The Archers - We Listen So You Don't Have To

[PseudoBadger]

Happy(?!) Sunday everyone

What will this week have in store for us I wonder?

BOOP for the best laugh I've had from Ta for ages: the idea that Henry, the boy who can barely string a sentence together, needs to be shielded from reading the newspapers!

Well, that was great. I can't stand Jazzer so nice one, Tom.

So, Pip and David making decisions about the cattle without involving Ruth. Do they learn nothing from experience?

2rebecca - er, I take you haven't listened for a while then?

Regarding Henry - I assume it's more the worry that he'll see something on the TV news. But unless he's a News 24 addict, it's unlikely he's going to see anything there either.

I don't really recall there being a big media circus around a case like this tbh

When I think of domestic murders that have made national press it is either because a child is involved or the perpetrator is being hunted etc

Eg this recent case where the man killed his wife -I only read about it when the trial started.

I know local press will be different though

Only sporadically with the hellRob saga. Don't recall Pip being in forages. Thought she sounded different when with matthew.

@EmilyDickinson

Augusta I think that Henry was getting ready for bed when Rob got back, but Helen had said to Kirsty, just before Rob got home that Henry was late going to bed I think, so it might have been later than 7pm.

I wonder what the opening hours of the farm shop are?

I guess there would be a number of things to do after the shop closed:

Cashing up.

Nicking cash.

Moving the scotch eggs back from a place of obscurity to a place of prominence so that you can claim, "They just aren't selling Tom, I'm promoting them as much as I can."

Checking phone tracker to see where Helen's been today.

Calling on Pat and telling her how tired and unstable Helen is today.

Phoning the boarding school to see if Henry's place could be deferred till September rather than starting this term.

Giving Tony's tables a bit of a kick.

cackling at this.

I echo your cackle, priceless!

gypsy although he has been absolutely shitty to Kirsty over the years so if she just falls into his arms we'll know truly once and for all that TASWAMA! He needs to earn her love and trust back big time!

I'm fond of Jazzer and worry about him. All that heavy, outdoor labour and no security as he gets older.

Though I like to think that, many many years hence, when his will is read, it will be revealed that he was a secret millionaire, quietly donating money to the Meadow Rise young.

Just thinking, Rob's not dead yet, is he. How long does it take to die of a horrible internal infection? I'd guessed not long once it takes hold, so thought he might be gone by now, with Ursula by his bedside. Or is it a gradual war of attrition against the antibiotics until it eventually overpowers the weakened body?

He's not going to overcome this, start to recover, then fall downstairs in hospital while wandering at night, to his unexpected doom (as I seem to recall happened to a character in Desparate Housewives once!), is he?

Gruach I hear you, I do, re: Jazzer. But like Helen, he suffers from an acute and extensive lack of self-awareness. He became a bit more human when he had a crush on Fallon but it didn't take long for him to revert to his usual insensitive, self-centred and childish ways....

I have had a presentiment. Because the criminalisation of Helen is not something that can be moved on from - so it must be avoided.

The police/ court process will rumble on, Rob will physically recover enough to cause Helen more trouble over Henry and SOK, but it will become clear to him that the entire village despises him, he will finally lose heart and commit suicide - at which point all concerned will decide there is absolutely no point in continuing with the trial.

Fink I laughed at that too.
Although there are pictures of Helen in the paper.

And as for Tom and how can he say that when he knows how kind Helen is. Kind? In what way?

I don't really recall there being a big media circus around a case like this tbh

Indeed. A colleague of mine keeps going on about a stabbing which was just down the road from him about a week ago - we live in the same town. I had heard nothing about it, and when I googled, it wasn't even the first hit.

I don't think people like Rob do commit suicide do they? Don't they express anger towards everyone else instead? I do think he's going to die, to give Helen the extra defences. But yes, maybe a partial recovery, some evidence given in court, then a relapse, as Henry 'accidentally' fires a catapult capsule and ruptures his stitches. 'I was only playing slay the ogre Mummy, from one of my storwies', 'it's ok darling, daddy's only pretending. He's very good at pretending, isn't he? Maybe he'd like it best if we keep on pretending too'.

I expect someone has mentioned this already but SOC and LP are doing a live chat on the BBC Archers Facebook page this Thursday betwixt 1915 and 1955.

I'd love to hear Emma's take on it all. She's a woman of fairly forthright views. David and Pip may be more interested in their cows than their cousin stabbing her husband but I bet the parents at the school gate of Loxley Barrett are talking of little else. Tom's going to have to steel himself first time he does the school run. I wonder if Rob has ingratiated himself there as well?

No doubt Emily wheteas I bet Helen didn't make herself popular at all.

When there was a murder locally with lots of extra factors that might have made it "interesting", I don't think it made the nationals although it was a very big story locally.

TrevorTrevor the Muppet band leader is Dr Teeth

I liked tonight's episode. Good to hear more going on in the village, and from characters that have been AWOL. I also liked Kirsty telling both Jazzer and Tom that they had behaved badly. Also agree with the 'kind Helen' point - she's never been particularly likeable.

I have been wracking my brains to think of one single kind thing she has done.

Jill is kind. Lynda is kind. Even Susan is kind sometimes. Helen is not unkind....she just isn't kind.

And she was positively shitty to Hayley, to Jess, to Kirsty at one point, to Ian and most of all to the girl who was pg whose baby she wanted.

Basically if Helen's defence is she is a bit lovely she is going down.

SmallLegs, what's that about Helen and a pregnant girl? I don't remember that sl.

I suppose, at a push, she was quite kind to Greg's daughters ... and I'm sure she's been at least civil to Clarrie at one point. scraping the barrel

SmallLegs I think you're right. There isn't much evidence of Helen being kind.

I seem to remember her holding out for Fallon to have the Tea Rooms next to the Farm Shop in the teeth of Rob's opposition. Which was quite brave I think. One of the few times she disagreed with him.

I have a vague memory of Emma being a bit stressed at a playgroup when Henry, George and Kiera were small and I think that Helen may have said something supportive. But it could well have been the other way round.

She was nice to work for/with when she and Kirsty ran the shop in the village together wasn't she? It all went quite smoothly before Rob came along.

But, to be honest, there's not much active kindness and quite a lot of self centred behaviour.

It's odd, but in a way it makes me even sorrier for her. Like not many people outside Kirsty and her immediate family will really care about her plight.