Will it be porridge or curtains for Knob? Await a sensible and sensitive ending to That Storyline on The Archers thread.

[PseudoBadger]

Threads are moving so fast! Will this thread be here to welcome SOK?

"At what point will safeguarding be mentioned re the home birth ?"

It won't be. Unless the preeclampsia reoccurs and she continues to insist on a h/b. I know quite a few people who've had a homebirth after one, sometimes two caesareans. I myself had a homebirth despite a 'high risk' label (gestational diabetes and baby who was believed to be 10lbs+). Consultant wasn't happy but nobody made noises about social services.

Mini I know it wouldn't in the real world but neither would boarding for a 5yr old. It would be an interesting tool for a consultant to poke rob with t see how he reacted

I can't understand why knobs motive would be to take the baby? Can't see him as a single father and Ursilla wouldn't be able to do day to day care. Take baby to love with parents and employ a nanny? Living at home with mum and dad doesn't seem knobs style.

Might be possible as this story does have overtones of Rosemary's baby at times.

I still think he wants to completely destroy Hellin so that she turns into his stepford wife, agrees to shipping henwee off to BS and devotes her life to knob and heir. That fits with his psyche more. Total domination and obedience.

Feedback. 4.30 today. Iplayer is rather cryptic over details.

Right I've listened. I think it would be better if we all just listened to Rob. He knows best. We are quite simply outrageous. All this talking, bitching about the storyline. Don't we care that we're ruining the poor editor's last weeks with us? Think of the damage we've caused to his credibility, his future. We are irrational women and Rob won't let us carry on like this. Rob knows best. Listen to Rob. Have a cup of tea and a lie down. Listen to Rob. He knows.

What does "Time for TASWAMA" mean? Posted by BertrandRussell ^^

Nelsons so glad someone else has asked this

TA SW AMA
The archers script writers are misogynistic arseholes

It occurred to me that Rob talks to Helen like I do with the dogs. Sit down, stay there, waaaaaaiiittt, who's a good girl now. He really does believe he's the alpha male of the pack. I wonder who he would bow down to? Brian?

Sometimes I just have to post it. TASWAMA, I mean. I think it every episode, but try to save saying it for particularly hideous examples.

You're absolutely right PB - as always. I blame the over-feminisation of MN, but I've just had a lovely cup of Rob's tea and things seems so much clearer now. I'm going to have a lie-down, all this listening to the radio and reading and typing on this thread has left me exhausted.

As it looks like the new thread may be with us over Easter weekend can I suggest a title?
Pat, listen! Rob's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!!

Gypsy that's a question, I think in the Lundy book: Does an abuser love his partner? Well yes, but in much the same way he loves his dog or a possession.

So its no surprise Rob speaks to H like that.

De-lurking to say lol @ Annie's suggestion Oh and I hope yesterday's events don't mean Arseula will be sticking around Can't help but hope Pat laced the Victoria sponge with some sort of poison... Loving these threads and all your contributions, but it's tres time consuming keeping up!

Love that extraordinarily apt thread title suggestion, AnnieNoMouse

Paseudo

We're sorry. So sorry. We don't know why we keep making life so difficult for the SWs. They're so good with the Bert/Frida story and -

(Sobs)

An interaction with Brian would cause Rob acute confusion. Brian is clearly the real alpha male - he has more money, a successful business, is older etc etc. But Rob is, well ...., his brain melts. There was no way he could work for long at Berrow Farm putting aside his incompetence as he can't cope with people being in charge of him.

This is why Rob can't manage working for other people. And if you hang out on Relationships there are loads of women with abusive partners, or not even that abusive, just rubbishy partners who have walked out of jobs for not great reasons and started up their own businesses but don't run them very well, the woman keeps the business sort of running and keeps the man from running up loads of debt and when they finally split he hides his income to avoid child support, racks up loads of debt now he is free of that pesky controlly wife who wouldn't let him do as he liked and the business either goes bust or limps along pathetically.

Whenever Rob comes across an alpha male type he just becomes shudderingly subservient

I still don't think Knob has a grand plan, and no plan to steal Helen's baby. Instead he's compulsive about controlling people in his emotional relationships. He only tolerated Ursula as long as he felt he was controlling her and she suited his aims. (The guilt trip about ruining the last day of her visit, wtf, he loathes his mother!!)

At conscious level Knob truly thinks he is rescuing & caring for Hellen by guiding her towards what he thinks is best (for all). His self-deception makes him especially dangerous because Helen is right to perceive he genuinely cares for her & little H. and he sincerely sees self as sacrificing much on her behalf. However he managed Barrow farm, won the cricket game or protected the Hunt was fine to do, too. Fraud, violence, cheating, telling lies, mind games are all fine because the ends justify the means.

I don't think he has a grand plan as such because he can't predict everyone's behaviour but he's very good at making use of any opportunity to pursue his main aim which is total control and superiority. So if someone behaves in a way that he hasn't foreseen then he quickly adapts and lies glibly or, in Kirsty's case, issue threats.
It seems to have been Ursula's idea to send Henry away to school and Rob came on board with the idea quite quickly. It's a threat he can hold over Helen, it removes Henry from the household so that SOK gets full attention and he gains kudos by swanking that he's a wonderful stepfather having sent H to a really 'good' school and puts him on a social level of the Aldridges having a child at boarding school.

Iljkk I think you are spot on. I don't think my XH had a master plan. I think he wanted the perfect family where everything was on his terms. I think Knob has some ideal view of what his life should be like. I imagine he is actually very angry that he doesn't have what he feels he is entitled to.
I am still annoyed that Patbot and everyone else seems to think it perfectly normal that he walked out of a decent job when he has responsibilities.

GRRRRRRR and TASWAMA

I must stop x-posting especially as you all put things so much better than I do

Redshoes don't stop posting, you express the raw frustration so well.

I don't really get this idea that the Archers scriptwriters are misogynistic for portraying one female character as a nasty piece of work whose son resembles her. Several people on this thread have said how true to life that is. Not all women are saints. If and when we get to hear from Bruce, I confidently expect him to be a menace to society too.

Agree with Gasp0de. Abuse often runs through many generations, historically when women didn't get the chance to leave an abusive relationship some of them turned into enablers simply to survive or took it out on their children - remember how we were all taught the most important thing was to stay together for the sake of the kids? Ursula comes across as a one dimentional bitch really because she is a minor character in a 13 minute drama but it's fine for her to be horrible now while also having a rounded backstory that meant there are reasons for why she is why she is.

At work I often deal with couples where one party seems the obvious abuser and difficult to deal with. With depressing inevitablity the other party always turns out to be just as bad. Now they usually have reasons such as being ground down over years of abuse, no longer knowing how to have normal interactions with people, wanting to stay for status/money, thinking they were doing the right thing for family/religious reasons and sometimes just being horrid, but it doesn't stop the fact that right now they are behaving awfully.