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...

I expect Pip will end up with Toby, and after he's broken her heart and done a runner, (leaving Rex in the lurch with the geese,) she will see that Rex is the sensible, reliable pure-hearted one, and will eventually settle down with him.

dfw I remember the silage chat. It was related to does silage smell nice or not and also ran on to towers v clamps. (I fear the towers because of the deaths in grain / silage that were common feature of news reports when I was a kid (agri area). The thought of falling into one of those towers ...shudder)

Re. Choppedupness of dog, we are overinfested and so in the silage apparently. (Or should that be cuttedupdog)

The partial nature of carcass suggests it eas chopped. Although if it were flood related you'd think it was nore likely swept into the pit by the water and then the post flood clean up was ineffective (Rob's fault).

I suspect we and Lynda are meant to think it is Scruff and we will get to hear Lynda's horror at his fate. Then it will turn out not to be him.

How much money are the Fairbrethren expecting to make on the geese? Anyone know the going rate for a goose?

IPaid it was discussed on previous thread. The conclusion was unlikely to be enough to pay them much of a wage once costs are factored in.

Aargh Smalllegs that made me shudder.

What money are Helen and Rob living on at the moment? I know they had the £10k from Peggoi but that won't last that long will it?

I tune into the archers occasionally. It all sounds rather calm - had no idea all this drama was bubbling away under the surface.

And yet they seem to have a nice lifestyle - out for pub lunch etc.

I reckon he's going to start pressuring to take some type of salary from bridge farm soon.

Inevitably.

But didn't Charlie say that initially they thought it was a cat in the silage? If Scruff was a german shepherd cross surely his hind leg would look quite substantial. I'm hoping Scruff will come bounding home after some Lassie style adventures.

If the writers were hoping this was going to be a farming-interest/public info story then they must be alarmed at the amount of discussion it's generating.
The corpse in the silage might turn out to be forgotten like the sinkhole.

It sounds like they have written it without the input of their agricultural advisor!

I've got a BIL who works with silage, grain etc. I will ask him if it's possible!

Am just listening to the film and fuming all over again at Rob's "you're rambling" line. She's really not! She's talking very coherently about something that she passionately believes in and about a project that is, or should be, her baby. Grrrrrrrrr.

I have spent far too much time recently researching cattle disease, revoking PR etc. so am sitting on my hands to avoid getting dragged into the great silage mystery. I'm sure one of you clever lot will sort it out…

Just listened again and Charlie said that one of the workers was clearing out the silo and saw something dangling from the loader, and then said it was pretty far gone. Wonder if the loader only pulled out part of Scruff whatever it was, and the rest of him it will be found somewhere? The bit with the microchip?

@BBCTheArchers: "Rex - tell him about Argentina." BUT DON'T TELL HIM ABOUT BRIGHTON #thearchers

So they haven't forgotten!

just listened to Omnibus this morning sitting outside with faithful scruffy lurcher when it came to the denouement and I wailed 'OOOH no not scruff' - dog thought I was a bit demented until I gave him a treat for not being found in a silage clamp
You all do such a good job of maintaining the joys of 'The Archers' but I try not to lurk until after I have listened on Sunday.

As I'm hoping that the Scruff storyline will be resolved with him returning in triumph as an extra in Calendar Girls, I'm aware this theory may be fanciful, but...

...is there a chance that it's a fox? Possibly the one that was killed when Knob hit the sab bloke? Could Oliver have asked Knob to dispose of the body then?? (I can't actually remember when the sab-thumping incident was -maybe it was last year...)

I have a question about silage! Surely small animals (deceased or slow) must often get caught up with the grass? What's the usual procedure for making sure that rotting corpses of mice etc don't contaminate the silage?

I am very much comjng round to.idea that Lynda will think its Scruff and ut will be oroved not to be scruff when he turns up (with ir without poachers).
Perhaps other dog will turn out to have been in dog fight also related to poachers and they all live in a sink hole... desperately tries to link up sls .

I am now awaiting joyous return of Scruff.

What do we make of Helen in that last episode? She seems to have swung round full circle to deciding that Knob is wonderful, it's absolutely great that he's not bothering to look for a job and is project managing the new shop brilliantly despite pissing off the electricians so much that they haven't turned up. Is it a deliberate front for other people, or has she actually persuaded herself that all that is true?

Charlie sounded inexplicably shocked that it was a dog in the silage, not a cat.
I wouldn't have thought C would give a fig for or know about Lynda's dog even if he has just had a row with her, let alone make a big deal of telling Adam about it. One corpse with botulism is the same as another, surely.

I conclude that the SWs are messing with our heads!

Yes, I did wonder about that - Charlie is in farming. The way he was reacting, you'd have thought he'd never seen a dead animal before. I know that when you're desperately short of sleep, it does make the simplest things impossible to deal with, and you do get to a point where you really can't deal with a single other thing going wrong without collapsing into the waiting, comforting arms of Adam.

If he'd been depicted as someone who always had a loyal hound at his heel (and therefore could imagine losing his own dog that way), maybe I could understand more, but AFAIK, Charlie has no pets (or working dogs). But they must have expected some sort of outcome like that to explain the botulism outbreak.