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Original poster

Please slap me - I feel sorry for Tom

64 replies

DuffyMoon · 14/04/2013 20:08

I was shouting at the radio a few weeks ago when it was sausage this, ready meal that...but now I feel sorry for him - AIBU ?

OP posts:
ArtexMonkey · 14/04/2013 20:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MarianForrester · 14/04/2013 22:07

Yes, you are! Tugging at your heart strings with his meat products, where will end? Grin

TreeLuLa · 14/04/2013 22:08

Eugh. He is such a boring drip.

YABu Grin

Original poster
DuffyMoon · 15/04/2013 07:33

he just sounded so sad sobbing on his mothers shoulder...

OP posts:
PseudoBadger · 15/04/2013 07:36

No one has ever had the balls to ditch him before. That's what has shaken him. It's not about Brenda.

Soupa · 15/04/2013 07:38

He is awful but yeah I feel for him too. Am very changeable

OnTheNingNangNong · 15/04/2013 07:40

I feel sorry for him, but I feel for Brenda more. I really don't know how she put up with his selfishness for so long.

Gigondas · 15/04/2013 07:48

I do feel sorry for him but why Brenda tolerated him so long is beyond me. When she was being so lovely when Vicky was worried about the baby I remembered how nice she was ( and her mum was).

IMO the best of pats kids went under a tractor as Both Helen and Tom are resistable.

outtolunchagain · 15/04/2013 07:51

I feel sorry for him too , I posted on the other thread . I can't see what is wrong with a young man being focused on his career( but then I live with a man who has always been like that!).

That farm has to support 4 people as none of them , apart from Tom , has any other source of income. Two are nearing retirement age and one is a single parent . Tom is the only one really going full pelt , he has a lot of responsibility and it seems that no one seems to care that much about him.

Pat constantly exhorts him to work harder in the farm , Brenda takes a low paid job so she doesn't have to commute ( admit he could have been more supportive ) and then moans because he is work obsessed,all the young farmers I know of that age are much more like Tom, they have to be , it's the only way to make a living.

lottiegarbanzo · 15/04/2013 07:58

He has been ditched before - he was traumatised by Tamsin the supermarket buyer, who outclassed him entirely in Machiavellian whiles. That's partly why Brenda's girl-next-door qualities appealed and probably why he couldn't compute the idea of her as a driven career-woman.

PseudoBadger · 15/04/2013 07:59

Ah yes Tamsin!

lottiegarbanzo · 15/04/2013 08:03

The problem wasn't working hard per se, it was being blinkered and lacking empathy. It's possible to work long hours and care about your GF's day, how she feels and take some interest in what she wants from life, rather than assuming her aspirations match yours. It's not working on the sausages that people object to, it's thinking and talking about nothing else.

R4 · 15/04/2013 08:49

YABU. He has reaped what he has sowed. (d'ya like the farming metaphorGrin

He is 32 years old. If he really was the hot-shot businessman he thinks he is then he would be on his way by now. He is small-time, on a shoe-string with delusions of grandeur. I think that the ready-meals sum him up: he thinks that they are 'something' because he sticks the word gourmet in front of the name whereas they are nothing more fancy than the meatballs or chili that you or I whip up at home.
He should either be a charisma-free workaholic who makes oodles of money or he should be an empathetic family man who brings in his fair share to his two-wage household. At the moment, he has the downside of both and none of the upsides.
I don't see where we are getting the idea that Tom is responsible for Bridge Farm's finances. I don't see Brine expecting his brood to support him; if anything, it's the other way round. Moike isn't expecting Roy or Brenda to keep him. And so on and so on - I don't see any other family expecting the next generation to subsidise them and their lifestyle choices.
If Tom really was as ambitious as he says then he would have left Ambridge to become a middle manager for Duchy Originals / the Co-op / Rachel's Organics by now. You would think that he would look at his cousin James and think 'if that idiot can make money then so can I'.

I think the ultimate low point was when he had to force himself to remember to 'organise' some spontaneous fun.

outtolunchagain · 15/04/2013 15:00

It's not Tom that has to support them its the farm that has to. If the farm doesn't make money what are they all going to live on ? Fresh air.

And that is exactly Adam's gripe , he is working in the farm but most of the profit still goes to Brian. At least Brian has an income from Borchester Land and I expect he has paid into a pension ,
Tony and Pat are dependent on the farm making sufficient profit to be able to pay salaries to both of them and to pay Tom and Helen,and still have money over to invest and very few farms of that size are able to do that .

Spuderoonerism · 15/04/2013 18:03

Long term the future of the farm is an interesting story and kind of a throwback to their original remit of informing about agricultural issues. Farms across the country face this situation every day - dilution of the profit per person with each generation. Brian's farm is more typical of farms I know where at least some of the kids have gone off to do their own thing/make their own careers but Pat and Tony are in a similar position to many where the farm will have to support more people in a few years time, possibly with fewer people working from the family.

To be honest I struggle to see how they make it support all of them in anycase - how much cheese, ice-cream and veg can you sell - they all seem like the little sidelines - presumably the milk was the main source of income and Tom has been living off the sausage profits for the last few years? I agree though that 'gourmet' ready meals don't really sound like a money-spinner.

Neither Tom nor Brenda are particularly likeable in my view. Now they get to double the number of people they make miserable! Am not sure how impressed Roy will be at having Brenda move in either...

ppeatfruit · 15/04/2013 21:21

More pain and heartache; stupid Lil with creep Paul emotionally blackmailing her and boring Tom and Brenda miserably breaking up Oh dear!

Also talking about agricultural issues spuderoonerism isn't the whole idea of a mixed organic farm reliant on the cows' dung? for the arable I mean.

lalalonglegs · 15/04/2013 22:31

So who are Tom and Brenda going to pair off with (because we know that no one is allowed to stay single in Ambridge)? I think Tom has run out of options - he's bored the tits off every woman he's not related to (his sister and mother seem weirdly indulgent of his pork products monomania) and there's no one left for Brenda unless the scriptwriters throw her a comedy pairing with Jazzer.

lottiegarbanzo · 15/04/2013 23:47

Good question. Well, I think (and hope) that Ifty and Elizabeth have a long way to run but he is token single man at the mo, likes sensible businesswomen and is apparently not fussed about having children (as Elizabeth wont be having more).

Then there's Mr 'I do have a wife, i do, it's just she's invisible' Rob of the mega dairy, who everyone at Bridge Farm is already duty bound to despise, so ongoing opportunities for tension there.

Women for Tom though? Hmm.

PseudoBadger · 16/04/2013 07:01

I love how adamant racist Shula is that Lizzie won't be interested in Ifty. She hasn't got a clue.

PseudoBadger · 16/04/2013 07:05

Ha ha I've just seen Rob referred to as 'Rob Titchynob' somewhere else :o

ppeatfruit · 16/04/2013 07:20

Blimey i'd forgotten about Rob Grin d'you reckon he's even GOT a wife? or he's done away with her (he'a another Paul IMO too good to be true at the start in true soap tradition then he'll turn into a serial murderer or whatever).

I want Lizzie to have Ifty move in that'll put Shula's stupid nose out!!!

outtolunchagain · 16/04/2013 07:57

I don't know why Shula is so holier than though over Ifty, she was hardly a saint after Mark died . Admittedly the gap was a bit longer but remember how she had an affair with the Doctor who was living with the solicitor and seeing Alastair as well.

outtolunchagain · 16/04/2013 07:58

Holier than thou ( iPad correctorBlush)

ppeatfruit · 16/04/2013 08:03

It's not the sex she objects to it's the colour of Ifty's face Sad

R4 · 16/04/2013 08:25

What have I missed? Where are we getting the idea that Shula is racist? Alisatair thinks that the sun shines out of Ifti's backside and I don't remember Shula trying to change his mind or make derogatory comments.

I agree that she stuck her nose in unnecessarily but then I think that the Willow Farm mob are getting unnecessarily involved with Brenda too. It's what they do in SoapLand innit? OK she's bust up with her fiance, but they are treating her like she is the first person in the history of everything to split up. Widow/ers in the village have had less fuss made over them!

PS pp good point about dung being 'the circle of life'. They will have to buy in organic milk and poo.