SOC has soaked Ambridge to the core across a never ending weekend. Discuss The Archers post-watershed here.

[PseudoBadger]

Deluged damp squid or not? And has Peggy been assisted off the mortal coil by Rob yet?
And when will JD and Brian remember Debbie?

Huge BOOP for Charlie's 'I give zero fucks' about your private life attitude to Rob. Also for Brine being just so Dadlike with Kate.

Thank you to whoever it was up thread who posted that Kirsty sounded like a Flump, that's exactly it - it's been bugging me forever what her voice reminded me of and it's that.

They could have a rhea on the loose to bump people off - 'tis a regular occurrence round our area at the moment due to some fuckwits who thought they would be good 'pets' and only their idiocy has scaled the heights their fences should have.

Another one up for sneaking over into Gransnet for the webchat - Olivia could you do a sticky link at the top of the board for us to the thread please so we can find it easily...

You are right, enochroot about it being poor form for Rob to continue writing an email when Charlie came in, but that was surely the point? He's obviously read some "Be The Alpha Male In Your Business Transactions!" manual and is performing all these stupid macho/rude things.

But also - as you say - Charlie is just better at dick-swinging, so Rob's sad little cod-psychology tricks don't work.

My one and only 'claim to fame' is that I once share breakfast with Brine and Shula. They were staying at the same BB IN Yorkshire. Surreal listening to them speak.

Er, I just ventured over to Gransnet and it seems it's David, not Brine doing the webchat?

www.gransnet.com/forums/webchats/1214683-Q-A-with-The-Archers-Tim-Bentinck-31-March

Weird place Gransnet, like a parallel universe MN. I was scared to look at the forums in case I got sucked in....being 41 and yet to conceive my first child I am not the target demographic but that has never stopped me on MN .

florentina that would blow my mind

i have continued writing an email when a colleague came up to me, not in a dominant way, but i've said "sorry, do you mind, i've got a thought in my head and i'm worried i'll lose it if i don't write it down now!"

I don't think Rob is terribly bright, when all's said and done. His boarding school has given him enough of a veneer to make a good impression, interview well and all that, but he's got to the age he has without accumulating any tangible assets or learning much along the way.

In another age he'd be a minor knight on a big horse harassing the peasants.

Yes indeed. If anybody's read A Game Of Thrones or watched series 1 of GoT, it starts with a scene involving somebody very like Rob who is convinced he knows much better than the far more experienced common men sent out on a ranging party with him, because he is a knight. I'm pleased to say he comes to a bad end pdq as a result! Unfortunately there's collateral damage, as there undoubtedly will be with Rob.

The Brian vs Kate altercation was brilliant. I love to hate Kate. How involved is Brian in terms of responsibility for the flooding? Did we work out who was meant to do the ditches? Was it Rob the Knob?

Hoping for a good resolution for poor old Scruff, but fear Ed is going to find him in that ditch...

Rob would be assiduous in rooting out witches too.
In the 19th or 20th C he'd be one of those captains who gave stupid orders that got all his troops killed while he hid in a foxhole.

Loved Brian's message to Kate re money and the exercise to "sweat out" the hangover (which she says she doesn't have). Jog on Kate!

Charlie would be a Thomas Cromwell figure in any reign.

Brian bears responsibility for the poor state of the soil and increased flood risk, as does Adam, because they had the management of that land until very recently.

Another BOOP for Brine and a big HA HA to Rob.

I agree he won't tell Helen. Maybe he'll say the letter received at home from the CMS has let him off the hook - after all she would never ask to see it for herself, would she.

Is Debbie still supposed to be involved in managing that land?

I want to listen to the lunchtime repeat of that epi (I wanted to last night but the podcast wasn't available.) Another great line from Brine was the one something about Kate's body being a temple which seemed to have squatters.

I wonder if he'll get home and find she's bought or wants to buy something that he thinks is extravagant.

OMG! Adam and Charlie are going up the polytunnels!

I did like Charlie in that episode too. I like the way he's not all bad and the contrast with Knob.

I also love to hate Kate. I mean, she's how old? 38?

I must say, I am impressed with the way Jess is handling this.

She must be on the relationships board somewhere.

but why did she have Knob's baby, why is she insisting he acknowledge, it will give Knob parental rights. If she really wanted him out of her life wouldn't she try to go it alone? I bloody would

It reeks of a kind of revenge and control game on both sides. Yes I know he should pay morally, but if I wanted the bastard out of my life I wouldn't pursue him for money.

Ragged, I inagine she needs his money!

Can't wait to hear how he is going to try and justify his 'no testing for me' stance- Helen has got to have a line at some point- paying for another woman's baby has to be it, surely??

Presumably the baby was accidental, and there's a fair chance that Jess knows that Rob must be the father (there's never been any hint she was involved with anyone else, has there?).

Jessie you're right, my mistake, it's David and not Brine on Gransnet on the 31st. Although we should still go. And ask for a sticky as well.

However this means....Brine is still available! Result!

Right. Olivia! Olivia! Please can you ask Brine if he wants to step into another warren of vixens/vipers (what was the term he used to describe the over-infestation of his home with females?)

We would treat him vair vair nicely....

i hear jess as totally deranged. it wouldn't surprise me if she had stolen some of his sperm during their marriage, kept it in deep freeze and used a turkey baster.

if that isn't the case I wish they had chosen a better actress for Jess who I could empathise with as at the moment i always end up feeling a bit sorry for knob (no mean feat!!)

a polytunnel would be a horrible place to have an "encounter". like a muddy steam room. though i expect some people like that sort of thing

Actually I thought that Charlie was going to ask why Knob hadn't maintained the culverts etc. and why he was always out for lunch? C was very pleasant though in the face of the belligerence he was met with; he'll get heavy soon (I hope) .

Being a granny I tried Gransnet but it's like the grave there (or it was). why isn't Dave coming on here Olivia?

Incidentally, if the child maintenance people have had to get an attachment to earnings, it will be costing Rob an extra 20% on top of the maintenance calculation. This is to try to persuade dickheads awkward men like him to pay the sum, so that the civil servants don't have to get involved. Jess will be losing 4%. I happen to know because my XH is also one, like Rob, who thinks that normal rules don't apply to him

BYOS and ragged. I agree with the Rob Jess puzzle, that's why I wonder what their history is. Has he done this before? Is it a way of stopping him, and reigning him in. Both as bad as each other kind of thing. Hmm?