Our modest little The Archers thread has its very own radio celebrity! Join us for the hottest chilli in town, and await the impending doom as all plans go into reverse in Ambridge.

[PseudoBadger]

It's all getting rather delicious. I feel sorry for Kenton the fool

Well I hope Kirsty does come back just to bring Helen back to full consciousness. I wonder what Peggy has in store for Hel.

Tom's personality transplant was a great success.
Wasn't it just?

Wonder how the meeting with Helen will go. And how the Knob will react.

And as already said, lovely to hear from Jazzer and Johnny and the pigs.

Not sure what's happened to Fallon of late. It would be good if once Kenton has disappointed her she squares up and makes a go of her business without a fairy godfather.

If Kirsty does come back, it should be because P&T&T won't sell AO and know that she can manage it perfectly. Her first customer should be Patrick, thus (to use a pleasingly inappropriate metaphor) killing two birds with one stone.

I would have a sort of tea room but it would have lots of wine and weird books to delve into. And we could all sit around getting only slightly drunk and chuckling to ourselves or reading passages to fellow customers. This is my idea of a good night out.

The out of sight out of mind element is odd. Where has Pat's best friend Cathy been during the recent crisis? Lizzie's best friend Usha? Alan? Amy? Obviously Ed doesn't have a best frind because he's common and only posh people have friends..........

Is Usha Lizzies best friend? I thought she was Ruth's. But still very much overdue an appearance. Cathy....not so much, but she should still be 'present' as a silent character.

collymoddler I'll try Nightingale Farm, sounds good.

Hakluyt, do you mean Ed or Eddie? Funnily enough I was thinking the other day that Eddie is the only character to have friends that are not speaking roles. (Baggy, Fat Paul and ??)
The only other friends we ever hear of are old college mates, reinvented for affair alibis. (Ruth, Lillian and Helen have all done this)

Isn't Eddie's other friend Snatch Foster?

Isn't the point of Peggy rewriting the will, that Rob will no longer be quite so enamoured of Helen when he isn't doing so well out of Helen's grandma's will? If Peggy leaves the house (whichever one it is that HelRobHenry live in, can't remember) to Tony instead, Rob's going to get a bit unhappy... which may push that storyline along a bit...

Rob, Helen and Henry live in Blossom Hill cottage, which is owned by Usha I think. Peggy left her own house, the Lodge, to Helen in her will.

ah, thanks for the clarification. I guess the point would still stand though - Rob currently will do well out of Peggy's will. If she changes it, there is a likely impact on the Helen/Rob inheritance.

Peggy had an insight into how Helen has deteriorated on the day of Otto's rampage. Helen was behaving irrationally before they ever drove into the farmyard.
That might be why she wants Tom to be with her when she tells Helen about the change to the will.

Helen has been indoctrinated by Rob into thinking of The Lodge as being 'for Henry's future' so she might very well behave ungraciously.
I feel quite gleeful at the thought.

I still think Rob will just up sticks and run.

R has probably been leading a double life with Jess, all those meetings and him working so hard an'all. Bet they don't divorce at all.

There's nothing romantic going on between Jess and Rob any more.

But he is a lying weasel, that still stands.

If she changes her will so H does not get the lodge, rob will be furious but will hold it together in public. He will take it out on Helen and also use it to cut her off from her family...is my thinking

Hmmm ... There would be no current benefit to Tony in "taking back" the Lodge from Helen unless Peggy says she wants to sell it while she lives.

It might be a good retirement home for Tony and Pat - though as Bridge Farm is not in Peggy's gift she can't unilaterally arrange that. (I'm sure it's more likely that Tom, and whoever he ends up with, will move into the existing farm house rather than building another.)

Of course, if they continue the utterly rubbish pauper-Lil story the Lodge might be needed sooner if the Dower House has to be sold.

Can't wait to hear what spiffing scheme Peggy has come up with now.

Who was it that said all the stories are about money now? I once spent an entire afternoon and evening reading through the archives (can't remember which site) and it was astonishing to read how past stories were driven by constant shifts in land ownership. Either gifts of land between generations or inheritance or loans to buy land or profit/relationships generated by use of land. At all levels of Ambridge society. Totally fascinating. The Brookfield story suggests that SOC possibly wants to draw the focus back to land ownership as opposed to mere cash.

(But there was a radio article yesterday, somewhere, discussing society's current exclusive focus on money. The little I heard, before some inevitable distraction, seemed deliciously relevant to Ambridge.)

Money and love - the two great constants. No problem with having them as the drivers for stories, but it has to be done well!

The problem is everyone seems to have money troubles m everyone seems to be involved in a reversal of fortunes story and I'm finding it quite irritating!

I've never seen the lodge as a great incentive of robs to be with Helen. Peggy could go on for years! And in reality it's not a life changing amount of money for him.

I reckon Helen will go batshit though!!

It comes back to the same point. Peggy's gathering everyone round for the will reading has come to nothing. It seemed contrived at the time and so it was. It was a plot device to shake up the Bridge Farm Archers and now they are being shaken up again by Peggy having another will reading session. My problem is I don't believe Peggy would have done this in real life - especially without knowing what was happening as a result of Jick leaving everything to Hazel. And it was so unnecessary - the Bridge Farm Archers were quite adequately shaken up by Tom jilting Kirsty, Hellin falling into Knob's clutches and RichJohn turning up. The fallout of Jick's will seems to have gone by the wayside. It is yet another far-fetched bit of drama - not particularly convincing in the first place - being overturned at the 11th hour (see the Brookfield fiasco). The road plot will undoubtedly go the same way. Totally unnecessary when there is much real drama to be had which now has to be shoehorned in around the melodrama (see Roy/Hayley/Phoebe).

We crosspost yet again BYOS .

Maybe Lillian hasn't told Peggy about the full extent of what's gone on with Matt...as doesn't want to worry her but find it weird it hasn't been mentioned.
Also: why were HellRob at tom's b'day??

Tom's birthday do was weird but better than the usual TA fare where they gather round the kitchen table to cut a home-make cake as if they were all five-year-olds.

I don't know how Helen can go batshit over the change in the will (not that that will stop her). If money was that tight/important then she wouldn't give up AO.
Is the AO meeting tonight? (checks calender: yup, it's drama day Thursday)