Brian is over a barrel, Alice has drained the barrel and Shula has given it to Alistair with both barrels - The Archers is not exactly a barrel of laughs at the moment.

[PseudoBadger]

Thanks to @LillianGish for the thread title.

Has Jim been on Mumsnet threads - "get your ducks in a row'? Not sure I agree that Shula is quite so strategic and manipulative, but I doubt she'd be above taking advantage of a perception, however erroneously held, that was favourable to her.

Alice has definitely shagged a colleague, hasn't she? If it's a drunken one-off, she should go to her grave with that secret. Silly woman.

Hurray for Jazzer!

Can't wait for StSmugula to receive divorce papers from Alistair!

Julia was Joan. I'm surprised that Welsh Pat hasn't noticed that her new friend is called Wheel, and more surprised that she brought her home. We have had a homeless SL before.

Helen moved Henry into a stranger's house and look where that ended.

It is unlikely Nigel or Freddy inherited Lower Loxley outright. It is more likely it is held in a discretionary trust

Yes but could it state eldest son as main beneficiary and manager or would that be illegal these days? Although it would stop a family having an internal agreement presumably that the main heir is selected as eldest son.

When Nigel died all the dealings with the trustees seemed to talk about Freddy's inheritance but presumably that is just colloquial terminology?

Can't wait for StSmugula to receive divorce papers from Alistair!

Me too. Telling people its a mutual decision was a shitty thing to do, not to mention an outright lie from the living saint.

Jim seemed to have changed sides which is probably a good thing - no one else would have had that conversation with Alastair.

Does Usha do divorce work? Or would she have to declare a conflict of interest as she hates Smugula!

Shula is obviously saying it’s a mutual decision so that she looks better, and can imply that she wouldn’t be contemplating breaking her marriage vows but for Alastair's alleged wish to split up. She’s such a hypocrite.

They're all very forward at speaking to Alistair about the split. In this village people would speak about the price of butter, calving, the weather everything but the details of who left and what have you. At least to the parties concerned of course. Seems very unbritish to me to be doing all this commiserating.

Usha was Shula's first husbands partner at the law firm. Not sure if Shula would want her to represent her. It would piss her off massively if Usha represented Alistair.

Soooo.... lets ask ourselves The Big Question... are you “ Team Shula “‘or “ Team Alastair “ ?!!! I’m the latter...

Surely not many for Shula on here!!

Yes but could it state eldest son as main beneficiary and manager or would that be illegal these days?

No, it's not illegal. When they changed the rules on who''s in line to the throne, a lot of titled women were miffed it only counts for royal titles, and there's a campaign group called the Hares fighting it, because they argue they do all this work to maintain family estates, and get bog all out of it when their parents die. It's more about titles, but then a lot of landed estates are still tied to titles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_(Titles)_Bill

There are also some newspaper articles about it, but searching on "hares" gets you very little relevant stuff. "Women inherited titles" is a better search term. (Copying/pasting links from my mobile is a pain.)

It wouldn't be a discretionary trust if it name Freddy as beneficiary. Being in a discretionary trust leaves it to the decision of the trustees of who gets capital and income and when and importantly the property is not in the beneficiaries' estate for IHT or satisfaction of debts or settlements due to unsuitable spouses- which I suspect in Freddie's case the latter 2 might be important in the future.

This will of course not stop the script writers settling on the most financially imprudent and least tax efficient structure so that Freddie can lose Lower Loxley.

Inheriting a title is not the same as inheriting land. I'm not 100% sure re English law but Scots law has no concept of primogeniture for land. Land can be left to anyone you want and in the absence of a will sons and daughters share equally. As far as I am aware that is the same in England.

They really are gearing up for Olwyn to be the archetypal 'man hating feminist', aren't they? Tom's comment about her seeming to hate him for no reason made that clear enough last night. Lazy, sexist stereotyping. Grrrr.

Olwyn hates Tom because she’s seen the books in his bedroom - she doesn’t so much hate men as hate the idea of making money. Wait until she finds out where the money came from for the cheese school.

This webpage explains about Entails and is readable unlike the Wikipaedia page. However I'm not sure how much still applies today.

It does seem that we need to know the terms of Nigel and his Father's will. In fact I think it is Nigel's father's Will which is the key one. Because back when his father died and he inherited Lower Loxley (possibly before he and Elizabeth were actually married even), I remember conversations between him and Elizabeth about the Estate being entailed.
So I suspect Nigel's Father left the estate to "The eldest son of my son Nigel (with or without provision to go to a daughter if there were no sons), but for the use of my son Nigel during his lifetime". (Roughly).
So although Nigel may have left things equally, he didn't have a choice over the land, change can only be made for Freddie and his children (who could inherit without the restriction).

Actually you're quite right, Lilian. Had forgotten her spotting the books. Let's hope they aren't going down the full-on caricature route....

Team Alistair. Obviously. Although I'm not sure how Alistair serving Shula with divorce petition will undermine Shula's narrative. Won't it rather get her off the hook - she gets her divorce, but doesn't have to be the 'injuring party' by initiating it? Ugh, she's so duplicitous and self-deceiving. No wonder she's never bloody happy. Is her plan just to let the whole miserable business drag on and then get a divorce based on length of separation d'ye think?

No - Alastair by initiating the divorce would have to have grounds of "unreasonable behaviour" on Shula to get the divorce without a 2 or 5 year wait. So Shula will be labeled as the "unreasonable" one.

I assume Shula intends to rely ultimately on the two years' separation rule, though that would require Alastair's consent. However, given the way she keeps hankering after other men, she may yet give him grounds for divorce based on adultery.

It’s baffling that Shula won’t even talk about their intertwined businesses.

I don't think it is necessarily unreasonable of Shula to tell people it is mutual consent. If she said it was her choice, wouldn't everyone assume Alistair had been having an affair or something similar? So by saying it is mutual she stops speculation and probing. e.g. She could easily have told her Mum about the gambling, but chose not to.

I've always assumed LL is entailed to the closest male relative like in Pride and Prejudice and Downton Abbey.

Yes, I think “mutual” is the most sensible thing for Shula to say. Otherwise she’d be having to go into massive detail every time.....