Hard Times come to Ambridge; will Pip or the Ambridge Fairy save the day? Discuss The Archers here.

[PseudoBadger]

Enjoy!

Totally agree Francis. Why do they seem to think the audience care?

Goodness, FrancisC, imagine my surprise at there being 2 of us 'special' ones here on this unrelated thread . intriguing story of spontaneous remission. My liver is currently not so deranged either - for me it's the medication for that seems to be controlling things. For me I fear getting a dog might be less good as my animal fur allergy is worsening as I age. I can admire from a distance though.

Re-Pip and Lily I wonder how much we've heard them together. I know as first cousins they must have been in the same room before, just it's not a relationship we've heard much AFAIK. Lily is what my old mum would have callled 'a bit of a clatter'.

I never understood what the hell was going on in cricket till I read "Murder must Advertise" and Antonia Forest's "The Cricket Term". I recommend both.

I drop "he had a late cut that was exceedingly characteristic" into conversations sometimes to test the water.........

Just popping in to say well done to Pip for dumping Toby at last!

I think the dumping has been pretty shabby. First off, she makes him homeless and then she apparently decides he is surplus to requirements because he can't get it up.
It almost makes you sorry for him.

I don't mind Alice, but I think Lilly is awful now. She sounds about 45.

I can't stand Pip, Alice or Lily.

I am so fed up of Pip feeling sorry for herself. What an awful episode.

I think the dumping has been pretty shabby. First off, she makes him homeless and then she apparently decides he is surplus to requirements because he can't get it up.

I agree, except she'd decided he was surplus to requirements a while back, but hadn't had the guts to tell him. I think Toby knew this deep down and that's partly why he couldn't get it up.

Meanwhile - I don't think Lily and Pip will have spent that much time together - obviously they'll have been at family dos, but there's 7 years between them, so it's not like they'd have been going round to each other's house to play or have sleepovers, plus Pip spent a year away around the time Lily would have been becoming a teenager, and there was the Brookfield-Lower Loxley rift following Nigel's fall. They're only just getting to a point where the age gap is going to be less of an issue. And that's probably why Lily is able to think of Pip as amazing, because she just doesn't know. It was clear she wasn't fully aware (yet) of Pip's culpability in the IBR fiasco, for example.

"First off, she makes him homeless and then she apparently decides he is surplus to requirements because he can't get it up" Blimey, really?
What I think is that she dumped him as part of her self a basement and she actually hasn't noticed that he is an unpleasant waste of space....

I think them no longer living together made it much easier to dump him. So quite clever to get him to voluntarily move out!!

Perhaps Pip will be hit by a speeding car, knocked unconscious and will have a completely different personality when she comes round, (oh and a Russian accent). The SW have dug a big hole for themselves if she is the future of the Archers.

I think what made me choke on my conflakes was the speed of Ruth's conversion back to Pip-idolatry. The mere suggestion that her darling might have to sleep on..............

a sofa-bed

and she could hardly move fast enough to jam the boys back in together so that the Pipstrel wouldn't have to submit to such a hideous fate. I expect if she'd hidden a pea under a layer of 7 mattresses the little madam would have complained of insomnia.

I almost feel sorry for the SWs, who must be labouring mightily to make Pip a sympathetic character, but sadly, they have no chance of succeeding.

Ha ha. cornflakes not conflakes (maybe Ben has a pack of conflakes in his cereal cupboard?)

That's interesting Francis about the foetal damage caused by alk. Though banning anything seems to make it more attractive. I'm for legalising ALL mind altering substances (the hypocrisy of society is what gets me) It would stop the craziness.

Ref, cricket I thought dh wasn't quite correct in his summing up of the rules.

Grumpy I don't HATE Pip , I find the acting a bit difficult to take sometimes, but I'm glad I haven't got you lot as parents that's for sure. Positivity is the best way when child rearing I find (she says with her wings flapping)

"I'm glad I haven't got you lot as parents that's for sure. Positivity is the best way when child rearing I find"

She's 24!!!!!

Pip is a prime example of how overly positive parenting can lead to over indulged ego maniacs

There's nothing wrong with telling a child when they have done something unkind etc. Even less wrong telling an adult when they have royally fucked up professionally

If Pip was my child I'd be asking myself where I had gone so fucking wrong.
Thinking about it I don't think I like any of the Archers
so why am I still listening

The dislikeability (dislikeableness??) of the Archers is part of the masochistic pull, redshoe. I frequently loathe myself for listening, because it is so wretched much of the time - poor characterisation, rubbish storylines, incredibly irritating acting. I put it down to - not really liking having music on, so need talk radio, but nothing too demanding, which actually merit my attention, so I can get on with something else; getting involved in the programme at a point in my life when I was spending a fair bit of time driving, and the programme coincided with my time behind the wheel; and dinner prep time. As a friend of mine says, 'there's just something about the dull sound of the human voice'!

From that last episode, I really hope they're not paving the way to Alice waving goodbye to a career even remotely involved in using her obvious engineering talents and going into farming.

It must be hard sharing your work with the family I couldn't work with dh let alone our children , probably best to have them work somewhere else for a couple of years, I don't remember if Pip did that or not.

ceto Surely engineering is used in farming all the time, it's just a job. I think it's sad that the environment seems to take a back seat with all the huge petroleum driven technology that is taking over here in Fr. Not sure about Amb

IMO manpower is more effective than bleedin' drones!

No she flaked out at the last minute meaning they had to pay for both her and Matthew

I'm not sure they did pay twice. I recall David saying they couldn't when Pip chickened out of wherever it was in S America. They did of course feed and house her.

I think it's the unrealistic portrayal of parenting at Brookfield that's most annoying. They have 3 children and a clearly preferred one in Pip, one they see as a bit of a nuisance (Josh), and then they ignore Ben. In real life Ben would have crawled out of the cereal cupboard ages ago and made his presence felt. Mind you, we'd probably not be any happier with the portrayal! I know some parents do show preference so that's not unrealistic as such. Maybe the SWs just need to try harder.