Tis the season to be jolly, Fallon, Alan, Helen, Lillian; Deck the Hall with boughs of Holly, Lily, Will and Jill, Tilly Button. Celebrate Christmas with The Archers!

[PseudoBadger]

Thanks to SmallLegsOrSmallEggs for this thread title way back in November!

If there has been embezzlement by Knob (and I think there has been) will the winding up process reveal it? Independent accountants and so on.

I don't listen any more. I just want the Knob/Hellon stuff to be over.

What's he betting there will be some kind of spin off special focussing on Helen and Knob as their storyline reaches its climax?

Sorry, SmallLegs - I don't really understand. What do you mean when you say he 'had' to hide the chequebook. How could he possibly convince himself that was anything other than harmful to Helen?

He had to hide it or she'd have used it to write a cheque and presumably the money wasn't there so he hid it. (Or he had been using it for something)
Once she found it wasn't there he couldn't admit that he had had it for whatver reason so instead he made her think she was a dafty. It is ok for her to think she is loosing it it is not ok for her to think he isn't the all provider.

5/10 - I got a morning's milking. Well, it won't be the first time and it will make a change from the morning mucking out!

The decision to close Berrow is just ridiculous, in fact the whole thing with Charlie 'discovering' problems (seemingly) overnight is just not credible. Modern herd management systems give very detailed information, down to every aspect of individual animals at each milking, so losses should have been apparent at a very early stage. I know Justin made a passing reference to "contracts not being worth the paper they're written on", presumably a processor or supermarket cutting the price, but he wouldn't be writing off £m's of investment in such a fashion.

I'm not even going to start on the idea that Rob job sharing would be accepted by the family as a good one - any normal family would have laughed in his face, then told him to get a job!

Oh dear, perhaps it was a mistake to listen tonight 😡

Just listened to tonights on iplayer...I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!!!

I'm not sure how much more I can stand!

He only asked about Ian to make it appear like he isn't so against the god parent idea after all, knowing full well that there is no chance of it happening now anyway!

Perhaps Helen's order is correct on the computer but he may have phoned the supplier to change it last minute pretending the order they'd submitted was wrong. No paper trail that way. Only way H could know for sure is to phone them to enquire but lets face it she isn't going to do that! Knob is never wrong.

Did I mention I hate him?

Agree Patrickmginty. How long has Berrow been up and running - it seems no time at all? I just can't believe it would open and close just like that. Very unsatisfactory. Feels to me like SOC just got fed up with it - can't be arsed to tie up all the untied loose ends (Stephan and the culvert, Knob's fiddling even Charlie and Adam) so just close it all down, pack everyone off and pretend it never happened. He's probably hoping we'll all forget Knob ever worked there so he won't have to worry about anyone asking why he hasn't got another job. Presumably this also means Justin Elliot exiting stage right too - even though he was supposedly all set to buy Brookfield (as if!)
to all the EA survivors on this thread. It seems SOC is getting at least one storyline right. Reading all your stories on here makes the Hellin and Knob storyline even more hard to listen to.

Thank you SmallLegs - that makes complete sense :) Sorry if I came across as arsey, I'm just struggling to get my head round him being anything other than evil!

I agree with that. He's doing an awful lot of covering up so he knows there's a need to cover up stuff, if that makes sense. There's a level of deceit that can't be explained by him being the virtuous caring partner.
He absolutely knows what he is doing every step of the way and carefully covering his arse.

De-lurking...why has no one asked how on earth Rob and Helen will support a family on two part- time wages?? Maybe working in a farm shop pays much more than I imagine? I had also thought that it cost a business more to employ two part- timers than one full- time. I can't believe Pat would just happily agree without considering the costs.

Two part timers might fall below the threshold for national insurance and reduce the employers' contribution.
What Rob has perhaps failed to take into account is that he has no redundancy rights until he has worked there a year - and he resigned from Berrow so has no right to redundancy pay from there. If he had hung on a few months until it was closed then he would have done quite well......

This Bridge Farm story is almost laughable. Pat, Tony, Tom (and Helen previously) are businesspeople who have kept a roof over their heads through clear thinking (and a degree of ruthlessness). There's no way on earth that they would just give Rob a job with no formal process whatsoever. They would have made him produce his CV, all his employment documentation, references ... Then they would have laughed in his face and told him he has no relevant experience.

Instead he now has free access not just to all the shop cash flow but also Helen's pay. And once he pushes her out - or rather, inveigles her family into pushing her out, he'll have the full time post and all the income.

Yes it does feel like Berrow Farm is being disposed of as no longer needed, I guess we are definitely losing Charlie then I hope there will be more to it than just shutting the lid on it.

However with Berrow Farm going maybe Grange Farm will be able to keep its dairy herd. Weren't we back here about 5 years ago when Berrow Farm was muted?

I agree, there's nothing organic about the way some stories are being handled at the moment.

Did I actually hear Elizabeth telling David that the road business was all over now? She sounded very definite. And that wasn't what I had understood at all.

And now the entire toy box marked Berrow Farm has been picked up and tossed in a skip. Will there be no trace of it in a year - cows dead, characters scattered, property disappeared, memories wiped?

Whatever next?

By declaring a loss on Berrow Farm Justin will be able to reclaim a chunk of corporation tax. Brian will know that.
At Bridge Farm there is no mention of Helen's maternity rights or how much she will be losing by choosing to go part time at this stage. If she wasn't family Pat would be rubbing her hands with glee.

Will Justin Elliot hang onto Berrow farm as his out of town lodge? And just get rid of the cows and silos etc?

Whoopsie meant Brookfield keeping the dairy herd. No wonder I scored 3/10.

Pseudo Your thread went too fast for anyone to congratulate you!

It's turned to the last day of the year while I have been fulminating over Rob - so this seems a convenient moment to say thank you for another year of this thread. I'm sure you sometimes have more pressing things to do than creating another fabulously prescient title - only this morning I was thinking of Roy turning up outside Elizabeth's window - but, incredibly, we all find our way, time after time, to the same place.

And 2016 really ought to be the year MNHQ gives TA its own topic - just so people know where to come ... (Ahem.)

Clever of SOC to arrange New Year's Eve to fall on cliffhanger night ... BOOP in advance.

Perhaps the winding up of Berrow will reveal things that would otherwise be buried?
And presumably the manager who comes in to wind it down will either be a new character or someone known taking on an entirely new role. Maybe kirsty could do it or Debbie more plausibly. Or maybe Ruth comes back as Ruthless.

Surely though Rob canmot have been taking significant cash? What on earth did he spend it on if he did? Other than hunting (horse hire) and shooting what on earth does he spend money on. Not a flashy wedding anyway.

Again I think he just does whatever makes his life easy and fuck everyone else. So take long lunches. Oops cocked up the AI. Lie about that, blame someone else. All sorted.
Block culvert. Stuff the rest of village. Oops got seen. Sort out Stefan.
In his head these are things he had no choice but to do. Not his fault really.

Not saying he isn't a twunt of the highest order but if he is anything like my ex he will do anything to a) make his own life the way he wants it and b) protect his own skin. And in his eyes nothing is ever actually his fault. Total revisionist too. Will happily gaslight himself into believing his own nonsense. so yes by action he is evil and abusive but in his head he is right and also a victim.

The winding up of Berrow puts Charlie's shift to another estate in a new light. Justin is effectively saving his job.

Delurking...... does anyone remember after the hunt sab biffing up, Shula was talking to someone about Rob and said something like "it's quite worrying..... he seemed to genuinely believe that it had happend that way".
It's stuck in my mind as I agree. I don't think he has a full grasp on reality.

Yes, it's a pity St Smugula chose that particular moment not to do the right thing - which was entirely out of character for her. Indeed it sometimes seems to me that all that is required for Knob to flourish is for all the other characters to behave entirely out of character - just one of the things that sometimes makes this storyline so hard to listen to. Sadly for me 2015 was the year when I stopped being able to suspend my disbelief and had to stop being reminded that 'it's not real you know'. So big to Pseudo for this thread which is what keeps me listening and to all you lot who are real. Here's to lots more speculation, criticism and analysis in 2016. or possibly which is more appropriate for the time of this post.

Berrow is genuinely loss making so not a tax wheeze

I'm finding the robhel sl too much now. He clearly plans to keep her a housebound prisoner with no money or clothes that fit. But why has no one noticed in her close knit family. I'm just hoping he falls off the roof taking the banner down which he puts up for Henry's birthday

Lillian - agree about no longer being able to suspend disbelief

How old is doc lockes dd and what trouble will she bring?

Having had to be dealing with my own RL version of Nob this christmas I've not been able to stomach listening to him on the radio as well. But thanks for keeping me filled in.
Smalllegs is quite right. men like them totally believe everything they say. It's very scary because they are so removed from normality yet they think they are the epitome of normality and sanity.
My ex was always trying to get me to go to bed for rests because i was tired and unable to cope.

bigbuttons sorry to hear you have your own RL version of Rob.

Really hate the guy, I wish the scriptwriters would let us know what's going on financially with Helen and Rob. Two part time shop jobs aren't going to keep them - living in an expensive village as they do.