The Archers #93: The Flower and Produce show - who's going to get their just desserts. Freddie? Ellis? Russ? Pass judgement here.

[DadDadDad]

No, that's not a jokey exaggeration, this is really the 93rd thread in a series started by PseudoBadger five years ago! In fact, post number 90,000 in the "official" count will be made on this thread.

Lovers of The Archers welcome (along with the rest of us who have a more complicated relationship with the "TA" ).

One rule we try to stick to: No mentioning of future episode plotlines published in the Radio Times etc. However, once an episode has aired, say what you like!

What is going to happen to Freddie? And are we ever going to hear from Lily again?
I also am wondering what it will take for Kenton to apologise to Fallon...

LilG at the very least I thought she might be making up or wildly exaggerating all the incidents with Neil because they just don’t ring true. I’m glad Tom pulled her up on that again. Agree with everything Ebearhug said about their relationship although I also think Tom is capable of thinking about whether or not it suits him and acting accordingly. He hasn’t previously sounded interested in a relationship with her at all and doesn’t really now, so now it’s just like his brain can’t quite compute sex out side of and an ongoing exclusive arrangement.

My guess is that the only thinking Tom is doing at the moment re Hannah is with his, er, male 'lower brain', which can't quite believe it's luck.

Long time lurker here. Something very strange happened last week with my Archers podcast. After listening to the previous evenings podcast there was another one dated 2nd Sept so I thought I had somehow missed one. It was actually the episod dated 02/10 and went straight into somewhat of a spoiler. I haven't listened to the full episode but has anyone else had something similar?

Charlie, it's mentioned on the spoilers thread. People, don't look at it if you don't want to know what the spoiler is or might be!

I hope Tom signs up to the karate class, if only to annoy Hannah.

If the dobs on the website are the characters' not the actors' Tom was born on 25/2/1981

25th February is Tom's birthday. It's also John's deathday.

Delurking to say:

• Hannah - what a ridiculous, 2D pantomime villain they've created.

• What was Lizzie thinking?! Or rather - what were the SWs thinking? There is no way on God's earth that she would have done such a stupid thing.

Are the SWs on drugs?

Are the SWs on drugs?

arf. They are partying at LL as we speak.

I don't understand why Lizzie took Freddie home. Doesn't it imply that she thinks he's going to get banged up? Not a good message to send the night before sentencing!

Quater going way back to your post about the writing and Pip, she actually does make sense to me as a character, particularly if you think of the roots of the Archers as an educational programme. The three major things a farmer has to do over the course of the their tenure is to make choices about what sort of farming they will do; to periodically consider whether it’s worth being in the business at all; and to find a way to pass on the farm to the next generation.

All the farming offspring are vehicles for exploring the ways of passing on a family farm; the differences between Brookfield, Home Farm and Bridge Farm and the number and personalities of the children and parents gives lots of scope for that.

Pip is the (fairly typical) oldest child who has, with some blips along the way, fulfilled her part of the bargain as future farmer - she went through that overly helpful stage as a teenager when she insisted on staying up all night lambing when she was still at school; she went to university without much thought about why, which seems to be a major expectation for that family; and she’s committed herself to working at Brookfield (whether her parents want that or not yet). I don’t think it’s any accident that Josh, as the second child, is the one who’s managing to carve his own way by refusing university and doing his own thing.

To me she’s just a fairly average 25 year old who thinks she knows exactly what she wants without really having been open minded enough to find out. She’s just another example of the tension between the next generation with their new ideas and the older generation with their decades of experience, which the younger generation don’t value becasue their own knowledge is based on theory (which is, after all, what they have been sent off to university or agricultural college to come back with). Jonny is an interesting exception to this - he’d rather learn hands on and has, I think, referred to Tony’s wealth of experience and what he can learn from him. He also knows what he doesn’t know, having not grown up on the farm.

I don’t disagree at all with your description of Pip’s role in the story witchmountain - they just haven’t managed to make the character (at least to me) likeable. Or interesting. Which, as ‘the future of Brookfield’, she ought to be.

Because she’s not real enoguh? On reflection I like very few of the characters but I mostly find them interesting because I’m interested in how they will turn out. The ones I’m bored by are the ones who seem to have settled into a ‘type’ and and become two dimensional. Susan comes to mind but then, as someone said on the other thread, every now and again she does something unexpected and it shakes me out of seeing her was only one thing.

So Tom is 37. He’s written as if he’s in his 20s .

So Tom is 37. He’s written as if he’s in his 20s .

I'm curious whether there's liable to be an issue with family firms (even without the particular constraints of farms where there is a cap on how far they can grow the business to support more people/develop careers) of not being fully in charge at the age where you might be in a senior management position in the private sector. Tom might not quite be there yet but Adam still has Brian on his back - and in that case Brian didn't hand over the reins willingly.

Gosh I didn't realise that Tom was that old! And I was thinking along the same lines Errolthedragon.

It must be awful at that age having to wait for your parents' blessing to introduce a new project when you and your sibling are supposedly in charge. Rather infantilising perhaps?

Wrt to standing on one's own two feet and childcare, as previously discussed, by their very nature, farming families tend towards multi-general units living and working together, resulting in the dc never quite being able to cut the umbilical cord.

It's very tricky. I've seen several family businesses fail in rl at the point of transition from parent to child. Either because the parent can't resist sticking their beak in and interfering, or because the child only took the management role over to please the parent, and they don't have sufficient motivation to succeed on their own.

Absolutely that Errol, exacerbated by the fact it’s your parents!

You’re right about the specific limits of farms as well - without the land constraint it could be slightly different. I also think there’s a constraint given the very small numbers of people that farms overall are able to employ - with other businesses the offspring might go and work for another company, in a related business or otherwise, and that would be seen as good experience, but there are few opportunities to go to work on another farm.

It's one of the reasons my father refused to work for his father and went to be a manager on a large estate instead.

This is awful.

Poor boy. Wish they’d hurry up.

And a BOOP for Elizabeth ...

It must be awful not knowing where they've taken him.

Really surprised that Lily didn't come back from Uni to support her brother.

Yes, the "important' tutorial sounded like nonsense so early in the first year and there is very little that can't be rescheduled if necessary.

I’m also surprised she didn’t come back. If she had told Elizabeth what was going on straightaway instead of keeping quiet so Freddie wouldn’t blab about Russ they’d both have been better off.

12 months
that doesn't seem credible to me, can anyone else comment?

and, the reference didn't backfire (disappointing)

Freddie poor sod. Who would be a posh boy in a YOI?

He's going to come aahht as hard as nails.

Shula was actually almost human for a moment there... perhaps she can lend Lizzie a comfortable cardie to snuggle up and cry in.