He's behind you! Rob's not the messiah - he's a very naughty boy! Watch The Archers pantomime here.

[PseudoBadger]

Oh no he isn't! Oh yes he is!

Maybe his brother has a disability - one that enables him to work on the farm but not live independently?

And as rob isnt the type to care maybe he resents his parents for not 'getting rid' of his brother

Although ursula sounded like the type to drown kittens in a sack so maybe robs dad has a heart of gold and cares for miles

Changing tack a bit: surely Pip is going to get together with Matthew the Agency Milker? She's already asked him down the Bull, and shooed TobyDick away.

It doesn't really matter who pip gets with as they all sound the same

Yep Pip and Matthew, the future of Brookfield. Sorry Ruth.

Thinking again I don't think Knob cares about his mum at all, the email was purely a chance to brag, as in.... "Look at me family, married, got my claws into someone elses property and business and now I have my heir on the way too. See, I didn't need you!"

Am feeling sorry for Ian, surely not another wedding that doesn't happen?

Is it possible that Ursula was just terribly nervous and not knowing what was going on? She came to try find out with badly chosen peace offerings?

because I loved wrapping my babies in the rug I had been wrapped in- and if mil had come up with dp's baby blanket I would have been really pleased.

What would be good is if Knob does the big reveal about Adam and it all falls totally flat because Ian says he knows all about it and has forgiven Adam.

I reckon that hellin will get yellow wallpapered... See Charlotte Gilman
www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/YelWal.shtml

I too was thinking of the similarities between this and 'the yellow wallpaper'. However, in TYW her husband keeps her in the house because he loves her and thinks he's doing the right thing. For Knob it's purely about control. However, the outcomes might be the same.
hellion is really really annoying me now. It makes absolutely no sense that she is holed up there and NOBODY questions what is going on.

Even the MW said nothing about Hellin not driving. Why didn't Hellin say anything about Knob rushing home as soon as he heard the doorbell. Maybe she should ring the doorbell every time he phones her Then he could be Rob the Pavlovian dog, rushing all over Ambridge to see the non-existent visitors I'm sure I must have something more important to do

Of course we all.assumed Rob's parents didn't come because he never contacted them. There was no evidence to the effect.

Perhaps like the Jess storyand the son and heir, Rob is in fact correct and they never bothered.

This leaves open the possibility that he emails them all the time and they mostly ignore him.

I don't think we're meant to think that Ursula was nervous and trying to be kind - the clunkily awful script about the improbably Little Prince sleepsuit was clearly designed to tell us everything we needed to know!

In terms of the emailing the only answer that convinces me is that the SW are making it up as they go along, and hoping we'll forget the backstory!

My only hope at the moment is that Helen or Rob tell Adam and Ian they're not being godparents after all and this triggers a colossal huha and possibly a punchup, and finally everyone goes off Rob. I'm not over hopeful though.

Also, all this about the wedding and R&H not going - I think there's a strong chance wedding won't happen anyway, isn't there?

(Rob is a bit like John in TYP, yes! 'bless her, the little darling shall be as ill as she pleases!')

"This leaves open the possibility that he emails them all the time and they mostly ignore him."

No, because that would mean that Rob is the way he is because of his mother and it's not his fault at all. Nobody would believe such a misogynist storyline surely.....oh, wait.......

Ursula went straight home to the Bates motel, took all her flesh off again and went back to rocking in her chair ....

However, in TYW her husband keeps her in the house because he loves her and thinks he's doing the right thing.

I'm not sure there's any benefit in examining the motive of the controller; the result is the same.

I had completely forgotten The Yellow Wallpaper. (Perhaps because CG was born into an era that makes it hard for her to be a heroine of mine.) But it seems impossible that SOC is not referencing that horrible, terrifying story.

As an aside, CG was all about freeing the women from their metaphorical bedrooms, but a really horrible racist as well.... (every day's a school day....).

John in TYW also doesn't let wife come downstairs to socialise with visiting friends. And minimises her contact with the child they have. Maybe Hellon was clearing out the kitchen cupboards because she keeps seeing a shadowy woman flitting around behind the tine of organic butter beans and was flinging everything to the floor to try to get her out.

I'm hoping Rob's plotting backfires with him being unmasked.

I can't see it happening though .

I wish some telly soap would offer Rob the actor a job, so he could be killed off on the Archers - I can't bear to listen to the way he treats Helen.

Seek she was, as I indicated, of her time.

It's a pity.

Big BOOP from me for the Charlie/Adam storyline. I'm so torn - I don't want Ian to be stood up on his wedding day and I do dislike Adam's philandering but I really like Charlie and I just want him to be happy. That's what great character and plot is about in my view - a bog standard plot but that really engages the listeners.

It would be a huge shame if Rob's behaviour were blamed on his mother. Surely in the actual world there are so many men like him or similar that they can't all be explained as being because of their mother. So the more powerful message would be that Rob is just an abusive shit, plain and simple and not to try and explain or psychoanalyse it away.

Visions of Ian miming the vestry scream?

I don't believe they'll do another jilting at the altar. There are so many other routes they could take; the writing team would look ridiculous if they repeated such a melodramatic story.

Gruach - yes, but it's always disappointing when someone who's ahead of her time in one way is not even just behind it but worse than the majority of it in others! She is positively Nick Griffin on the topic of lovely American towns being ruined by immigrants, but she did think black people had some merit in that they could be used as cannon fodder in a battle situation.... . An aside, anyway - I do think there are yellowy wallpapery echoes in TA at the moment, definitely!

I absolutely won't be surprised if it turns out Rob's a git because of his mother... I wonder if we'll hear more of Miles though? Another surprise visitor for Hellon, full of stories about Rob torturing small animals as a child....

I agree, not another jilting at the altar. I could imagine Ian sitting down though and saying to Adam something like, 'you know as well as I do your heart's not in this any more... I've applied for a new cheffing job in Birmingham and I'm leaving tomorrow'....

It would have to be a cheffing job in Canada surely?

Canada, Birmingham, New Zealand, South Africa.... it's all the same, right?

I don't want Charlie to leave but I don't want Ian's heart broken either.