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.

I like kirsty. She was brave with Helen and Rob, generally she is a good friend. Philip is not right for her. But she has no reason to stay in Ambridge.

I'm glad that Roy finally featured today. He needs to tell his lodger to wind her neck in and be more neighbourly to his DD's grandparents.

Is Phillip ill? Do the symptoms add up to something?

I'm glad that Roy finally featured today. He needs to tell his lodger to wind her neck in and be more neighbourly to his DD's grandparents.

They need to turn down the music coming through the walls all the time. If I'd been trying to talk to Helen with that racket coming through, and it was representative of the general level of music/noise coming through (which Kirsty said was the case) I'd have been banging on the walls as well.

I don't get why Kirsty is the villain here when Brian has polluted the countryside out of sheer greed and we are supposed to feel sorry for him. Kirsty was swimming in the polluted water when it was discovered. Of course she doesn't have the public school charm to gloss over her words.

I know it has to be done, but the start of the episode:

I'm off to see my little sister
Oh, Elizabeth?
How's she getting on with that new manager, what's his name?
Graham.

David did it the last episode when speaking to Josh..your big sister.

Who speaks like this?

It's one of those things that I can usually ignore but it's getting my attention (and goat) at the moment.

Kirsty is ridiculous. Roy and Kirsty will have access to wi-fi at work and they have mobiles.

I’d be pretty hacked off if someone cut my cable. I would be polite about it though.

It's hardly a "disaster". It's a minor inconvenience for a few days and is fixable.

And as someone else posted Kirsty is being rude and nasty to Phoebe's grandparents.

But the noise coming through the wall really wasn't that intrusive. I'm sure if they wanted to depict it as unreasonably loud they could have done so, e.g by having Kirsty and Helen raising their voices to make themselves heard.

Kirsty was outrageously and borderline unbelievablely rude. Who would say those things out loud? Most people would just accept it was an accident and move on with life.

Either PMT or extreme sexual frustration would be my guess

Whatever it is, it's very annoying....

extreme sexual frustration would be my guess - yes this, wasn't she asking Roy if her partner was okay as he is really tired

I can see Brian (and maybe Jennifer) ending up with an ASBO the way they're carrying on....

“Either PMT or extreme sexual frustration would be my guess ”

Yeah because that really turns women into bitches. Can’t think why we ever gave them the vote to be honest.

Surely Kirsty & Roy can just buy some more data for their phones & Jenny & Brian can give them the extra £5 each? Total over reaction.

My neighbours managed to cut through my phone line recently (trimming a tree with a chainsaw). It was bloody annoying as DH and I both work from home and we need fully functioning internet. More than a 'minor inconvenience.' And it took 2 days to get it fixed, only after relentless hassling of BT.

Cutting through the WiFi cable would be incredibly annoying, but how likely is it that Jenny would be up a ladder doing extreme pruning in the garden of a house that is a short-term, stop-gap let? Pottering in the garden, perhaps planting a couple of winter tubs to tart up the place while they are living there, but I don’t believe Jenny would have gone up a ladder like that at Home Farm - she would have got Bert in or some other jobbing gardener. It is yet another unbelievable, out of character event in the name of drama. I’m finding TA increasingly difficult to listen to at the moment - all far too contrived.

“I’m finding TA increasingly difficult to listen to at the moment - all far too contrived.”

Agreed. And surely Shula would have stopped Jennifer going up a ladder that high and done it for her? Shula must be much more physically fit than Jenny, surely?

Also the whole feud with Kirsty thing is totally undermined for me by the fact that she is Roy’s lodger - a man who is effectively Jenny and Brian’s son-in-law and who has a good relationship with them via Phoebe.

Bert, haven't ever suffered from PMT, but have been in a shitty marriage and suffered from sexual frustration - and yes, it did turn me into a bitch, a condition which was cured when I met a lovely and appreciative chap. Not giving up my vote though, just because I blossomed with attention. Arf!

Sorry if that's TMI for this thread, but Kirsty is frustrated, isn't she? not just in her relationship (he's too old! he's too knackered and boring! he's not for the long haul!) but in her job, in her rented house, in this little village where most development and change seems to be for the worst. And so this deterioration of a nice, robustly sensible, principled and fun woman into an increasingly dreary shrew who senses life is passing her by and that she is, largely, emotionally redundant is quite plausible. If depressing.

I'm not a Kirsty fan. She talks the talk but doesn't seem to walk the walk. I'm sure that Lynda has done more for her adopted parish than Kirsty ever has. She is turning into a shrew: she moans about other people but doesn't seem to do anything actively positive. The village's other eco-warriors, Pat and Tone, put their beliefs in to action - rented a farm which they turned organic, then bought the 'means of production' off the Estate.

I was wondering where Brine is going to get the funds to afford A.I. fruit pickers. However much it costs it couldn't be less than paying some students and locals for a few months to pick the strawberries.

Isn't Home Farm going to get the robot for free from Alice's firm as a trial site for new tech, ppeat?

And I guess securing long term productivity gains from capital investment in plant that replaces inefficient human labour is a topical story. Imagine the efficiencies when you don't have to recruit, house, pay and manage (an increasingly doubtfuls supply of) seasonal labour (and you don't have to deal with fallout of a fruit-picker turned surrogate mother of farm owner's offspring).

I really hate the way Alice talks, it always sounds like she's trying to seduce whoever she's talking to. Very weird when it's her father!

And Jenny up that ladder was the aural version of the opening scenes of Casualty!