Rogered by a hobbit in the LL undergrowth, buried in a raised bed with Bert or harassed behind the arras with Adam? Pick your Ambridge fate here.

[PseudoBadger]

A big showdown tonight I hope.

Thanks to Zero (I think?) for the great title.

So which Shakespeare play is the rob story based on?

He is a bit like prince hans in frozen - if we consider bridge farm like a kingdom.

True Pilcrow I do a fair bit of up cycling and don't rub down or use Annie Sloan paints. The furniture looks 'distressed' because I'm going for the 'shabby chic' look .

BYOS I know 4 plots of Shakespeare plays and I can't think of any one of THEM that the Robhell. story is based on maybe Frozen is more like it

OK Bridge Farm has a mortgage but they've presumably taken it out for a term within Pat'n'Tone's working lives and expect to pay it off before it is inherited. Low interest rates must work in their favour too.
There's not a cash flow problem if Tony can buy in a new bull and all those cows, the pigs were always profitable and Tom only got into trouble because he was spending money like water in the run-up to the wedding.
The shop can afford to pay a manager to run it so seems to be doing well, whoever it belongs to.
The house itself has a considerable value even if it was last redecorated in the 80s.

So, no, I don't think it's at all a bad inheritance for a man like Rob who thinks highly of his own ability to run a farm well and particularly if being a land-owner gives him social status.

Claudius in Hamlet?

Hmmm, still not sure it is a good enough inheritance. I don't think Peggy's house is worth that much in a wider context but would be nice to live in. Pat and tone aren't showing any inkling of sotmc either so he would really be playing the long game.

I still think it is about wanting to have the particular type of relationship he wants. He failed with Jess but Helen seems a better bet.

Or is it Macbeth?
Ambitious man, supportive partner who would do anything to keep him happy, including murdering her granny.
Rightful heir in exile
Witches.......

Yes that sounds good - lots of usurpers in Shakespeare

Or the taming of the shrew?

I would expect Peggy's house plus a half share of Bridge Farm and attached businesses to be worth at least a million and probably more. Not a fortune but you wouldn't turn it down!

He is playing a long game and is earning a fair bit himself, and will I suppose inherit from his parents so money isn't his prime motivation. It's control of Helen and her potential assets that he's after along with social standing.
The last thing he wants is for Helen to be independently wealthy and for him not to 'guide' her.

If all the guff he spouted about his parents and brother are even a quarter true then it's probably all about what he sees in the mirror. He's certainly not ambitious in the wider world - rubbish at his job.... But if he keeps pluggng on pushing the pieces around the board one day he'll be King of his own little world.

I might say a variation on Othello - but I don't think Rob is as conscious of his own plan as Iago was.

(If I could be bothered to brush up my knowledge I might be able to cobble together a "Buffy" theme - we have a hellmouth, plus Rob as the high school HM and I'm fancying Johnny for Spike and Justin for a very old, rarely seen, top rank vampire... Charlie's the younger vampire always hanging around people's doors waiting to be invited in. But the heroine has yet to make herself apparent.... Although - if Ed is Angel then surely that makes Emma..... )

You're first paragraph is making me think prince hand again!!

Maybe it will morph into dr who

I don't understand all this sudden story about Ruth and David moving away and actually looking at farms that for sale now in Northumberland. If they are planning to wait until it all gets decided I should think it will be years until the road decision is taken then appealed and then even longer until it's actually built? Ruth's mother could be dead by then!

And what's the point of getting Brookfield valued now as it's worth will be completely different with a great road through the middle of it and who on earth would buy it anyway with that hanging over it?

It seems completely random to me.

Jill's driving....

It's Thursday...

£4.5million?!!!!!

'I made life a little easier for him in his last days.' Does that mean she gave John a herbal concoction and offed him?

I've revised my valuation of Bridge Farm upwards!

Phew! Jill lives to be startled another day.

Even though I love her it's hard to avoid the assumption that Carol returned to John in the vain hope of a cash benefit.

And now we know she doesn't get on well with her son.

Interesting episode.
Peggy didn't sound as miserable as usual.
We got a bit more of Carol's backstory.
Someone actually stated a sum of money.

I was puzzled at Ryder's comment that there is a shortage of farms for sale. Surely this works for them as well as against them - and he did show that Brookfield is eminently saleable, albeit for not enough to divvy up and move.

And what are we to make of Ryder's surprise at seeing Adam? Round here if you comment that someone gets about a bit it has definite connotations!

And tomorrow Adam finds out the truth!

Don't think the issue was so much Graham seeing Adam as D&R not wanting Adam to see Graham!

Thanks for the link DadDadDad

For anyone who missed it and can't be bothered to scroll back up, here it is:
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/oct/15/the-archers-helen-rob
Readers are being asked to explain the Helen / Rob dynamic.

By the way, things have been busy on this thread. My up-thread prediction that this would last until Sunday is looking suspect. It's going to barely make it through Friday at this rate.

Graham did notice him though despite D&R's best efforts and he made that comment on him. I thought it very strange.

Surely it doesn't matter (from D&R's pov) that Graham saw Adam - who was going about his normal business. But the Brookfield people didn't want Adam to know they were having the farm valued - because then everyone would know.

(I don't know whether seeing Adam at Brookfield might be cause for Estate gossip re his not spending enough quality time on Estate work but he had nothing to hide ...)

Isn't David supposed to realise that he can't leave Brookfield, hence the talk about weekenders etc.? I can't believe they think their teenagers will want to move & now Josh has started his A Levels surely they'll stay until he's finished them? Or would he stay behind with a relative? I guess they don't expect him to have any future other than that as a farmer & so why worry about qualifications, but they took Pip's education far more seriously.

Oh gosh, Ruth really has the ££££ in her eyes doesn't she.

David won't want to move now - not with all the talk of years of yeomen farmers living in the farmhouse, it being sold off to a wealthy city type (Justin Elliot?), all the land being broken up. And it's not even worth what they hoped it was - I don't think they were £££££ in Ruth's eyes I think she was realising they might not have as much to play with as she thought (the classic problem that you always fall for houses that are slightly out of your price range when you start scrolling through Rightmove or whatever the farming equivalent is) and that's before they've worked out how much they'll have to give the Shula, Kenton and Elizabeth.
re Rob and Hellin, I agree with those who say it is not about money for him. He wants to have her completely in his control - no job, no independent means, no friends, no confidence. His objection to RJ is more likely to be the same as his objection to Tom (and Ian - has Rob done something to Ian??) - that he doesn't want Hellin to have any allies at all.

What I want to know is why people go on about Pat being a "strident feminist"? Or is it in a "I don't know what a feminist is- I only know it's what people call me when I express opinions that differentiate me from a doormat" sort of thing?

Well didn't Pat go to Greenham Common - which was a pretty Feminist thing to do in the 70s.