Don't blame it on a Grundy, don't blame it on Route B, don't blame it on Sean O'C, blame it on the badgers. Discuss The Archers of Prudhoe here.

[PseudoBadger]

Adam's sure to have done a spreadshit on how much compensation there'll be. He won't need a cow bridge if he's doing arable and can hold up traffic of the road with his tractor.
Except Ruth& David are not going to like the idea of it going arable. Ooh Nooa, all our lovely grass'. Peggy is going to be ill and that'll make Jill want to stay. Sale off.

Well (pats self on back) my prophesy is being taken up by the SWs then . Though I don't remember Adam asking Ian if he wants to takeover Brookfield's kitchen. And JD does have a point about the villagers thinking it's an Archers conspiracy.

Friend of mine spent part of her childhood in Kenya. She said they thought they all spoke RP English. However, some of her friends had parents in the colonial service and they all got to go back to England for around 3 months every 2 years or so. Friend says that whenever they come back they had a noticeably different and posher accent from everyone else, though they lost it relatively quickly. When she returned to the UK, she was asked a few times whether she came from South Africa, so she deduced that the East African accent must have been similar.

So it's not unlikely that Adam would have had an accent on his return but he wouldn't have kept it. I don't detect any accent with him these days.

I'm wondering about the financial logic of D and R selling Brookfield now, before the question of compensation for compulsory purchase has been considered. Wasn't Ruth saying that the sums involved are potentially quite high? Rodways said they took into account the effect of the proposed byepass in their valuation, so I'm not too clear about the logic of giving the purchaser a potential financial windfall. Having said that, all sorts of complications are passing through my mind in terms of whether compensation has been factored into the price, whether they'd in fact be entitled to so much compensation if they split up the farm etc.

Come to think of it, wouldn't the valuation have come down now that the road is looking more likely?

Further thought: how can they logically decide what the land parcels are going to be till the route of the road is finalised? I know they have an indicative route, but until someone does a major survey surely no-one knows the exact final route. They're already potentially going to have to make diversions for the brown hair butterfly (or whatever it's called) and the sinkhole.

Accent or not, Adam hasn't sounded so perky in ages.

I do hope he's going to consult Ian about this!

Peggy's going to have a nasty turn at the hairdresser's. Her party is going to be like my MIL's 90th - a disaster!

What happened unit?

She was so like Peggy!
Health scares right up to the last minute - people travelling hundreds of miles with children, hotel arrangements made, marquee hired, catering etc.
Should we cancel? Will she live through it? Is it going to be too much for her? Should we call an ambulance? - then suddenly she was fine and dandy, life and soul of the party, while her children huddled in the kitchen shaking from nervous exhaustion. She had done this so often!
She still couldn't get my name right after 30 years, never did.

Technically not a disaster - just so typical of the way she had pulled her children's strings all their lives.

The actress who plays Peggy is actually older IRL. I read her autobiography a few years ago, it bene was very interesting.

cheminotte ooh I'd love to hear more about real-life peggy. Has she always been an actress?

I am baffled by Adam's financial logic too but I think it might be because I don't understand farming and don't have a grasp on who owns and does what in Ambridge. So - (stupid questions alert)... is this right...?

BL owns Berrow Farm but not Home Farm

Brine and JD own Home Farm and Adam provides management contract services to them as well as to BL at Berrow Farm

(or do Adam/Debbie own some of Home farm too?)

Now Berrow Farm have cancelled their contract with Adam so he hasn't enough work

So he/JD/Debbie will now buy Brookfield and farm that in the same way as they do Home Farm (no cows).. so they are investing to increase the size of their business.

Actually that makes sense now I've written it down, if it's right.

Feel free to ignore, or to direct me elsewhere if there is a mine of Archers information elsewhere that I should have consulted!

I am 47 and have been listening for 47years. (Sounds like an AA introduction).

Things I remember, no idea which was first:

• Walter Gabriel doing an introduction to the omnibus editions (then taken over by Lynda Snell (and others?) before being dropped.
• Mr Snowy and the ice cream wars
• Phil Archer wondering why Davis named his first child Philippa as it wasn't a family name
• Mark dying
• Jethro Larkin's death.
• Mike Tucker losing an eye
• Ruth turning up to do work placement at Brookfield
• Nelson's dodgy antiques
• Martha Woodford looking after the phone box

I find it hard to believe they will sell Brookfield, thus I find it hard to get excited about the whole storyline. Would love to see a reunion between the Grundy boys though.

trev i'm not quite sure about the terms of adam's arrangement with HF (owner / employee etc). nor do i understand the terms of debbie's employment - is she employed by HF and contracted to BL (as part of, or separate to, the BL contract?), or is she employed by BL... can't work it out

if you have a spare 40 mins though, you can listen to june spencer on desert island discs to find out more about RL peggy!

trevor I believe it is Home Farm who provide contract services to BL. Hence if they don't have the contract they've a load of machinery doing nothing. So buying Brookfield and turning it to arable from mixed returns their economy of scale.

In other news ... How is it that MNHQ can conjour up Russell Brand (the day after tomorrow) but the Guardian of the Ambridge Revolution is still nowhere to be seen?

Dunno about Adam's accent but I do think of it as not Borsetshire. It irritates me anyway!! I'd been thinking it was Rhodesia as was he was in, but somebody above is right and it was Kenya. After part of a childhood in (west) Africa, I was regarded as having a very posh accent when we came back to Glasgow. So of course this is a known phenomenon.

Zero, I fink it a case of he not wanna talk to Feedback, then MN is not going to get at him either. Maybe he's lying in a darkened room having read these threads.

Zero, perhaps the G of the AR has looked at this thread and is bottling out. Coward. Anyone knows we're pussycats really.

Sorry for all typos from me, from now till the end of time. I am very tired today.

miaou, purr, purr

Thanks Petula for the peggy (June Spencer) Desert Island Discs link. It was lovely, such a nice woman, interesting when she said that Peggy has little or no sense of humour unlike herself.

Adam wasn't in Zimbabwe (please don't use Rhodesia!) I don't think

I just think he has a boarding school accent

I get the impression from interviews that mr oc doesn't like disagreement. His way or the highway.

thanks petula and teen.. i will check that desert island discs out too

I used the term 'Rhodesia as was' cos I'd been thinking that was the place they kept referring to him as living. Then somebody mentioned Kenya (I hope you are all pronouncing that correctly!!) and the light bulb went on. I do accept my post above wasn't totally clear. But I do know the place Adam wasn't in is now called Zimbabwe. In the context of me not having a clue (till Zero's very helpful posts last night informed me of the timeline) when Adam's African sojourn began and ended, my use of 'Rhodesia' is not totally out of place. As you were .... Without using Wikipedia I also do not know when Rhodesia stopped being. My memory for historical dates is pretty hopeless.

Wiki says 1980, BTW. So my chronology is way off - and it's the wrong country.

Ok I'll let you off!!! I'm not so hot on my history of the British isles!

(Bit of a raw topic - Dh grew up in post independence zim and there is a certain type of Brit who always insists on 'correcting' him - "oh you mean Rhodesia?")

So do you think Brian will get in a surveyor and it will be then the sinkhole is discovered?