Rejoice, for the Dopeys are staying in Ambridge to feast on Oedipal flapjacks. Or at least David is. Discuss The Archers here.

[PseudoBadger]

Will Peggy make it to the end of this thread?

I think Soc has ideas above his station if he thinks that he can decide his work has gone wrong and just send a huge flood to get rid of it all and start again. I didn't mind the flood episodes themselves, but, as a pp said, what makes my heart sink is the aftermath. I stopped listening for a long while in 2011 (lifelong listener) and what made me switch of wasn't actually that Nigel was killed (idiotic idea that that was), but the unremitting grief that followed for months afterwards. This was as it should be - I've always loved the way TA plays out stories in full - but it just wasn't something I wanted in my life everyday. This has similar potential. Alternatively, if everything is resolved quickly, it won't be TA and I'm equally likely to switch off. It's lose-lose.

I actually think it could be great to deal with the aftermath properly - if they do that. So no Ambridge Fairies, just people making do, comments about insurance. Group action claims against whoever has caused the flooding.
Pity the Horrobins are newly respectable or there could be later trials for false insurance claims.
(I'm thinking a properly done follow up in the style of the Coach crash in Coronation Street in the 70s - I am old!)

Fossil - '...deas above his station...' indeed!

Maybe SOC's really hankering after the fun telly job and wants to do timey-wimey stuff?

If Ambridge is the Hell Mouth, then SOC is going to need to bring the Doctor in to sort things out. Assuming it turns out that Phoebe and Jim are not the Slayer and the Watcher.

I think the scheduling of the flood for this week is less to do with set-piece Mothering Sunday and more to do with SOC's appearance on feedback next Friday. I think he'll be teflon-coated.

I have enjoyed it this week though I think the film will be more satisfactory. It has been a bit of a watershed, rearranged characters & showed them at their best and worst. Also the aftermath will bring some storylines to a head and other possibilities open up.

Ambridge After The Watershed

Title?

Buffy/TA/Dr Who mash up ...

...just send a huge flood to get rid of it all.

SOC- The God Delusion.

I reckon too that tonight will be the end of their Sunday and we should have the return of Ruth and whichever child she strong-armed along with her.

Love the comment upthread about Kenton not being so much of a doughnut as to not have renewed the insurance on the pub. Oh that sounds so very much like Kenton's level of dipshitness but would be such an obvious plot line.

I think it would be better to have normal insurance wrangles rather than melodramatic soap ones. So everyone having insurance but the companies arguing about paying out, increasing future premiums etc.

It would be like Kenton to have forgotten insurance. But it would not be like Jolene to have left anything so important to him. It is after all "her" pub.

But the Timeline page did bring up the question of having insurance, (19.45) mentioning no names.

For anyone who can't be bothered scrolling all that way - here's this morning's updated timeline. (But it's prettier on the TA site.)

0732: Good morning and welcome back to our coverage of the flooding that has hit Borsetshire - specifically the picturesque village of Ambridge. Residents of the village are waking up this morning to discover the full impact of devastation to farmland and homes in the area. This will be the first time that the damage is visible by light. Many people will not gain access to their homes until later today. Some can only guess whether their properties have been affected, having been stranded for the night by blocked roads.?

It will take more than a bit of flood water to dampen the spirit of Ambridge!
Carol Tregorran - Ambridge resident
0745: Ambridge resident Freda Fry, who was last night rescued from her submerged vehicle, has been taken to Borchester General Hospital, and is suspected to be suffering from shock. She was pulled from the vehicle by Vicar Alan Franks who waded into the water to save her. He has provided food, blankets and shelter to a sub-section of the community who were unable to reach their homes last night. Just one of many acts of kindness displayed by a community which has pulled together in the face of this - the worst flood to hit the area in living memory.

0802: Farmers have been venturing out this morning to survey damage to crops, livestock and equipment. For many the news will not be good. As yet the cost to the area of the flood is unknown but it is likely to be significant.

0932: We met local farmer Tom Archer who revealed that his farm [Bridge Farm] has emerged relatively unscathed from the flood. He spent the night at his cousin's farm where the milking parlour was under extreme threat - a situation which they now have under control. His other cousin at nearby Home Farm, he admitted, had not been so lucky - discovering this morning that his attempts to move his animals to higher ground had not been successful. He estimates to have lost 8 dead lambs and 20 ewes. He will be moving some of his surviving sheep to Bridge Farm for the time being. “It’s devastating,” says Archer.?
1000: In marked contrast to yesterday's weather, the BBC predicts a day of sunshine for Ambridge. The fields submerged in water display a quiet beauty now, at odds with the destruction that the floods have caused.

1002: Emergency services have finally reached the Village of Ambridge.

The bull has to be insured because if not it will be the end of the pub in the village

I know nothing about licensing laws but at the very least surely a pub has to have public liability and employer's insurance? However, if this were real life I would foresee long arguments about whether people's policies covered flood damage. The most likely people to have no insurance cover at all are surely the Horrobins and the Grundys.

They are moving sheep the BF. But they won't be organic sheep.
Was there not an issue with this before? Maybe in last years flooding when thry were helping out did they not say they couldn't take Ruth's friends sheep because they weren't organic or some such? Or is it ok as long as the sheep are organic while they are on their farm?

It's Adam's sheep that are moving to BField, I think.

The grundys are tenants so only need to worry about contents insurance

Will this cause a fight with will as he doesn't do the house up to Emma's liking?

The sheep are going to Bridge Farm - and Carol isn't going to Brookfield after all.
The film makes much more sense of things.

I feel quite ragged after all that
:o

Yes, it's contents insurance I had in mind, BYOS. Expensive and often one of the first things to go when a family are on a very tight budget.

I must say I enjoyed the film enormously. It worked better in one long continuous burst but it also helped that I already knew what was going to happen so wasn't so tense.

I do hope this isn't a move to making the archers a weekly affair

In these times of tight budgets I think it must be a big help to Radio 4 that they can broadcast each episode of TA three times!

And plod and fallon singing drove me onto music radio where I was subjected to ushers new offering which included the line 'just because you dance with a pole, doesn't make you a ho'. And I thought romance was dead.

I should imagine clarrie is pretty good at sorting herself out in a crisis!

Yeah just roll with it! I wonder if they're going to have this evening's as last Sunday's ?

I did wonder where the boats came from There were no emergency services there were there. Unless the posh people in Sabrina Thwaite's road had one to 2

Ed and Emma are in Will's rental house and Will is bound to be insured. I wonder where they'll live now.

Someone or other could pop into Rickyard Cottage I should think but there's going to be quite a lot of shuffling round going on, people and animals.

Will Charlie remember that Ed was one of his rescuers?