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.

Well, outside a fairly narrow circle of family and (very) close friends, you wouldn't say anything would you? If someone asked, you'd simply reply "Yes" and say no more. If that person were rude/stupid enough to enquire further (I'm looking at you, Clarrie Grundy) you'd say, "Oh. Why do you ask?" while raising an eyebrow.

Oh God too many details!

Did Jenny buy Adam's magazines too?

I'm Team Alistair because he was so decent to Shula when she wanted to become Hunt master. I think he had a notion then that she wasn't happy, and was trying to address it. At that point a good heart to heart or even counselling might have put their marriage on a better footing.

Oh as you were. For a minute there I thought we were going to have Adam producing the sperm. Boak.

Anyone else feeling a bit queasy about Jenny's fascination with exactly what is happening to her son's sperm?

Does anyone else have a sense of impending doom....... Lexi....if we get that far.....

Brian Has A Plan......

Plot prediction. The papers Brian was looking for were the details of the proxy arrangement to see if Ruraidh is old enough to represent himself and if so how Ruth can be booted out and him be installed as Brian's puppet.

Having had an embryo transfer myself I was listening closely to see how accurate they were about the process. They did not too badly, only clanger was Jennifer talking about “giving it the best chance of transferring”. She meant implanting, the transfer is just putting it into the womb. It really is very very quick and simple, and totally painless. Once it’s in there it is no different to an embryo that has arrived in the womb via the traditional route from the fallopian tubes.

What was conspicuous was that they didn’t mention whether they had other embryos to freeze and use if this one doesn’t take. I don’t know how many eggs you get in a donated batch but it’s usual to fertilise a few (would have happened 5 days previously) and then pick the best embryo to transfer.

I was quite sympathetic to the “that could be our baby” talk. It still blows my mind that I saw my son as an embryo.

only clanger was Jennifer talking about “giving it the best chance of transferring”

It might be a clanger in the sense if public information broadcasting, but not in the sense of interfering mother not getting all the terms quite right. Having said that, I would guess not that many listeners would pick up on it!

Agree that Ruraidh is in the offing. I wonder what his accent will be like now?

Fair point EEbearhug. In fact most people get it wrong the other way round in that they talk about “having the embryo implanted” when in fact the embryo has to implant itself.

Am I the only listener who thought Adam was underwhelmed by the whole thing?

Adam is underwhelmed about everything, although when he was talking to Jennifer it did feel like maybe he’d shifted from his usual ‘lying back and can’t be arsed’ tone.

They’re talking about this like it’s the culmination of years of hoping. Iirc it is only last August that the whole Ian-wanted-a-baby thing kicked off. Even if conceiving the normal way it would be a perfectly normal time to wait.

Ian has wanted a baby for years.

There was a whole storyline years ago jenijena in which a friend of Ian’s was going to have a baby for them and pulled out last minute, he was devastated. Then recently when they were on the rocks Adam asked what would make Ian happy and he admitted that he’d never stopped wanting a baby.

With Brian’s obvious Ruari machinations I am now getting why the storyline was altered to introduce Ian’s infertility and have Adam be bio Dad- a nice juicy plot line in which the interests of Adam’s son are set against those of Brian’s son. Yes, Ian’s bio baby would still have been legally Adam’s once they went through all these formalities but this way it cuts out all the boring paperwork.

Good observation about Adam being the bio dad. I hadn't thought of that.

They’ll probably kill off Ian altogether in a couple of years 😉

I imagine it makes a difference to Jenny as well. Hence all the squealing on the phone. I bet she had hoped to be allowed to come along.

Adam isn’t Brian’s son, though, so there can’t be any long game inheritance complications, can there? Or can there?

Thank you Jessie - for reminding me that other people might be listening to the Adam/Ian/Lexi story with a less jaundiced and impatient ear than I have been.

As for Ruairi ... In my mind’s eye I have been seeing - for months now - an unassuming youth methodically wrapping up his final year projects at one of the nation’s finest drama schools, while nervously folding and unfolding his first month’s TA scripts. He’ll have been told that Ruairi is about to become the hottest property in Ambridge - and that he can expect to play the role for decades - or at least until the next Star Wars iteration ...

I do rather hope he will be the appointed means of dragging Ben out of the cereal cupboard. But even more - I wish the SWs would confound expectations and place him firmly in Jennifer’s camp - refusing to countenance anything that undermines the Archer line at Home Farm.

Yes Bertrand that is right I suppose (think Assam was adopted by Travers-Macy, right?) so it probably doesn’t all stack up from an inheritance perspective but I guess it’s more about Adam feeling the need to ensure a proper financial legacy for his child...again, that would be true even if baby was Ian’s but I feel somehow that they didn’t write in Ian firing blanks for short term plot reasons only.

Gruach

Re inheritance - wasn't it a condition of Jenny's agreement to take Ruairi in and bring him up that Brian had to change his will and make substantial and equitable provision for all the other children? She knew Brian was overcome with his own cleverness at finally fathering a son and that Adam in particular was at risk of being elbowed out of the way for Myson, as he was presciently named on the old BBC Archers messageboards.

Obviously, Brian could go back and change his will at any time without Jennifer's knowledge, but I do hope they don't do that.

Tbh I find Kate, Adam and Alice so insufferable I wouldn't mind if Brine left everything to Ruairi.

Yes ... Jenny did insist on something to protect her children - I don’t know how it ties in with the partnership or how easily Brian can unilaterally change things. (And of course the worry is that the SWs won’t be on top of it all.)

I like the Home Farm offspring as characters. I feel that over time the SWs have worked hard on making them sound like faaaaaaaaaaamly. The three sisters together are utterly awesome, though we rarely get to hear them all together. It’s a strand I’d like to see developed going forward. (Sorry!)

So it would be amazing if Ruairi could be one of them - and not the enemy. But I know that’s too much to hope for.