The Archers: Discussion #84. New Year and some of us are still listening even if we don't know why.

[DadDadDad]

New posters welcome - with your fresh views and burning questions.

Old posters welcome - with your jaded views and knowledgeable answers.

But new posters feel free to be jaded, and old posters feel free to ask questions!

How is the Pip storyline going to play out and do you care?

As usual, if you want to mention the advertised storylines for future episodes, there's a separate thread for that - no spoilers here, please.

Just imagine we're all sitting round a table at The Bull -->

Her children are young teens-if heir father isn't involved why should she mention him?

Well I know plenty of separated & divorced & widowed parents of young teens.

The other parent is rarely NEVER mentioned, they usually come up in conversation at some point. Unless the father is not involved at all & never has been.

You seem to think my question is somehow unreasonable Bertrand? It's a radio drama FFS.

I just wondered if there had been a reference which I had missed. I don't listen slavishly to every episode.

What's not the case ppeat?

With lexi we don't have a lot of info about whether this is the first time she has left her kids or not- also what her plans are and whether or not she's actually interested in settling in the UK and bringing her kids to join her here. It's all a very rushed sl

Perhaps their dad is super involved and that's why the kids haven't moved. Perhaps he left them recently and high and dry so she had to look for better paid work quite recently. Perhaps he died when they were babies and she's been working abroad on and off for years.

I'm assuming she will get a good reference from grey gables which she could leverage for work at an international hotel chain in Bulgaria or just get a better paid job here. She is obviously well qualified and,despite the sw attempts to say otherwise, has excellent English.

I'm finding the whole thing a bit baffling.

And when it comes to judging child abandonment I think Brian has always come out as the villain there!!

Maybe their dad is a stereotypical e European gangster so leading to an 'exciting' new sl

Maybe Lexi's ex husband is Matt from Ambridge Extra.....

That Lexi has no back story regarding her children (apart from I don't remember her mentioning their dad).

she could leverage for work at an international hotel chain in Bulgaria or just get a better paid job here

We don't know about her ethnicity though, only her nationality. She may be Romani and so life in Bulgaria would probably not be rosy and she would probably suffer discrimination in employment.

I meant longer term from her pre ambridge days

I remember her mentioning that Amb. was very like her own village. I THINK it was her. When JD was being disparaging about her country.

Bertrand, you're making a bit of an assumption aren't you that Lexi has an ex-husband?

Maybe she was a single parent from the start.

Don't think we've been told have we?

The impression I have of Lexi is that she is a single Mum trying to do the best by her kids - she left them in Bulgaria while she came to do seasonal work in Ambridge. It was a pragmatic decision to earn some money to support her kids - nothing like Kate’s decision to swan off to SA and leave Phoebe and then swan back leaving Sipo and Nolli. I didn’t ever imagine her moving to Ambridge permanently and leaving her kids in Bulgaria. She obviously likes Ambridge, she has enjoyed working at GG in a job more suited to her talents than being just a picker, has made friends, feels at home, but still misses her kids. She is good friends with both Adam (from the picking) and Ian from GG so wants to help them out (my only experience of surrogacy is of a friend doing it for a friend so this seems entirely believable to me) it’s also a way for her to spend more time with her kids. I don’t think for a moment she wants to run off with the baby, much less sell it (as someone suggested down thread) - I think she’s just coolly considering her options and what’s best for her and her kids. I don’t doubt she loves Roy, but she loves her kids more. Actually I think if push came to shove he loves his kids more - I don’t think he’d do a Kate and move to Bulgaria leaving them behind. In a way I think this is a more realistic storyline than her forgetting her past life and moving to Ambridge to be with Roy without so much as a backwards glance. It also challenges the idea of temporary workers all being desperate to move to the U.K. - she has a life in Bulgaria and she likes it.

You're right of course.I just said ex husband because i couldn't be bothered to type the father of her children. I thought at the time it was a mistake!

She hardly knows Adam and Ian

thats why it feels shoehorned - if she had been around for a few years - seasonal or not - it would make more sense her doing it for a friend.

It’s not purely altruistic of course, but they are not total strangers - they are people she likes, who have been kind to her. What really appeals to her is the possibility of going back to Bulgaria and still getting paid.(which they might not agree to of course).

She is not friends with Adam and Ian, she has had a takeaway with them.

Everyone is friends with everyone in Ambridge (apart from David a Toebee of course )

I agree with Lillian.

The storyline that’s annoying me most is actually the one that’s most realistic (possibly because it’s the most realistic) - Brian vs Adam. I know everyone here loves Brian, but he is SUCH a shit. Very well written and superbly acted though. His manipulation of Kate was masterful and so shitty. But oh I want Adam and his birds and bees to win this one.

Helen got sperm within days when there was a Europe wide shortage.

Ian and Adam will of course get an egg for free and then conceive on the 1st attempt . A quick google tells me that eggs are available immediately at a UK clinic for a cost of £7795 for IVF with 6 fresh donor eggs- a couple of thousand cheaper for frozen.

£12,000- £15,000 is a typical price to pay a Uk surrogate for 'expenses'

The magic Ambridge fertility fairy will strike again no doubt.

They're going to have twins, aren't they?

Hasn't been done since David and Shula.

Kenton and Shula. Good thinking, Bore! I believe the tendency to have non-identical twins is hereditary, so Jill could have passed it to David, who obviously doesn't ovulate, and he could have passed it to Pip, who does, and may have produced two fertilisable eggs in one cycle as a consequence.

Yes I agree Lilian about the Lexi SL. I also agree with Gaspode about the agronomist SL.

I don't even mind the Pip's pup SL