The Cheese Queen needs to tread Caerphilly. Camembert the tension? Join The Archers thread and hope it gets Feta from here on.

[PseudoBadger]

Sorry but I couldn't resist an opportunity for puns galore

I agree - he wants Henry to like him more than he likes Helen.

By the way, for whoever mentioned The Fiddler on the Roof - I laughed out loud when I read that post.

The fairbrethren threatening eddies xmas trade. Not a predictable storyline at all

Sorry - but can someone confirm what I'm sure I heard - that Mike is applying for a job at the mega-thing. Roy was chatting to Phoebes about it during her driving lesson. If it's true then they've effectively parked Vicky and Beth in Brum and brought Mike back. (Of course I could have misunderstood ...)

That confused me, too.

After the cultured talk this morning of Noye's Fludde and Peter Grimes, I shall lower the tone. I was musing on My old man said follow the van and wondering if there was some deep meaning as to why SOC chose it. Still don't know the answer but I note that HP's demise has made it onto the wiki page!

Eurgh, those Fairbrother twats are annoying. How dare they steal Eddie's custom! over infested

Its the Sausage King ready-meal business all over again, isn't it?

This is going to be a really stupid question as I know nothing about farming although I'm not convinced the sw's do either
How do the Faithbrethren finance themselves ?

Fiddler on the roof genius wish I'd thought of that

I'm going to miss the cheesey puns

Surely follow the van was chosen because it is about moving house

(And they were following Josh in a van ...)

redshoe With savings from their banking days? Or the bank of mum and dad or grandparents who knows?

Well R4 it's obvious innnit? They were following the van weren't they? Funny that Josh and the van didn't stop at the same services though

Well in this world of mobile phones josh obviously doesn't have one and drove all the way home before realising what had happened

As for the fairbrethren, there is no way Toby made enough in his banking days and Rex in his rugby days to be funding all of this so it must be coming from their parents

Yes Gruach Mike working at Berrow; interesting!!!

I know it's not a musical but I now can't get Cheddar Garbler out of my mind.

That IS funny Minimammoth

So will Mike move in with Roy? Then Vicky will return and they will end up back in their old house as the sw will have forgotten what they did with it.

If the tickets end up back in ambridge that's ended up being another 'nothing' sl

I don't see Vicky and Beth coming back. The move to Birmingham was a way to get rid of them - but obviously they want Mike still in the story.

His coming back to Ambridge for work is almost as unlikely as Kirsty returning. But welcome though.

I've been thinking about assimilation - following lottie's post (and my own recurrent musings on landowning women in Ambridge). Phoebe specifically. It is fascinating to finally see what they planned for her coming to fruition. It's kind of as if she had been a sleeper agent all through childhood, hidden in plain sight amongst Tuckers. But Phoebe has Archer blood - so her life will be extraordinarily different to that of her half sister (who has essentially been written out).

On another thread last night I said that the Aldridges are the soap family I would most like to live with. And really I almost envy Phoebe; despite recent upheavals she has the brightest possible future (for herself) and a guaranteed place in the script for as long as she lives.

I'm still not getting the 'follow the van' thing. Yes, I appreciate that they were following Josh-in-the van but Josh-in-the-van was only there because the SW wrote it that way. And this is the Josh who they didn't speak to all the way down, who they didn't arrange to rendezvous with at the service station. There was no reason, no plot device for Josh-in-the-van.
So why not bung HP's stuff in the back of the estate/Landrover have her singing Blaydon Races or some other regional song or something about mothers&daughters. Not cockerney music hall.

We used to sing that song in the car as kids all the time. I am most definitely not cockney (Midlands). It’s just a sing-along type song that someone of her age would be very familiar with it's a song about moving house (relevant) and about dallying (also relevant since HP was saying she was holding Ruth up). Seems perfectly appropriate to me.

I've never even heard Blaydon Races so that would have been completely lost on me

The Vicky and Make moving thing made as little sense as the Brookfield move oop north didn't it? I thoughtthere were a few hints that Mike might be back from when he left. I like Mike. I hope he does come back. In fact I hope he brings Vicky and Beth back with him

Loved Roy and Phoebe in the car together. Very nicely done I thought

I've been thinking about it. They should have done a Sting song. Sting/The Police was a big thing when Ruth was teenagery so there would be childhood memories. Sumner comes from HP's neck of the woods and his DW comes from just down the road from Ambridge.
What about "fields of gold".

Yes I totally agree BOOP - R4 Erm not really, HP wouldn't have been into the Police, 'Fields of Gold' isn't a singalong like My ole man

HP wouldn't have been into The Police but Ruth would have been. I have a soft spot for the Spice Girls: not because I particularly like their music but because of what it means/meant to DD.
Follow the van is a song about doing a moonlight flit from the landlord/bailiffs to goodness-knows-where (hence: lost me way and don't know where to roam). How is that relevant?
I agree that you probably couldn't do an a cappella like they did (but wasn't that painful and went on for far too long) but they could have sung along to the radio and shared some memories.

The Vicky and Make moving thing made as little sense as the Brookfield move oop north didn't it?

Wasn't it about being nearer to schools snd other facilities which would better meet Beth's needs than rural Borsetshire would? Also Vicky never had Ambridge in her blood the same way Mike does - she settled in well enough, but it's not home to her in the same way. Mike never really wanted to go, but also saw it was sensible for school options for Beth, so went with his head rather than his heart. And his heart keeps bringjng him back (even though we mostly don't hear him.)

Though they do keep going on as though Brum is just round the corner and it's always seemed rather further away in the past - near enough to visit, but you wouldn't be popping in in passing every 5 minutes, and it's not a vommute you would choose to do. (Though some people do do crazy commutes IRL.)

Do you think we may be overthinking TA? I bet the SWs don't give it as much thought as we do .

Also loved the driving lesson. Much less tension/stress/swearing than my own personal experience I have to say!

The conversation with Elizabeth was stupid though. People don't talk like that.

Loved Eddie's anguish at the end.