamble because, as I mentioned before, there is an automatic reduction for pleading guilty, and so he would either have had a reduced sentence for driving without you care and attention, which would almost certainly not be custodial, rather than the full whatever it would be without the one-third off for dangerous driving. But otherwise, it's one of many things that dramas often get wrong because there are no plea bargains in the UK court, there are no gavels in the UK court, you don't have the judge banging a gavel in the UK court, they just have to use the power of their voice, the terminology is very different. We don't take the stand, we go into the witness box and stuff like that. So I think trying to get a feel for what the UK legal system is like from American dramas, or indeed from American-made attempts at British legal drama is a very dangerous business. - Indeed, how will George come out of prison? - It's to go two ways. He could become a fulfilled, better member of society because of whatever rehab, or it could turn him into a bitter young man who feels that society is permanently against him. - Another Clive, maybe? - Possibly, but Clive was abandoned before he even went into prison the first time. - And George isn't? - It's just, will prison make that difference to him? I think that George was heading in that direction, but with the film saying that he was showing signs of empathy and generally becoming a better person, I think that might well have evaporated if he'd got off without going to prison. I think that prison may remind him of the importance of understanding what he'd done wrong. It may emphasize to him what he is already learning, whereas getting off with what anybody might have thought was a light sentence of community service or something like that, it could have meant that he would have gone away and thought, "Ha, got away with it." - I love the eyewitnesses but it thinks that one of us dropped George in here by talking about the mailbox, and nobody seems to remember, he didn't he make illegal vapes? Yeah, he got caught doing that. - Yes, I don't think that. - Yes, he didn't go to the police for that. He was in trouble with the police over the incident with the bench, but there he immediately apologized for it. He got Brad into trouble on that one. - Don't pour Brad in here, but yeah, but I like the idea with a spoon that somebody filled in the judge about things that we know he's done to do from the money, the mailbox and other thing. Yes, good idea. - Next up we have Paul in Olney. - Hello folks, it's Paul in Olney here, it's been a few weeks, but I don't want to say too much about the action this week, I'm sure lots of other people will do, I just wanted to say something about the acting. It's been really, really good over the past couple of weeks and the episodes this week, particularly the acting from Emmourder Hanleyl as Emmourder and Banger Stovey as George Grundy has been very, very good indeed. And from Farland's statement in the court yesterday, the scenes between Alice and various people, it's just been of such a high standard, clearly working with the script, the script writing, it's been fantastic this week as well. I just hope that with George in prison for two years, with those sentences when it can come at least, so we could behaviour should be out after a year, hope that as when Helen was on demand before her trial that we continue to get to hear that excellent young actor. See you all in on. - Thanks very much for that Paul, yeah, I couldn't agree more, we've said it for the last few weeks, the acting from Angus Stovey and Emmourder Hanleyl has been absolutely phenomenal, they are made for radio dramas, they're just brilliant, I know there was an interview, it wasn't there a few weeks ago with them as well that came across and the fact that George has naturally a Scottish accent and then he's this George the country yokel to us, it just says something about that actor and the other person, yeah, Fallon, the way she speaks, I know a lot of people find her a bit of a strange accent to strange and we had the call last week about the Americanisms, but I think, is it Joanna Van Campen, the actor, I knew it was a name a bit like that, but she was phenomenal, she's been very good at the angst that she, her empathy and anxiety in making that statement, her interaction with both her Jolene and Kenton and Harrison in the previous weeks plus the exchange with Emma outside the court whilst we were waiting for the sentencing, fabulous acting, can't fault it at all. - Yeah, I think she's a great actor and it's a great character, we've said that before but Fallon is a very interesting character and is one of these people that holds the village together by linking up with so many other people and I think it's going to be interesting assuming that she ends up running a vegan establishment at the EV charging station, it'll be interesting to see how she acts in that sort of hub of the village role that Susan has played in the shop and the post office and that Jolene and to some extent Lillian have played at the ball. - Yeah and Roy, 'cause Roy was that person wasn't he? - And Roy at Grey Gables and various other places as well, yes. - Yeah, very good, yeah, I'd also, last point on Paul's call, yeah, I'm desperately hoping that we'll hear George, his unwinding or his panic or his learning to live with life in prison, but I hope it's not just Sue Emma. - Yeah, it would be good to hear directly from him, I know that people have said maybe he's got some lucrative job in acting and is therefore going to be unavailable for the archers, but I don't think that they really do it like that. I think unless you're permanently going to be unavailable because you've gone off to live in California the way that some people do, I think Felicity Jones was leaving because she had a Hollywood career, I think that Tams and Greg is probably not readily available in the Birmingham area. And you're filming a part and Angus Stobie has been in Supercell Netflix, I think that's being renewed for further series, but that takes him out for filming blocks, but it doesn't take him out for absolutely four a year or two years or whatever, so I think the idea that he's been sent to prison because the actor is going to be unavailable isn't a logical thing to say. - No, but although he could come out of prison with a slightly changed voice, we've heard that over. - Yes, let's hope that that doesn't happen because he's doing such a good job. - Absolutely. - Let's hear now from Gilliam. - Hi, this is Gilliam from London, it's been a difficult week listening to the archers. I hadn't actually expected George to get a custodial centre, so I was quite surprised by that. It's been hard listening to Emma losing control of her emotions and it feels so she's likely to be in quite a bad place over the next few weeks, and it's sad. Susan's been amazing, but Emma is in a really difficult place, but I think for me one of the hardest things is knowing that the contest to name the kitten in the pub is still not complete, and I have to say I don't think I'm alone in finding the kitten naming contest as tedious as many of the other recent contests have been, except for me, speaking to you. - What strikes me as odd about the kitten naming contest is that we have two new kittens in the village at the same time. You go for ages without a cat's story at all, and then two come along at once, because we have coffee at Brookfield. - Cough your coffee. - I think it's coffee. - Yeah. - And then we have the cat. - So yes, thank you for that cool Gilliam. I'm not as anti-it as it might be because I like cat stories, and as a cat lover myself, I am all in favour of that and it makes a change from all the dog stories that we have with Monty and with Bess, and the other dogs that have been through the arches, I think we need more cats. So I'm happy for a bit more of that, but I do think they are making a complete meal out of it, and just calling it chaser, which struck me as a really good name for a pub cat and be done with it. - I'm interesting to where this thing is going about the internet person who's interested in the ashtray that the picture was taken in. - How would you do with it? - It's like scam, massive scam, and they're going to go down a funny line. - I think it probably is a market for pub memorabilia from ancient days, and I suspect these Shires ashtrays are sought after by people because there won't be many of them left, because most pub ashtrays will have been binned since the smoking ban came in. - Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I just thought it was quite natural to have an ashtray in a pub, but of course I'd forgotten that's happened since I've not lived in the UK, so... - They'll have a few for the designated smoking area outside, but a lot of them will have just been thrown out, I think, and because they would have been pretty filthy, nasty, smelly objects, I doubt many places would have gone to the trouble of cleaning them up and selling them at kobbutzels or anything like that, but I suspect some might have ended up like that. - Yes, as always people collecting something somewhere, isn't it? - Yeah, but I make no predictions, dear, and it's scams, they're gonna get scammed. - I think it's going to be more of a sort of cash-in-the-atic type thing, but we shall see. - Yes, indeed. - Next up we have Ian from Middlesbrough. - Hello everyone, Ian from Middlesbrough here again. After my erroneous and therefore pointless call last week, I'll stick to the present to this time and not rely on my clearly fallible memory. I was surprised and delighted at the outcome on Thursday night, and the added piquancy of it being an adult prison was a cherry on the top. The acting was again outstanding from everyone involved. Even the actors playing the court roles were utterly believable, and the script felt very plausible, not that I have much experience of the goings-on in a courtroom. I do wonder if perhaps Angus Stobey's talents have been recognised, and he's requested time out to pursue other roles. I just hope that long-term George doesn't become as absent as Debbie Aldridge. However, this seems less likely following his angst-ridden call home on Friday. Perhaps we'll continue to hear from him, albeit on and off, rather than just hear of him. Alternatively, it may just be part of the long-term story arc. Had George been given a suspended or community sentence, he would have returned to the village to pretty much universal aprobrium from everyone who isn't a grandi. As it is, he'll be back in ambridge by next Christmas, assuming good behaviour, etc., and perhaps there will be some who are prepared to say he's done his time and to give him a second chance. Time will tell, and whatever happens, something will, that's all, bye. Thank you for calling in again Ian, especially as we poo poo'd your last call for being completely erroneous. Yeah, if Stephen's estimations are correct, he should be out for harvest next year, and he did all the harvest stuff at the Gundy's place until they put him in charge of the harvest and stacking everything with Neil, and that was a good time when Neil and he managed to talk and we could see that Neil was being a great grandfather to him, despite his anxiety, and he was in that peak moment of not knowing what to do. Do you remember when he was offered cider, and that freaked him out? So I think harvest time next year, he'll be back in the village, and the Gundy's will be trying to rehabilitate him into their lives and then on their farm, and the question will be, will Tony have softened enough to let him go back to working at Bridge Farm? It opens up so many questions, this whole story, as we've said right along, the ripples and ripples. Yeah, but it's a very good question Ian, will he be given a second chance by the villagers? Yeah, so I think one of the key things about rehabilitation is what happens to you immediately after you come out of prison, and so many prisoners are released and then have no home to go to nothing, no stability whatsoever, and they can't establish themselves, can't get a job, so they turn back to crime and they become repeat offenders, and it's all pretty grim, whereas George Will, we're pretty sure, come home to the warm embrace of a loving family, and he will therefore have the immediate safety blanket of that, and then yes, if he can get gainful employment, preferably paid by somebody outside the family, so he doesn't feel like it's a charity case or anything like that, and Bridge Farm is the obvious place. Will Tony accept that as people say he's done his time therefore or should be well or not? I think that's going to be absolutely critical to the longer term thing. Of course, I've always said if he becomes completely reformed character, where's the fun in that? So we do need to balance often need to have some people that are fairly villainous, and we can't rely on Clive Horribin coming back again and again, so it will help. Eddie can't carry on carrying that mantle, can he, forever, so someone's got to replace Eddie. He's reformed himself, so they can end up in an arm's house. Yeah, but I think that's going to happen soon, so I think we're getting to our last call now. Yes, our last call is from Claire, from Topham. Hi, Dumpty Dum, it's Claire, from Topham here. Now, I'm sure you're going to get loads of calls about George this week. I just wanted to very briefly reflect on the interactions between Linda, and is it Khalil, and as with kids, it's really interesting, isn't it? I don't think Linda is racist, I think she's townist, I think that she probably jumps conclusions about someone she assumes is an urban person, is a country person, but good on Khalil for calling it out, because I just think that I understand where he's coming from, and it would be interesting to see how that relationship goes. I imagine that in about six months' time, Linda and Khalil will have one of these brilliant intergenerational friendships where they bond over animals, because he's clearly a keen fan of animals. Everything will be hunky-dory and all we've forgotten, but yeah, it's really helps us to understand how, like, what feel like microaggressions are easily done, even if not meant in that way. So, yeah, I saw some interesting stuff going on with that this week amidst all of the other heavy stuff with George, and slightly mad stuff with the pubcat, but yeah, keep up the good work, and I'll speak to you again soon, bye! Thank you very much for that call, Claire, and it was really good to have a chance to talk about something other than George for a bit, and I agree with you entirely, I think that the relationship between Khalil and Linda is destined to be a warm one, I think, that again, this was a bit of a meat-cute when they start off on the wrong foot, and then they'll work their way back together, just as I think they start off on the wrong foot when Linda first encountered Felial's uncle. I think that will happen, I think that it was very well-written, very well-handled, I thought it felt very realistic, I thought that the attitude that Khalil and Zainab had towards Linda, this suspicion of racism, but a degree of respect for one's elders that they showed, the awkwardness involved in all of them with Linda knowing full well, the awful woman with a shotgun that was threatening them was her, and that she'd come across very badly, I think that she knows that she made some fairly major mistakes in dealing with that, but I agree with Claire, that it wasn't driven by racism, I don't think Linda is racist, I think that she is massively snobbish in particular ways, and always has been, ever since she came from Sunningvale, and I think this was just a reflection of that, and it wasn't the colour of Khalil's skin that mattered, though that probably made her think that he was a towney rather than a country person, of course Linda has only been a country person since she moved to Ambridge, she was very much a towney, or at least a suburbanite when she first arrived, it's a bit rich, her being so down on people from town, I think she's what you expect from Linda. This is exactly what you would expect from Linda, but she came round and she came bearing gifts, and that was very typical of Linda, and I think as Claire says, these microaggressions are very easily done when there are slight misunderstandings, it's very rom-comish, as you, what was the expression you used then? Meatcute. Meatcute, alright, I didn't know that expression, but a very good assessment of the situation, yeah, and I agree, I think she's going to become a firm friend to Khalil, and even more so when Adil comes back, because of course she was a very supportive friend of him as he was of her, yeah, very good. So those are all the calls, thank you very much for calling in, we always say this show is about what you, our listeners think, and that's more than true this week where we've had 15 fantastic calls, mainly discussing the same subject, but it just goes to show that we can handle it, this will be a slightly longer podcast than used to because of you, so if you wish to join in and you want to let us know how your week in Ambridge was, please call in next week. There's a couple of emails, we know they are, so let's start with the first one. This one is from Lillian with the subject line "Big Brother", and it goes like this, "Hi Jacqueline, Stephen, and all done to dumbers everywhere, I know many of our members will not follow this programme, but I do, and this year I was amazed to learn how many of the housemates have the same names as the arches' characters, we have the following, Rosie, Emma, Martha, Lily, and Hannah, just thought it was worth a mention, thanks again for the podcast, best wishes Lillian. Thank you for that Lillian, I don't know, "Big Brother", I know it's people looking over you, and so I don't know what it is, but I'm very interested in this name thing, and in fact I looked, the top 20 girls' names in 2024 were included, Lily, Rosie, Poppy, and Mia, they're even, that will continue, they're following, the arches are following the national tens, whereas 20 years ago, the only one of those names which was very popular was in the top 10 was Hannah, it actually made me take a step back because I have three daughters and apparently they're in the top three names, they're names, so they're in the top three that are in the years in which they're born, so I obviously follow the trends as well, but it is interesting, and I wouldn't love about this Lillian, you're watching programme, you listen to the arches, and you're making connections all the time, I find myself doing that as well, it's the Joe Radio play the other day, and there was somebody called Rosie, and I thought, "Oh, she's grown up". Yeah, I don't watch "Big Brother" either, I know roughly about it, and I think most of the people who go into the house for "Big Brother" are in their early 20s, interesting that it's not the age of, apart from Lily, of course she's a panner, but Martha and Rosie obviously a lot smaller, and Emma is a lot older, the arches ones than those ones, but Emma is one of these names that has been around, so ever and ever, and ever, so lots of Emma's, when I was growing up, so my generation had a lot of Emma's, the earliest Emma I know is Emma of Normandy, who was Queen of England, now to both F.R.D. and Newt in the early 11th century, so Emma has been around forever, the others I think have come and gone, and I think when I was growing up Rosie and Martha would have been very old-fashioned names, that flower names were very old-fashioned, they were Lily as well, and yet they've come back. Now the next email is from Jess with the subject line "Script Coherence" and it goes like this. On Sunday, when speaking to both Khalil and his sister Linda thought they were from the Metropolis, why then asked for his parents' name so she could speak to them, unlikely to be able to track them down, surely, seems a bit incoherent in the script. I like the way the encounter was written in general, and how it touched on the way people feel about whether someone or something is racist or not. Why did Linda slowly articulate the word "Annie Mal?" unless she was assuming a lack of English understanding, probably a prejudicial assumption. However, the problem in using the word "racist" mixes assumptions that are misplaced up to prejudice involving hatred and fear. Khalil, like most people subject to some encounters with prejudice or racism, will be more alert or sensitive to such remarks. Going to Thursday's edition, having heard about the situation of UK prisoners from an association offering workshops in prison, let me plug "Sing In" - a two-year sentence for a young man, first serious offence, seemingly remorseful seems wrong, a short sentence might be appropriate plus suspended time, more likely to prevent re-offending, whereas two years with little chance of any rehabilitation is more likely to get him into further criminal involvement. Thank you for that email, Jeff, and you make a number of interesting points. I think you say "Sing In" - I looked and couldn't find anything called "Sing In", but I'm assuming that's going to be one of these programs in prisons that teaches people to sing. There's the Liberty Choir, there's the Prison Choir Project, I think, and so there are a number of activities that are being set up from outside the prison service to give prisoners things to do that will help with their rehabilitation. I know that one of those ones has got operations in quite a few prisons in mostly in the south-east of England, but is looking to spread. There is stuff going on to make prison more rehabilitative and less purely a place where people are locked up and forgotten about, because I agree that there's a good chance that if there are no active programs in there, then real rehabilitation isn't going to happen. We discussed earlier, and I think that the key thing that will stop them getting into further criminal involvement will be what happens to him immediately after he comes out, and he's in a good place in that respect, and that he has got a family to go back to. We've already discussed a bit on the back of Claire's call "The Whole Business About Racism". I think when Linda asked for their name, it was more a sort of way of not quite intimidating, but trying to straighten them out, so I don't think that she was doing it with a view to actually tracking down their parents, I think it was more of her almost acting like a school teacher and hoping to put Kelly on the back foot. But yes, is she racist? I don't think she is racist, but I think that she just felt that he was out of place for whatever reason, and I listened twice to the bit where she slowly articulated the word "animal", and actually the second time I heard it, it wasn't quite as bad as the first time, and it wasn't, I think, as if he were a foreigner, because I don't think Linda is quite the type that goes for the, if somebody doesn't understand English, the way to deal with that is to speak solely and loudly. I don't think Linda is quite that crude. I think that she was just doing it as a way of expressing something when she enunciates clearly, and she does it to other people. Yeah, she does. She's got a very strange way of pronouncing and enunciating things, Linda, so I think it wasn't necessarily coming across, because she was talking to a foreigner, because we can't see a face, because people who talk to foreigners here, or people they think that they're not going to understand you, or seem to pull this funny face when they're doing it, as if they say their facial expression and say, "I'm not really understanding your response". Yes, good email, food for thought there. Next we have an email from Purple Pumpkin, with a subject line, "Prison, what is it good for?" And it goes like this, "Hi, Stephen Jacqueline, and Dumpty Dumas everywhere. It's Purple Pumpkin here with an emailer in, pondering prison and the Ambridge residents who haven't been there. In the time I've listened, we've had several horribins, who were violent criminals and seemed to deserve prison if anyone ever does. I think each served several years and stayed crooks. Susan got six months for having been blackmailed into helping the horrible Clive when he was on the run, walking in justice, free the Ambridge one, questions asked in Parliament and all that. Eddy has served many months and remained, having a child in prison before eventually being found not guilty of stabbing the evil Rob. Had she been found guilty, she would have served many years. Had Rob been found guilty of the rape and coercive control we know he was guilty of, he would also have served years, but he wasn't. Eddy has never been jailed for all his scheming, and Matt Crawford also managed to escape the law. Ryan was caught polluting and fined. It was left a poor little rich kid Freddy Pudgeser to go to jail for drug dealing. And now we have George, serving significant time mostly for his repeated criminal attempts to cover up what would otherwise have been the lesser punished crime of dangerous driving. Given my own ambivalence about the purpose and benefits of prison for punishment, preventing re-offending or rehabilitation, I do find it curious that George was sent down for so long and look forward to seeing whether he comes out a better man. Keep up the good work, your loyal listener, Purple Pumpkin. Yeah, that kind of follows on, doesn't it, from what you were saying about George is in a good place when he comes out because he'll be returning to one of two family homes, or three if we count Susan and Neil's home, which he has stayed in before. So there's plenty of opportunity for him to be housed somewhere. There's the possibility of him working on there in the own Grundy's own agricultural stuff with haymaking and the turkeys and all that so. And we know that they were planning to hand more stuff over, so he's got to him, so he's got almost complete work. Even if he doesn't go back to Bridge Farm, he'll be incorporated into the family affair. Yeah, I think George is in a good place, I think. We never heard, but I didn't hear. The rehabilitation of Freddy Pargiti just came back and then was given a job at Lower Loxley and that was that, wasn't it? And we've only heard snippets of him talking about his life there. I think it did have an impact on him, but going back to a warm family home, a country pile that's falling apart, but will be his, was exactly the sort of thing that George should benefit from. I think that's the most important part, that he had a home to go back to, he had stability when he returned and no incentive, therefore, to pursue a life of crime. In the purple company's lift of people who've not gone to jail, I think Eddie, probably a bit unfair to have him there, yes, he's been doing a certain amount of poaching, but apart from that, he's not actually a criminal, he's just very dodgy and he tends to bend rules rather than break them. Many years ago, he tried to get out of dipping all his sheep when that was a legal requirement because they couldn't afford the sheep dip, so he and Joe were using watering cans to sprinkle the sheep instead. And all of his activities are more in that sort of space than the actual criminal stuff. Matt Crawford, definitely a white collar criminal in various ways and running off with people's savings. And another who ran off with people's savings and never got in jail was Cameron Fraser from way back when. So there have been a few others, but in general, white collar criminals seemed to get away with it in the arches, Brian was an exception and he didn't go to prison, but he was fine fairly heavily and had to sell home farm as a result, home farm house at least. And yes, the horribans are the crime family of Ambridge with both Keith and Clive being imprisoned for arson, I think, in both cases. Yeah. And, well, because we have Tracy and Susan as well, who are not? Well, no, Susan is a criminal now, because, of course, she was eating in a betting bag. But I agree. And in justice, she should never have gone to prison. And Clive, of course, it was arson the second time after armed robbery the first time. I'm probably the first, yeah. We better move on with this. As we've mentioned a few times now, Patreon backers have dumped it on now get an ad-free early release version of the podcast around 6pm on Saturday when Stephen can manage that. Patreon's also get a weekly email about Dumtidam and the archers, which this week featured a bit of history of Americans in Ambridge. Now, if you'd like to join the growing band of Patreon supporters, you should head over to patreon.com/dumtidam and sign up. Patreon doesn't delude you with emails and other messages, but please let us know if there's anything we can do that make a 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 Dumtidam get-together and the sooner you sign up to Patreon and pledge a few pounds, the sooner that can happen. Now, let's move on to Facebook and give a warm Dumtidam welcome to the following people who've joined our Facebook group in the past week. Lucian Lowtide Butler, Claire Dolan, Pippa Barr, Marilyn Warner, James Griffiths, Helen Sinden, Nicola Collier, Pilly Taylor, Andrew Stevenson, Jen Jen, Richard Campbell and Maureen Wicks. Welcome to you all. 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, call a rendering and email a rendering all in the same week. So now let's hear what's been going on in the Dumtidam Facebook group, this week from Ben in Shanghai. Nihao and hello to Stephen, Jacqueline and everyone out there in Dumtidam land. It's Ben here from Shanghai bringing you a roundup of what's been going on on our social media pages and what a week it's been. Dumtidamas have been posting their hearts on their sleeves this week with the likes of Amanda writing that she'd cried her way through Wednesday's episode. Mary Rae found the severity of George's sentence shocking, whereas a somewhat less emotional Nicholas Nitsua pointed out that he's only been remorseful for around a week so definitely got his just desserts. Sandra D. Jenkinson opened a very interesting conversation regarding Fallon's statement in court, speculating whether she might now decide to have a baby to save her marriage. When I bell thought it was really likely, Lynn predicts that she won't, and Rae pointed out that he's observed that the women in the archers seem to be unable to survive and live any happy fulfilled lives without breeding. There was definitely a general consensus that this storyline has become somewhat tedious and should just go away. The arrival of Messyhead Khalil and Sister Zaneb has warmed our hearts, with many people jumping to his defence in the wake of Linda's R word for rural behaviour. Posters such as Audrey wrote that she's always found her bullying and insensitive, and loved how Khalil was able to put her in her place. Sue England found the writing weird and not remotely realistic or in line with how her character has been written over the past few decades, and for Richard Lucas, her reaction when learning that the children were in fact the kids of the local GP, brought back memories of Basel Folti. However, one thing's for sure, everyone is very pleased with their arrival, and can't wait for them to be woven into the fabric of village life. And so, with one huge storyline wrapping up and so many more in the developing stages, let's all take some deep breaths, relax and wait to see what happens next. Until next time, tatien from Shanghai. Jashe Ben. And thank you so much to everyone on the dumb to dumb 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, 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 persuade some of your friends. Talk to them about us, and even if they don't currently listen to the archers, with all the publicity, who knows, it might be the start of a long obsession for them. We're going to move on to Twitter now, where you'll find us at dumb to dumb, make sure you include the archers hashtag using a capital TNA, so the visually impaired who use screen readers can enjoy any archers based treats, as well as at dumb to dumb, Stephen can occasionally be found at Wenlock House. And we can both also be found chatting about the archers on blue sky, where I am at wenlock.bsky.social. And I am at jberto.bsky.social. So let's find out who's won the Twitter medals this week from CO, Tweet Tweet Tiger. Hello Jacqueline, Stephen, and dumpty-dummers everywhere. It's purple pumpkin here, with a slightly viral, croaky voice, and some tweets and skits of the week. This week on Twitter and Blue Sky, as you might expect, there was an awful lot of discussion of how long George would get, versus how long he ought to get, and how various people would respond. Steffi Eade, at mum of fat Cassie, was among those to point out that if George had owned up straight away and not tried to frame Alice and Harry, he might have got a suspended sentence. And as Phil Sladen, at Phil Sladen said, "George did a bad thing, but he's no Clive Horribin. Prism will do nothing for him except make him a worse person." But for counterpoint, Helen Blackburn, at Crazy Diamond 26 said, "Anything less than a custodial sentence would be a disgrace. This issue has really divided the Twitter arty, and no doubt it will continue to do so." There was also a good amount of discussion of the malloc offspring, and where they will fit in. 90, at 90, was not alone, in spotting the zenabs on a year off, and Bridge Farm, a one short in the cafe, a match made in heaven. As Loma Lindy 12, at Loma Lindy 12.BSky.social said, "As was daughter will be working in that tea-room before you can say ferret upper-drone pipe." But there was significant disagreement about whether Linda's supersoniousness and rudeness to Calile were her usual routine or were in fact racist. Steffi Eade, at Foggy Knitter, called it "thoroughly nasty stereotyping and racist behavior," but Julia Robinson at Drew Robinson pointed out that Linda is patronising, condescending, and over-enunciates to everyone. I also very much enjoyed a self-flagellatory thread on Blue Sky, where Jackie, at Jackie Crofty.BSky.social, pointed all that we all shouted it at George, but he didn't listen, so it's our fault, leaving Claire Cullingworth at Cullingworth.BSky.social to say, "We really tried our best. Nick, @checkyoursheds.BSky.social, confessed he could probably have tried a little harder, but Richard listening at Longwavera.BSky.social concluded it's a collective guilt that we all have to bear." So now, over to this week's medals for Blue Sky skates and ex-posts, all of which we continue to consider as Tweets of the Week. One bronze physician, it's Charlie Noughton at 19 C-E-M. Pat describes him as an asset. The rest of us describe him as an asshole. The silver medalist is Huggsy at Huggsy.BSky.social. If you need to fix your drone, George, speak to Adam, he drones for Borsicher. And the gold medal goes to Mel Parker, @melparkamel. Oh well, it's back to naming the pub kitten. George, perhaps. And on that unlikely note, that's it for this week. I hope to see you all on #TheArchers on Twitter or Blue Sky next week. Yeah, thank you for that Theo, and congratulations to everyone who was mentioned in this week's roundup. Don't forget, we're on Instagram @dumptidam. Please send any The Archers or podcast relevant photos to the #dumptidam email, and we will publish some of the credits to you at dumptidam@mail.com. We'll be recording next week at our normal time, track of dawn on Saturday morning. So please get your calls in by midnight on Friday, UK time, as usual. And as we come to the end of this episode, we need to say thanks to all our wonderful contributors and to the team of dumptidamas behind the scenes, and we need to say, great, we thank you to all of you who are listening to us too. We love making this podcast and sharing our love of the archers around the world. And we must say thank you to Kim Durham and Sunny Ormond for their voices, and we pay our respects to the creators of this podcast. Thank you so much for listening and joining us today. We're now off to make a video on Brandmar's phone with messages from everybody for tomorrow. So it's goodbye from me. And this are a Vwaf on me. [Music] [Applause] 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? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouth-watering meals. No matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week and up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with points so you can get big flavors and big savings, king supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. [BLANK_AUDIO]

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


We hear from:


  • Katherine, who wonders whether Lilian should have been barring George;
  • Jacquieline in New Zealand, who has predictions about what was to happen on Thursday;
  • Katherine again with an observation on the workings of the legal system in England and Wales;
  • Jacquieline again, with words of praise for Susan;
  • Michelle, who has been enjoying the sounds of the storyline; 
  • Fiona, who is very satisfied with George’s sentence; 
  • Alan, who wonders what George will be like when he comes out of prison; 
  • Glyn, who wonders what impact George’s sentence will have on the rest of the village; 
  • Gennie with a G, who has been thinking about two victim personal statements, and what they reflect; 
  • Marie, who doesn’t think that the sentencing will fix things between Fallon and Harrison; 
  • Witherspoon, who thinks that George’s experiences haven’t been quite what goes on on Law and Order; 
  • Paul in Olney, who has enjoyed the acting; 
  • Gillian who wants it all to be over - the kitten-naming contest, that is; 
  • Ian from Middlesborough, who is happy with the sentence and with the acting; 
  • And finally Claire from Clapham, who is reflecting on the interactions between Lynda and Khalil;


We also have emails, from Lilian, Jef and Purple Pumpkin


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



Please call into the show using this link:

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Or email us at dumteedum@mail.com


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