As Frilly stress Lizzy out, did the SWs forget her heart defect? Will there be long term llama drama karma in The Archers?

[PseudoBadger]

BOOP stands for Bit Out Of Practice who complained that most of us were very negative. So when we do like something it tends to get described as a BOOP point.

You may be overfinking this Fink - although I’d assume hierarchical like most organisations.

BOOP for Fred and Lily’s banter yesterday - ‘Pie and Slippers club’ and ‘Freshers week in prison’. Lovely to hear.

I know the thread's moved on but:

1. Russ was cooking lamb shanks that fall off the bone - he wouldn't give a flying fuck about a vegan cafe.
2. Organic cotton might have been more believable than Egyptian.
3. Manchester Uni is really popular with public school students.

Sounds like I missed a good episode last night.

To be fair, I'm not a vegan -or even a vegetarian-but I might well use the presence of a vegan restaurant as an indicator that an area was somewhere I might quite like to live......

On the pensions point, witch and Fink, I am sure every drug-lord makes sure that their employees are auto-enrolled in a workplace scheme. Imagine the damage to their brand if they were taken to court by the Pensions Regulator for failure to comply with the regulation.

Also, I am sure it's a useful recruiting tool: "hey kid, you clear this stuff on the streets, I'll cut you 20%, plus you pay 3% into our group pension and we'll match it with a sweet 6%." (The shrewd recruit would probably want to ask about health cover and death-in-service benefits given the violent nature of the work).

Fink, I can't answer your question on how the drug trade works. But on your other point about pension provision and NI, there was an interesting article in the Economist, I think, some time ago, about why most drug dealers still live with their mum, and the inability to launder cash, save for the future, and put your drug revenues into legitimate assets is the reason. You need serious heft as a drug dealer to do those things, and small-fry like Freddie and Ellis aren't in that league. I would have thought a better policing strategy would be to offer immunity to the small-fry for information leading up the chain to the gangsters running the MDMA factories. Will Freddie's conviction reduce the drug trade by one iota? Not on your nelly.

So hoping that Lily rumbles Russ for the ninny he is this week. Can't bear the increasingly wilful acts of self-delusion on her part that will be required to sustain the relationship otherwise. Would be an unnecessarily humiliating storyline to inflict upon her, doncha think?

I sense we are gearing up for a Northumberland style reverse ferret with the Home Farm sale. It's not a sellers market, can't find anything they like, Jenny can't bear the thought of her beloved home being pulled to bits - the impetus has gone. I wonder though if Brian was planning to show Peggy a possible building plot for a new home (knew some people who did this - sold the manor and built on the estate. Sick of the upkeep, but loved the location.) Not the cheap option though so if the sale is to raise funds I'd be surprised if they went down this route.

I love the fact that this thread has elicited two swift replies on pension options and possibilities for drug dealers . Freddie living with his mum for the foreseeable future (prison notwithstanding) would seem to be the perfect arrangement.

To hark back to the discussion about creativity Dadx3 ( I've been listening but my laptop is playing up )

IMO creativity can be very limited, as can imagination, it does depend on the person's mental acuity, confidence and practice.

Ppeatfruit - indeed, and at the extreme end of creativity we have genius, with Edison's 1%inspiration, 99%perspiration ratio.

Yes Errol I do get the feeling that in many instances, society today isn't geared towards encouraging imagination or creativity.

But even there, I think people tend to associate creativity with the inspiration (the flash of some new insight) whereas I would say perspiration is also a part of everyday human creativity (trying things out, repeating and tweaking to produce something that previously didn't exist).

Yes Dad but as I said invention\inspiration doesn't seem to be taught properly in mainstream schools .

Children need to be allowed to do nothing sometimes, not helicptered, or on line continually.

I think Helen's attitude to the influence of on line 'games' is wrong but there needs to be a middle way. Tom was right in suggesting she'd drive Henry to obsess about them.

I assume the point of the Henry story was less about the merits of computer games and more about showing Helen's protective anxiety wanting to shield Henry from violent images given he's seen his mother stab his "father" (she said something to Tom along the lines of "after what he's been through").

I suspect Lillian is right about the reverse on selling Home Farm. I wish they'd explain just once why they can't mortgage it.

She said “he’s seen enough violence in his life”. OK, I know that it was a pretty major incident, but did he see anything else either than the stabbing? If I remember rightly, Rob wasn’t actually physically abusive to Helen, was he, because the whole point was that it was coercive control not DV.

Yes I know Helen explained why she has a 'thing' about shielding Henry from violence and it's understandable, but it's not possible without locking him away from society.

Ds had a little friend whose parents banned him from playing with guns (he used to make pretend guns with sticks) they also smacked him which was quite ironic .

How old is Henry - 6 or 7? I can understand Helen not wanting him to get hooked on violent video games at that age. I didn't particularly want my own son - who has no issues of violence in his background - getting hooked at that age. If he did play stuff on screen (DS - no playstation chez Gish) it was things like animal crossing or football games. I don't think she's being precious, I think it's fairly normal and even if she is being a bit precious then she has more reason than most. It's actually good to see Henry being a bit of handful - after what he went through (seeing his mother stab the man he called daddy and then being expected to live with Knob and Ursula for all that time only to see his mum emerge from prison with a new baby) it would be astonishing if he just picked up from where he left off without so much as a hiccup.

That was quite ironic ppeat!

On the proposed Home Farm removal - can anyone recall any previous ‘Northumberland’ stories - or was this an invention of SOC’s? It’s very unsettling; we can never believe any stated intention towards major upheaval now ...

I agree Helen has reason to be more precious than most and banning Henry from all computer games would probably get the "bit harsh, but your kid, your rules" response from many MNetters. It's more the way she reacted - wasn't her anger out of proportion and demonstrative of an excessive anxiety on the danger? She didn't even pause to find out if Henry had been playing say a football game rather than something violent.

As you say Lilian It's astonishing that he didn't go through a 'disturbed' time straight after it all happened , until he felt secure again. As far as I can remember the SW's didn't make him behave any differently then. It's normal for some 6 to 7 year olds to get a bit stroppy.

Lily and Russ have obviously been taking Waitrose's advice about student storecupboard essentials - world-ai.news/411870/waitrose-is-hilariously-mocked-over-its-list-of-storecupboard-essentials-for-students

Helen's version of 'protecting' Henry is to wrap him in cottonwool and do a three-wise-monkeys-type withdrawal from the world. It would have been better if she had done something more positive like seeking some counselling or therapy for him.
I stick by my Seven Ages of Man theory. Henry is getting towards the age where he wants to be weaned off his mother even if his mother isn't.