Badly done Helen, badly done - you're as stuffed as a Grundy turkey. Discuss The Archers here.

[PseudoBadger]

New thread in time for Friday's episode...

Did Adam realise pip had written the business plan

Yes, that's a good solution. The Grundys are going to need some good news if we're all right about Hazel.

I wonder if the Alex SL was brought in to show that a young woman with reasonably good self-esteem and not emotionally fragile and whose family is on the ball can withstand an attempt to manipulate/undermine her. Whereas a rather older woman with a lot of trauma in her past whose family are clueless..... again.

Adam wasn't born yesterday. I feel quite sure he knew that Pip had written the business plan. It will be a good test for Pip to withstand all Toby's wheedling to let them in on this new venture by the back door.

I must say it was good that Adam totally saw through all the FB bullshitting about their experience. Although they try to depict Rex as the sensible brother, he really should have worked out for himself that they really weren't going to be able to wing it for the purposes of a discussion about their experience in farming when dealing with an experienced farmer.

Am a bit behind.Teflon Rob the laird of Brook Farm is getting truly gruesome. Enough I say, we need a hero/ hero ess. Who we know is onto him. Pleeeease. I thought Pat sounded a bit sarcastic with the 'you are always right' comment. You would think that this branch of Archers would be more observant. And somebody please save the Grundies. ( waves banner)

Wouldn't it be good if, when the Dopeys magnanimously invite Jill back to slave for them at Brookfield, she tells them to fuck off and do their own shopping, washing and cooking?

Jill could work for Fallon and get paid, and not be referred to as a girl!

Fallon's cafe is like the Grundy's cottage - being decorated and renovated.....but not for her

Adam maybe doesn't want the Curse of the Grundys. Is nothing allowed to go well for them? If Ed takes to do with the cows they'll all be captured by aliens or something.

Where are David and Ruth going to magic up the money to help Pip buy the beef? They've just leant Kenton loads. They've been saying about how they're broke. Are they like Grand Designs people who always manage to find another £20k squirrelled away that they apparently didn't know about in the first place. How can David just say that? I imagine HP inheritance will save the day but he doesn't know that yet. Tchah!

I wonder when the editorial team will wake up to the fact that the First Family is by far the least interesting thread in TA. Rob and Helen, Adam and Charlie, Home Farm, the Grundys, even the Stables, even Caroline and Oliver improbably sunning themselves in Tuscany are more interesting, charismatic and empathy eliciting than Ruth, David and Pip with brethren hangers on. I'm praying that Josh and Ben, on their arrival from stage school or the bosom of their famous RL families can inject some excitement into Brookfield.

Beginning to wish they had all moved to Northumberland.

I don't imagine David has felt able to say so to Ruth yet, but they do know they're in line to inherit HP's estate, which at the very least will mean getting most of the sale price of her house. As the Pritchards were comfortably off, I would have thought that's a 3-bedroom house at the very least. From a 2-second scan of Zoopla (3-bed house prices in Prudhoe) I'd say that's going to be a minimum of £150k. Straightforward will, Ruth getting all or most of the estate, solicitor doing the executor work - they'll definitely have the money by next summer, surely?

How true Gruach. The Brookfield Archers are suffering by having plot after plot foisted on them - the road, selling up, the death of HP, the improbable arrival of the Fairbrethren. There's no space for anything character driven - in any case their characters have had to change to fit the plot (ridiculous decision to move, Ruth now set against Jill) or in the case of Pip returning as an entirely new person. Now waiting the same to happen with Josh and Ben who will doubtless be reinvented when they return, as you predict, from stage school. I know it's not real, but there is only so much room for suspension of disbelief - I'm beginning to think I just don't know them anymore and once that happens I stop caring.

I am whipping myself for my Brook Farm gaff. BRIDGE farm obvs. Yes yesgruntledone. At least Jill is saying how she feels to others, in normal conversation unlike the lack of Rob related comments. Lillian and Gruach, I entirely agree re Brookfield archers. We never even hear of what Ben and Josh are up to.
Cmon Fallon and Kirsty, get Rob, hit him with a teapot or something.

Haven't they already recast Josh with the son of Celia Imrie?

What is irritating with the Dopeys is the very sudden background character changes that happen. For ages they seem to be reasonably well off, they can lend Kenton money, they can suck up a wage for Pip etc; then all of a sudden in the course of one episode there are several mentions of financial problems. For years they manage to run the house and farm reasonably OK without Jill despite having small children, they're planning to carry on despite importing HP, but suddenly they've become utterly helpless even to do basic stuff like washing clothes and shopping. It's just so clunky, and it's annoying when the SWs are perfectly capable of doing the very good writing we're seeing on the HelRob storyline.

So I understood Jessie - but I'm always suspicious when characters disappear from a story in which they really ought to be appearing.

Buffy Davis is on stage in The Hairy Ape at the moment. I do hope she doesn't find herself too busy elsewhere to run the Bull. Irreplaceable voice.

Anyone betting, as I am, that Robknob turns out to be a psychopath? He appeared when articles about them were all over the media, and he has a lot of psychopath traits.

Also for what it's worth, I had a friend who claimed that years ago she knew a writer for TA who said that it was mainly written by a bunch of lesbian feminists. This was about 20 years ago, though. Can this have been be true?

What do you mean, 'turns out to be'?

I don't think it's written by 'a bunch of lesbian feminists' though - apart from the fact that SOC is a bloke, I don't exactly see a lesbian or a feminist element in any plots I can call to mind!

He's a sociopath, not a psychopath. ..have you only just started listening Umleila?

"Also for what it's worth, I had a friend who claimed that years ago she knew a writer for TA who said that it was mainly written by a bunch of lesbian feminists. This was about 20 years ago, though. Can this have been be true?"

Well, it could, possibly have been true. Both lesbians and feminists did exist 20 years ago. Or, probably more likely- not true. But why ask? Do I get just the merest hint of a touch of distaste in "bunch of lesbian feminists? Call me over sensitive............

Oh, I don't know, Seek. Helen's behaving like a real ball breaking feminist the way she keeps undermining and humiliating Rob at every turn. Carrie and Susan? All that giggling in the dairy............

Vanessa Whitburn is gay, I believe, and she was Editor of TA for many years, starting something like 20 years ago. I don't know if any of the other writers were gay but given that approaching half of them are male they wouldn't be lesbians. As for feminists, well, all I can say is that's not been reflected in the way most of the female characters live their lives.

Exhibit 1, Brenda Tucker, who chucked away several good career/educational opportunities and chose to stagnate in Ambridge for a decade instead.

Exhibit 2, Jennifer Aldridge, who has chosen a life of material comfort in spite of the many humiliations she's had to endure from being married to a serial philanderer.

Exhibit 3, Pat Archer, who used to be a feminist in the 80s but now seems to have forgotten all of that and says nothing when Rob makes contemptuous references to two 30-year-old women working hard to build a business - women Pat has known virtually all their lives, moreover - as 'village girls who got lucky'.

A number of people have mentioned Pat's reluctance to stand up to Rob (although she did mildly disagree with him on one point). Is it possible that she knows / senses it causes a strain for Helen, if anyone sides with H against R, and even pumped R's ego ("you're normally right about these things") to avoid any backlash for H? (Even if she doesn't have the full picture, she might worry about being seen as a bad MIL - she certainly would if she reads MN ).

Blimmin' heck - The reiteration of his snide comment has just made me realise (one reason) why Rob behaves as he does.

Envy.

Why be nasty about Fallon and Emma in relation to the upcycling? Why go to such lengths to completely break Helen? Why lead poor Johhny astray?

All we've heard from Rob about his own family is that they didn't value him. So he was cast out of his native environment. All the way to Canada. And now he's back in England but again (from his pov) on the outside of the community. And there are two apparently barely educated girls loved and respected by their families, by the village ... While he's lost his job and can only keep face through bullying. And just look how much Helen had for him to destroy. Even Johnny was higher in the hierarchy of love and respect than he was.

Why can't we meet his brother?

With regards to Pat, and I might be remembering incorrectly, didn't Hellin imply that if they didn't accept her relationship with Rob, that she wouldn't let them see Henry

Very perceptive Gruach. He is envious of all that Helen has and wants it for himself. He told Helen recently that when he first saw her in a primrose dress he wanted to do violence to whoever she was in a relationship with. I forget his exact words but they were particularly disturbing.

He has failed at pretty much everything so far in his life.