The Archers - It's not about the money, money, money, think about Jill's honey, honey, honey, Justin wants to farm by satnav, forget about the prize tag.

[PseudoBadger]

Will The Dopeys have buggered off by the end of this thread?
Will Tom finally reach home, after weeks of trekking through the tundra?

The drastic decision will probably be a mutiny against lynda

Errol Mordred Ruariaiaiari has long plotted against the House of Aldridge.

He is old enough now to put his plans into action and will sieze the opportunity to avenge his poor dead mother Siobhan Le Fey

Is he in league with the devil Henry?

In Ambridge, anything is possible!

Perhaps while we've been thinking Ruarrii has been at boarding school he's actually been at drama school learning to be someone else entirely when he comes home at the end of term.....

So Jenny and Brian are leaving the country out of sheer embarrassment?

Listen to Pat - if ever a woman sounded poisoned, she does!

DON'T TAKE THE SLEEPING DRAUGHT PAT!!!

Carol is for ... being a rock for Pat to lean on.

Finally a realistic conversation about Tony.

I think its just going to be general herbal tea lore with a silly mature women get stoned and giggle episode and follow on legal consequences...everyone thinks its illegal drugs but turns out not to be (recycled neighbours plot)

Flip, you take your eye of the thread for 5 days and its nearly full.

has Pat already been drinking the tea then?

Did Carol and Pat already have a.. friendship? I liked the way Pat was honest with Carol

Aren't tied cottage regulated in some way though? I thought it was not so easy to change their use

Not necessarily. It depends when they were built. Anything pre 1960 is very unlikely to have a restriction. From about 1980 onwards may well be restricted to being occupied by someone working in agriculture or forestry.

It is a planning restriction to prevent sporadic new build in the country side- you have to demonstrate there is a need for worker accommodation.

Certainly in parts of Scotland this in the 80s was abused by "farmers" in luxury houses with a few pet sheep. Or at the other extreme there is a genuine need but it results in some of the most god awful hideous houses you can imagine.

Oh and as for the current employees in the tied houses their right to be there will end with their jobs (unless the Alridges messed up the contracts and were taking rent off them as opposed to being a job perk in which case they will have created a tenancy ) but agricultural workers in tied houses can get a stay of execution for up to 6 months (certainly in Scotland and I think there is an English equivalent ).

All of this however will be ignored as law, especially housing law doesn't exist in any soap.

Never heard Pat and Carol have a previous conversation. And you'd think Pat would already know the merits of camomile tea (I know, I know - Carol's speshul broo) and have some in her kitchen cupboard. Bizarre scene.

And why were Brine and JD having 'words'? Did Brine leave his packing till the last minute? I don't believe for a minute he does his own packing (except when he is playing away perhaps??). Of course it must all mean summat ......

It can often be easier to talk to a relative stranger in these situations, and Carol has suffered a bereavement and presumably been visiting them etc. when they've been ill. Carol is someone Pat doesn't have to be brave to, she's not that close to Pat or Tony.

I know we're suspicious of Carol's brews, but she seems to be a good confidante. Lizzie told her about the affair, Jill offloads her misgivings about leaving Ambridge... she seems to be able to offer counsel and keep it to herself. Maybe she's trusted because she used to be one of them but was away long enough that she is sufficiently an outsider not to be personally embroiled?

The Prague trip isn't that unlikely.
I worked for many years on a big farming estate. The lady of the house would go off to do her Xmas shopping in New York or Paris every year.

They lost their fortune in the crash six years ago and started to lay off the staff, including myself.

The shopping trips abroad were somehow ring fenced though.
Heaven forfend her ladyship should have to shop with the common people.

But the SWs have made them look either stupid or vile.

It's not the fact of their being able to do their Christmas shopping elsewhere - it's the preposterous timing. Tony, Phoebe, Ruairi all abandoned for the sake of biscuits?

And yet another instance of the little woman being portrayed as a fool. Underlined by Brian's apparent unpreparedness.

I really hope the two of them have some hidden, Hugarian agenda.

Thanks Phaedra. I had it lurking in my brain that there was some sort of restriction on tied cottages, and that there were ways round it. I had wondered the same thing about Bert & Freda's cottage. I don't suppose they ever envisaged Archers leaving Brookfield.
I'm sure this will be sketched over like the wrongful dismissal case was.

Carol's role as universal confidante annoys me, as does everything else about her. Pat used to confide in Kathy, now languishing in ARSE along with Ian who would surely also have been popping round with tasty food to keep the family fed while Pat has been spending time in Birmingham.

I think Carol also sniggered to someone, probably Jill, that she had added something to the cider when she visited the shed. Her getting the entire village stoned might account for all the personality changes!

i haven't listened to last night's yet

i was musing to myself about mike and vicky's situation (house sale fallen through) and someone said something like "they won't be out by the new year now..."

and i wondered whehter it was supposed to echo what everyone is thinking about D&R

So we are back to zero's theory of "this new dramatic motif of dress-rehearsing everything important"

Talking of which, is Alice's rant about Blithe Spirit meant to be prescient? She thinks it's a comedy, Lynda thinks it's doom & gloom. Will we finally get some showdown from the first Mrs Titchyknob at Christmas? I really want this loose end sorting out.

I think Carol's function is to show the village and its prisoners inhabitants to new viewers through new eyes

Oops I mean listeners!