Movin' on up (Ed and Emmur), Movin' on out (Brian and Jenny), Time to break free (Lily from Russ, we hope), Nothing can stop *The Archers* in 2019 - Thread 97 (Joe Grundy’s age!)

[Bittermints]

Many thanks to @LilianGish for the title and to @NotdeadyetBOING for being the last threadstarter. Further thanks due to @PseudoBadger for kicking of this long, long series of Archers threads and to @DadDadDad for being our resident statistician and keeping the ball rolling when Pseudo stepped back a bit.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

I wonder where Brian and Jennifer will end up. I was very taken with the idea on the last thread that the mysterious Gills won't last very long and the house will be sold back to the Aldridges at a knockdown price.

Sorry got carried away reminiscing there.

What I want to say was that maybe for men of Brian and Justin's age having a cigar (after a meal/at a party) even if you are non-smoker is quite normal thing whereas for someone in Adam's generation it's not? (Think I'm around Adam's age and it certainly wouldn't happen in my circle of friends).

When I was growing up in the 1970s adverts for cigars on TV (like Hamlet cigars) were quite usual and so I don't think it's particularly 'posh'.

Yeuch stinky cigars. Not posh at all. Except those very expensive Havana type ones I suppose.

Just listened to last night's episode. GOD Pip is awful to Josh! And more embarrassingly over effusive praise of her ordering some bloody feed by the Dopeys. What a strange dynamic that family has.

Pip is vile. Tom's a twat.

It's particularly ridiculous that Pip remains the Wunderkind over the feed business when her immediate reaction was "What's the problem, we can turn the cows out into the fields next month." Even I, a townie born and bred, can work out that there is no guarantee that the weather will be OK in February, especially after last year.

Well the grass is growing here, couldn't they put the cows out now and take them in if the weather gets bad? The invisible cows

I think you are forgetting the Ambridge micro-climate.

Does anyone like Pip, or at least not hate her?

There are definitely own out in the fields around here. Borsetshireish area.

Cows that is pfft

Nobody likes Pip. Her parents, grandmother and Toby adore her and think that she is the goddess of agriculture and madonna rolled into one. Rex also loves her but he's a bit dim.
Other relatives tolerate her, although I don't understand why Joshnben haven't strangles her.
She has no friends other than imaginary yooni and yfc ones.

She has no friends other than imaginary yooni and yfc ones.
Also Lily. Wasn't there a strange bit last year where Lily was giving love advice to Pip (while she was living with them and before Russ) despite being a generation younger?

I think the question is not whether any of the characters like Pip. They seem to, inexplicably. It's whether any listeners like her. I guess the best I can say is that I don't dislike her as vehemently as most people on here seem to. She's bearable.

Poor Pipster. I think it would be very easy to become like Pip, if brought up the way she has been, in that family.

Pip is self-assured, competent and a hard-worker. She's mildly boorish-while-well-intentioned because she's her father's daughter and Jill's GD. She throws her weight around with her siblings because her parents have always let her, so that's her normal.

In some ways, someone like Pip (If you can detach the personality from the circumstances) illustrates the reality of female equality - she doesn't have to bother about being nice, smiley, thoughtful, a social enabler and smoother-over, any more than do David or her brothers (though, like David, she will grow up to find this is necessary, albeit in a clumpy way, within families). As a result, no-one would describe her as sweet, charming or delightful. I'm going to try thinking of her as a boy (still a PFB) for a bit and see if that helps.

I had a posh teacher ... and she always said that men should not smoke cigarettes, but pipes or cigars. I had an pretentious drama and English teacher who "confided" to us that she was very partial to a cheroot. Another example of a non-smoker who would nevertheless smoke a cigar.

She's self-assured, but isn't that hard-working and not completely competent. Her parents treatment of her is not fair- they treat her quite differently to how they treat Joshnben. Pip wasn't locked in the cereal cupboard for years.
I find how David and Ruth treat Pip quite different to how farming families treat their children. In most of the farming families i know, it is usually the son who is encouraged to take over the family business. At best, they treat the children equally. David and Ruth seem to treat Pip better than Joshnben and don't intervene when Pip is being a cow.

Don't most of the teenagers in TA find themselves in the cereal cupboard awhile (or restricted to the medium of mime) in the awkward hiatus between child actor and casting someone who can carry the part into adulthood?

There are cows in some of the fields hereabouts (Lancashire) but I think its only the hardier types - belties, highland, some old longhorn breeds - not dairy cows.

The grass is growing nicely here in Borsetshire.
Ruairi was in the cellar for a long time and lost the Dublin accent he picked up living in germany by the time he came out. Kristiffur was upstairs in the airing cupboard until he was 16.
Henwee is played by a robot so we heard him before, during and after the Bloody Hell Cottage saga.

I think you make a very good point Lottie - like Hilary Clinton and now Elizabeth Warren, Pip is not seen as likeable as she doesn’t conform to the expectations of her gender.

I thought Freddie was 3 hours' drive away. How did Shula leave at first light and come back in time for karate?

Karate starts late afternoon/early evening. So leave at seven-ish. Back on road late lunch-ish. Back in Ambridge by 4.30-4.45pm.

Now Elizabeth Warren, Pip is not seen as likeable as she doesn’t conform to the expectations of her gender

At least Pip hasn't lied about being a member of a minority group.

BTW until recently Adam did smoke didn't he? I have a memory of him having a crafty cigarette. But I suppose he's given up now he's hoping to become a Dad.

I think it was/is Ian who smoked, not Adam. Ian was often found chatting on the back steps of the GG kitchen when he stepped out for a fag.

One thing I can't understand with apologies for being rubbish at names, why can't the (family that have just had to move out of the spacious farm and into the small cottage) move into the large house that has been vacated by the lady who fell over Hilda the cat? Surely it's lying empty at the moment or have I missed something?

Why can't the (family that have just had to move out of the spacious farm and into the small cottage) (the Aldridges) move into the large house that has been vacated by the lady who fell over Hilda the cat?

Because it isn't a large house and it isn't hers. Christine lived with Peggy Archer (her sister in law) at Peggy's house - The Lodge.

However - it's actually not inconceivable that the Aldridges (Brian and Jennifer) might end up at The Lodge anyway. Peggy (Jennifer's mother) could well decide to move out. And eventually she'll pass on to a better place. At the moment it's hard to see which way the new-ish editor will jump.

I can't work out where the downsizing Aldridges story is going. I'd almost forgotten the reason they sold up in the first place as so little mention has been made of the land contamination clear-up and Brian's impending court case and I don't find it realistic that the mystery purchasers still remain just that. I don't believe that when they are living in the farmhouse in the middle of the farm the Aldridges wouldn't have taken the trouble to find out a bit around them and go round and introduce themselves. I'm sure we can all concoct reasons why that might not have happened, but knowing what we know about the family it doesn't ring true. The idea that they can somehow hideaway and not see them is just silly - fair enough if they'd moved to Northumberland for instance, but no when they are still right there on the spot. It's faintly entertaining to see Jenny rearranging her surplus tagines and food mixers, but, as we know they have unlimited free storage in nearby barns and outbuildings, less interesting than if they had been forced to genuinely downsize and get rid of all their stuff. Kate's return and implied eviction might be quite interesting, but there has been no hint of that - she is effectively in the cereal cupboard of South Africa along with Spiritual Home.