He's not a pheasant poacher, he's a pheasant poacher's grandson. Join us for trials, tribulations and tipsy tractor trips in Ambridge.

[PseudoBadger]

Will this thread see the end of The Trial? And SOC?

Character info, character dates of birth etc (pictures warning!) are all HERE.

How mad that lily, who doesn't exist, gets a photo on there but Freddie doesn't!

Aaaahhh. I just looked at the pictures. My eyes! They're all wrong except maybe Tom.

I love the picture of Tracy Horrobin in her muscle shirt, standing in front of a piece of broken security fencing.
And Anthea is great, too. She is grumpily saying "do I have to pose for this piece of corporate fluff? I hate having my photo taken and, besides, I have better things to do."
And Brian is Brian. With his cravat.

Gruach I agree with your analysis re Freddie - made even harder for him by having a successful twin who doesn't seem to be having any problems (apart from the fact that she has lost the power of speech). I very much fear he is being lined up to go off the rails in time for him to come into his inheritance.

Anybody here drinking Solidari-tea? Link to BBC article about it here.

Agree that Shula, a posh horsey woman just a few years older than me and married to a vet would so not do meat paste sandwiches. Those are the sort of sandwiches my grandparents used to eat, ditto egg and cress.
It would be pate. I don't understand why she'd be making sandwiches when it isn't her turn either. She's supposed to have a business to run. It was silly.

Apropos of nothing
Lizzie's phone which has been ringing a lot lately sounds like an iPhone with the classic old phone ringtone ike mine - hence I noticed it.
But Tom has got the same shonky nokia rubbish one that he's had since that he was having it away with that woman who was a supermarket buyer....
I can't believe with all his Social Media stuff Tom wouldn't have a smartphone

Smart phone listening Olivia! Yes, very odd.

I know a couple of people who run entire businesses from their i phones.

Tom might have a Nokia N8 which is not 'shonky'. Though I must admit Nokias have been just a bit shit since Microsoft bought them. Even I jumped ship.

Shula was being an arse. Why is she acting like a stroppy teen ? As for Richard - he sounds really dull.

There's not going to be slurpy kissing, along with coy "shall we go upstairs" tonight between Doc Loc and Lusty Lizzie is there? I genuinely don't think I could stand it

I bet we are being reminded about Tom's 'previous' with the GM crops because it will be raised at the trial or the residency hearing - see, the whole family are dodgy.

That was a very tedious episode

How long was Pat and Tony's retirement? A couple of weeks?

I liked the fact that we actually had people gossiping. Not Carol telling Jill something we had already heard for ourselves (Anna's stalking of Max) but Ian relaying his meeting with Helen to Pat. We need more of this because it is such an elegant double-whammy: there is an encounter (Ian / Helen) but we only hear about it through the re-telling (Ian / Pat).

Anna really should not be acting for anyone whose family can hear all about her (Anna's) private life from her mother.

And Carol should have learnt to hold her tongue.

Infuriating. Unprofessional. And I can hardly believe that an editor and a scriptwriter (in this particular context) have got together and agreed to belittle and demean Anna in this way.

My mother would have received the bollocking of a lifetime if she had ever run around telling the relatives of my clients how drunk and disorderly I was the other day.

(And yes, I know they're the oldest of friends and share a godparently connection. It is still unforgivable.)

I did a bit of LA tonight while relaxing in my room, doing nothing other than listening (it's been a crap day). I thought Richard Locke sounded like the man from Downton Abbey who played Daisy's FIL, the older man. Can't see (or hear) the attraction from his voice at all.

The other think I kept mulling over - I wonder what the cast think when they read the scripts - do they have any input at all to their characters SL or do they just roll their eyes and get on with it. I'm thinking here about the Max/Maxine SL reveal (does that really still need to be a big deal in 2016??). But it could apply to so many clunky plot devices (poor Kaz) over the past year.

I looked up the cast (to see who played Richard) - I didn't realise Pip was her from Home Fires. Elizabeth looked pretty much exactly as I had pictured her. (Richard Locke still didn't do it for me even though

the actress who plays anna is an lgbt activist so she may well have suggested max be a woman. although how she felt about the 'dramatic' reveal may not have been great!

a successful woman who is also a lesbian is clearly shocking in SOC's world. he always strikes me as someone who still thinks he's living in the early nineties

Or he thinks that to be successful in a male dominated profession, the woman can only be a lesbian. I hate how she is being portrayed, her drinking, not coping .... I can't see him going down that route with a male barrister

Carol and Jill also overstepped the mark in planning a surprise holiday for Anna - with her mother.
My DD would hit the roof and never come down if I did something similar to her and I never would presume to think a busy career woman's diary would be clear for a particular length of time of my choosing. They're assuming that a woman who happens not to be in a relationship has acres of spare time and has no social or professional commitments.

Yes, that really is bizarre that they assume that Anna will have no other commitments. For all they know her clerk has lined her up for conferences and preliminary hearings in the next big case the following week. Plus, if it goes the wrong way, she might have to prioritise drafting appeal grounds. And isn't the custody hearing shortly after the trial?

Carol seemed to be implying that Anna is working full time/exclusively on Helen's case ... so, when the trial is over, Anna will have nothing else to do and will therefore be free to holiday.
I'm guessing that is not how barristers' working patterns normally pan out.

(I'm getting adverts in the sidebar for HiPP organic baby food. arf.)

x-post!

My DH went to a Cathedral school which was pretty bad, unless you were a chorister or otherwise musically gifted.