As the Archers threads age like a fine wine, or a cheese, come and join us - it's nearly time for the Ambridge Flower and Produce show

[PseudoBadger]

Hopefully we can go back to an ordinary tale of country folk?

Spoilers are frowned upon.... There's a thread for that.

In the real world Knob's first few contacts with Jack would be at a contact centre and supervised by the social care team, especially in light of the huge findings of emotional abuse that he subjected Henry to. PatnTone would then also be given some skills on how to manage the subsequent contacts successfully. The point of them of them is not for Knob to see " my son" it's for Jack to begin to form an attachment to his father.
Henry and prebirth Jack would have certainly been on a child in need plan and I reckon this would continue for a time afterwards whilst everything settles down.

Forgot the important shit...Dubliner...scone like gone.

I grew up in Warwickshire, now reside in Worcestershire. I say scone/gone.
According to a R4 documentary I heard, the north/south divide runs along a line from the wash to the Severn estuary - i.e. bang through the middle of Borsetshire. So you will probably get both scone/stone and scone/gone!

I'm still dwelling on Rob's self-delusion. Even though he's reading a book on child development he somehow thinks that a 4mo who has never met him will be "excited" to see his Daddy.

That only works in my mind, if Jack is like Stewie in Family Guy (precocious baby who came out of womb talking like an adult): "well, well, Rob Titchener, how the devil are you? I've heard a lot about you. I hope you've brought one of those cloth baby books because I am in the mood for some tactile exploration!"

Can anyone with experience of social work comment on whether Tony supervising Rob with Jack in the tearoom is at all realistic? I was under the impression that supervised visits took place in a contact centre under the watchful eye of a social worker.

This setup sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Northern Ireland -scone to rhyme with gone, but the other pronunciation was just as common (if not more so).

I'm sure that's what would happen, and I'm just curious as to why, when the script writers have access to advice that would enable them to get this stuff right, they wilfully ignore it? I can understand (just) the difficulties of weaving in multiple professional assessments into the court case (although I'd have preferred more space given over to those than Catherine Tate's whining - really, she must be ashamed of that performance), but this seems quite a straightforward factual detail to incorporate. I am on the verge of becoming one of those people that write to the BBC about this!

They do need social workers to oversee Rob's access, if only to stop him calling the child Gideon. He won't take it from Pat and Tony.

I bet if the unfortunate child sleeps, Rob will be telling everyone it's because Helen drugged him. And if he wakes him up so he cries for ages, it will be because Helen has poisoned him so that he is in pain.

Jessie in my experience no it would not be Tony or Pat, certainly not at the beginning, in light of the background. Perhaps if it was a simple relationship breakdown and the mother did not want to the see the father then yes but not in this case. I'd have thought that the SW team would want to assess how Knob interacts with Jack.

Love your Stewie DDD!

I would die from happiness if jack turned out to be a stewie! It would actually make all the shite of the past couple of years worth it.

I did feel a teensy bit sorry for rob as a father missing out on those early months and not really understanding babies in that way new parents often don't!!

But then neither do the sw given they think a 4mth old lifting his head is praise worthy

I really hope Tim and Louiza get loads of work on the back of their portrayal of Rob and Helen. Just not so much that they're unable to continue in TA. That prospect is unthinkable.

Thanks, gypsy, I've always found Stewie the funniest character on FG, and giving him that posh English accent is a nice touch. If the actor ever got a role on TA that would be seriously confusing!

I was wondering if people who like TA would also get a FG reference; they are rather different shows...

PrincessFiorimonde in Phineas & Ferb they live in Daneville which is in the tri-state area. There are a couple of regions in the US that are called the tri-state area (one is NY, NJ and Conneticut, another is Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana). The joke in P&F is that they don't live in any of those specific states, instead the area is named after the guy who founded/built the region up.

DDD as you can probably guess from my referencing Phineas & Ferb, I got the FG reference as well.

Is the contact visit on Sunday?

I was wondering if people who like TA would also get a FG reference; they are rather different shows...

... but we have DC who watch such things so we get the reference. However, start talking about Peppa Pig or ITNG and I am lost.

Ah, my DC are between the PP and FG stages: in fact, they hardly watch TV, it's all youtubers, like LD Shadowlady and Jack Septici (no idea if I'm spelling those right).

DDD Jack (Stewie) Titchmarch

Oops Titchener not Titchmarch

I don't feel sorry for Rob not seeing Jack when he was younger. He could very easily have got a court order allowing him to visit at the MBU, but didn't bother (or the SWs didn't think of it)

DDD big CoolWhip fans in this house.

Helens been having an affair with Alan Titchmarch!!!!!

Thanks, RNRN.

As already noted, IRL the contact would be in a Family Centre supervised by a social worker.

Gypsy - on googling, I (re)discovered that Seth McFarlane does Stewie's and Brian's voices, and there's a clip of him on Graham Norton doing the Cool Whip dialogue, switching effortlessly. Cool wHip!

Ooh I'll have to check that out!