Game of Farms: The 4 Houses of Ambridge. Bleak House, Boring House, Sitcom House and About to Breach the Terms of Their Tenancy House.

[PseudoBadger]

Never mind the yoghurt - who is making the Sterling Gold?!

Someone tweeted a link to this thread from the conference, so full (social media) circle.

And no, I wasn't there, but did some steady lurking/following on the conference hashtag after practice acquired on these threads .

The Rob viewing Helen at the start was that he thought she was a perfect "Mother" and was jealous of her husband. But since has learnt that isn't who she was, but is trying to mild her into it (demure was one of the words used).
It was compared to how his attitude to Charlie changed once it was known that he was homosexual, before that he was deferential.

No one at the conference really trusted Ursula.

It was great fun, worth it for the laughter if nothing else.

The mind games Rob has already done to Hell are much worse than hitting her will be.

I'm not sure about worse, but when this came up a few threads ago I was (and still am) firmly in the camp of the educational value of leaving it at 'merely' EA so that the wider public could get some understanding that abuse doesn't have to be physical and/or sexual to be real; i.e. the EA is not just a prelude to an escalation into 'real' abuse, it is enough in itself that she is suffering that.

i agree fink

having said that though, doesn't most physical abuse start during pregnancy?

What a fantastic conference. (Sorry BOOP, you didn't want to hear that.) A brilliant combination of proper research and embarrassed giggling at how seriously we were all taking it.

We loved it and the academics loved it. They were a bit bowled over by the fact that they gave a full day of 13 lectures and no-one nodded off. And they were scared of us; they kept saying they weren't used to their audience being more knowledgeable than them!

We've told them to make the location more central next time. Birmingham / Mailbox would be good.

I don't think they can have forgotten how she behaved when she visited before, they made such a point of Helen commenting on how different she seemed.
Gruntled I would much prefer if they hadn't forgotten and both that and the missed dinner invite/earlier phonecall were mentioned! Hope so

Aw my first bit was meant to be in bold too and didn't work It was a quote of Gruntled's reply to me.

OMG OMG SOC's leaving!

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1026302114100639&id=116065608457632

He's taking role as Executive Producer in EastEnders. Had to laugh at that

Just seen the BBC tweet.

Who now???

Best news I've had all day.

"Also Ursula said that Hell is having her first GRANDSON not child. So we are assuming that Miles has a daughter."
ppeatfruit, I thought I heard grandchild, myself, though I don’t feel like listening again to check. But I did notice Ursula saying to Pat that she needed guidance on being a grandmother as she’d never done it before, or some such, which would indicate MySon is her first grandchild?
redshoeblueshoe It was my pleasure, sorry I couldn’t manage to quote everything, just the stuff which caught my eye!
Can't believe you had to miss it, BOOP - it was so much more important than being sent to Coventry
AskingForAPal - thank you for being the bearer of glad tidings! What a brilliant start to the day! Just hope the replacement realises how important continuity and archives are to the hardcore listeners Do you think this means Blossom Hill Cottage will "deflate" back to its original state, or is it too late for that?

Sorry, italics fail for quote above. Just when I thought I'd mastered the art of MN

What great news to wake up to
DDD I bet we get a big spike in posting today

Very good news. Just hope we can return to what TA does best- consistent characterisation and finding the drama in everyday life.

I wonder who they will recruit. Vanessa Whitburn wasn't popular either, I'm not aware of who the Exec Prod was before. I hope that Matt will come back, there'll be no reason for him not too. Also presumably the celeb cast cost more, maybe we'll get Kathy, Shula, Elizabeth, Alastair, etc more if we don't have expensive guests. One of the problems with having a few families dominate story lines (Brookfield & now Rob & Helen) is that we miss out on everyone else.

I think that prior to VW, the job of producer was combined with Script Editor, and William Smethurst did this from 1978 till VW's arrival? But am not sure, reading this article by Gillian Reynolds from 1996: www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4703411/William-Smethurst-the-man-who-turned-The-Archers-into-a-cult.html
Eastpoint, totally agree about missing out on everyone else, I hope the new producer doesn't continue with the big one family story line dominance.

Hooray! (De-lurks, waves both hands in air with delight and scuttles back to Lurksburgh).

Yay! Hands out champagne and party hats!!

Ding dong the witch is dead

The new editor needs to understand character led drama!

WOO HOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Maybe now we can have Matt and OldTom and Hayley back.

And some loose ends tied up.

Midwife visit today.
Re SOC do you think he'll take a small bit of TA to EE? it's listeners will be complaining that there are no murders anymore, and that the SL of turning Albert Square into a pasture-fed community farm just isn't in the spirit of EE, and why does Pat Butcher keep offering homemade walnut cake to anyone in a crisis?

Okay my private theory: Rob and Jess had had a child, possibly in Canada, but it was a girl and died. Maybe in unexplained circumstances.
That is partly why it was so uncertain if Jess would join him, and why when she did it was a "one last chance".
It also explains why he so quickly turned against adoption when he found out about everything involved.

It's true!!! Tentative BOOP; you never know if it is a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire.