Ambridge is in the doldrums. When will Pip pop? Does anybody even care? And Anisha’s off, leaving Rex in the (pig) trough? Discuss the Archers here.

[PseudoBadger]

Sorry about the title, nothing particularly inspiring in the storylines currently

No spoilers please, there’s a thread for that.

The entire storyline makes no business sense, economic sense or moral sense.
This is true of so many storylines at the moment.

Tbf, there was also the consideration that selling off that piece of land would leave Adam with smaller, disparate parcels of land to farm, when Home Farm is configured for the large-scale.
As JD pointed out in the photographs scene, the house wasn't much cop when they first moved in. She obviously thinks "I've transformed a house once, I can do it again."
Also the sale of the house will be Capital Gains Tax free.

Kate's stance is in part explained by the last episode, i.e. she simply doesn't believe that her parents will have to sell the house and that it is all a bluff. It may be that she'll think again at the point when they are about to exchange contracts, booking the removal vans and asking her where she plans to live.

With nothing to do and notoriously flakey , she finally sets up a 'health retreat' on some land her parents give her ?

As a shareholder in the farm she is part owner of the farm surely? The land allocated to Spiritual Home was allocated because it was of limited use for anything else (hence I don't understand why it is so desirable to a buyer).

Whilst woo in yurts isn't my thing it is very popular. In the face of a lot of sneering from just about everyone except Jenny and Debbie she did build up a business which was doing quite well (based on comments of various cast members about how busy it was). As part of diversification its no more ridiculous than Adam's strawberries were (remember how scathing Brian was about the fruit?).

She also said for the first time in her life she had built something and her children respected her for it. However the rest of the family just continue to treat it as a hobby to be thrown away at will.

By taking legal advice she is only doing what they all should do.

On paper the logical thing to do is to sell the substantial property asset and downsize, keeping the land for the future. Brian's emotional desire to have a "manorial home" is no more logical than Kate's desire to keep her children's respect. Alice's hectoring of all and sundry as the "Daddy's girl" is massively hypocritical. She has her home and job, she has nothing to lose by screwing over Kate. Perhaps they should sell the holiday cottages instead.

What I hate most in all this storyline is Alice. Alice was an intelligent, hard working, lively girl. The LSWs recently have turned her into spoilt brat with a dubious relationship with alcohol.

The only solution I can think of is that the children raise the capital to buy bits of the farm themselves and then run their respective businesses independently.

However, I can only see this being attractive to Kate and Adam who need land for their businesses. Alice could buy her cottage. Debbie could but into a new partnership arrangement. Provision would still have to be made for Ruari.

But I don't know anything about business!

Although the storyline doesn't make sense in many ways, I am still quite enjoying it. Coming from a family business background, it is realistic in the sense that it is nearly always those who are professionally less able, who have been "carried" by the business for years, for whom others in the partnership bend over backwards, who cause the most problems and are the least flexible!

I meant to add "in times of crisis" to the end of my last post there!

"Alice could buy her cottage"

yy, if she wants to support brine she could always put her money where her mouth is. she and Chris could get a mortgage easily and still be better off than most of their peers.

The land allocated to Spiritual Home was allocated because it was of limited use for anything else (hence I don't understand why it is so desirable to a buyer).

C8, it's the land next to Spiritual Homes that's being sold isn't it?

What I don't understand is, why Kate even wants to keep SH there. She's lost pretty much all of her clients due to the contamination, that sort of taint on the business will hang around long after the clean up is finished, especially with a woo business.

If she's so convinced the house will not be sold, where does she think the money will come from?

I must admit I veer between thinking she's a spoilt little madam who's been given umpteen opportunities to sort her life out, and thinking this is all Brian's fault and why should Spiritual Home suffer? But the point is it's already suffering, so she needs someone impartial to point this out and convince her to move SH lock, stock and barrel.

Something else that occurs to me - who buys Adam's strawberries? Will he find them more difficult to shift this year?

Oh, and I bloody love Debbie.

I thought Kate came over as colossal wanker in this ep; her well-nigh amused disbelief that her parents would actually do the very thing made the best option by her stance.

Oh, and Freddie and Lily being given handouts.

Where do they the fecking ackers????

"get" the ackers.

who buys Adam's strawberries? Will he find them more difficult to shift this year?

Yes - he was complaining about a buyer pulling out not long after the contamination thing started, and he went on about how it's not the same soil and so on.

Thanks ebear

The worst thing about this storyline is it's making me feel sorry for Kate. Bit like the Hellrob storyline did for Helen

Thanks everyone. I'm pleased not to have missed anything and that it is just a slightly bonkers storyline.

I do have another more general question about family partnerships though. (Especially the likes of a Home-farm type set up.) That I have always wondered about.

Why, when all the hard graft to make HF a successful business, has been done by Brine (and JD) with his (their) money. Why has he given all the control away to his children. Leaving him vulnerable to being ousted from his own home ? I presume Adam (and Debbie when she was there) received salaries for work done there.
Why did he legally bestow his business to the children rather than just give, what he wanted to give - as and when the felt like it. ?
I'm assuming it's for IHT reasons but could someone explain?

I think that from a plot development point of view it was to keep Adam and Debbie (for many years) on the farm, otherwise there was no incentive for them to stay. Later it was to prevent everyone from feeling threatened by Ruari, so notionally giving them some 'control'.

Brian's Strong and Stable Leadership.

Echt - Elizabeth offered to pay for Freddie's shark-diving expedition (about £80) and to give the equivalent to Lily. Something shy of £100 apiece to reward your kids for hard work over their exams and to help them have a good summer doesn't seem to me massively over-indulgent. Or did I miss another gift? (Granted, Elizabeth doesn't know about the dealing or the affair with the married teacher, which could conceivably take the gloss off a bit...)

And yes, Jenny was dangling divorce in front of Brian when he wanted to give away some share in the farm to Ruari in order to protect 'her' children's interests. There's been a King Lear plot bubbling for years.

But I still don't think they will move.

Again, many thanks. Although I have listened for decades I do occasionally miss the odd episode and then something bizarre occurs - then, despite knowing how peculiar the sl have been over the years, I still convince myself that it's me , not 'them'. When experience tells me otherwise .. thank you everyone. Back under my rock ...

I thought Lilian [had] owned a property company? Why the wide eyed innocence?

I think it’s pretty unbelievable that they gave Kate, Alice and Ruari active shares in the business in the first place (as opposed to some sort of trust via Brian or something). It was obviously all plotted in advance to lead to this.

Aha! I have wondered for years whether Alistair's business charged Shula's business. Now we know.

Fontofnoknowledge.

As the junior partner in our family business I worked for about 5 years before my parents gave me a small share. It's increased over the years. If they hadn't have done that then I would have got fed up and left.

However I was made a partner in the business, not the land. That's dead easy to separate out in a balance sheet/partnership agreement. But the reason they did that is that they both have lots of friends where the kids were gifted a share of the land after say 10 years of graft in their early 30's. Then divorce/dreams of Australia kick in and suddenly they want there share and the business becomes unviable.

This story line isn't as far fetched as some people thing. Virtually every big posh farmhouse round here has been sold off and the real farmers live in a sensible 4 bed new build. It releases a huge amount of capital and the days of having a Jenny as a farmers
Wife to maintain and upkeep such a thing are becoming a thing of the past.

If it's true to life then Brian will have a discretionary trust for school fees. Effectively ruaridh will be paying a bit of his own school fees.

What makes the whole plot doubly infuriating is that it is following the same unrealistic and unbelievable trajectory as the move to Northumberland with undoubtedly the same result. The contamination was already a bit of a stretch, selling the farmhouse as a solution is just ludicrous. Why would Kate be fighting so hard to keep her easily-movable business next to the contamination site? it makes no sense whatsoever that she would not use this opportunity to relocate to a more spiritually uplifting location and go for a rebrand to banish all the bad karma created by the pollution and the subsequent clear up.

In other news... Bunting! Another loose end tied up.

But it wasn’t tied up though, they said that they had no idea what had happened to it.

I don't think the current plot line is as ludicrous as the Northumberland storyline. In that case the Dopeys obviously had an alternative available, and anyway it was utterly stupid that they decided to leave before any decision had been taken with regard to the road. In this one we have been shown that every other alternative has been considered and proved to be less desirable for a number of reasons. It's also hardly unknown for people in Brine and Jenny's position to downsize once all the family move out.

As for Kate wanting to stay, I assumed that she feels that once the contamination is dealt with, the land will revert to being the site she fell in love with so she doesn't want to move. I agree that her brand is seriously damaged but she is so flaky she may well not work that out.