The Archers - Freddie is getting OUT: will Russ hop it? Helen is falling DOWN: is Lee still in the frame? Tom is heading UP: will Natasha be the boost his sausage needs? (Thread no. 101

[DadDadDad]

We're still here and still discussing TA (The Archers). We welcome newcomers and old hands, so if you have a question or a point of view, please dive in. No spoilers - if you've seen info on future storylines, there's a separate Radio Addicts thread for that.

I loved all the name changes on the last thread. Don't forget to change back! (If you want to).

Who's going to get Russ out of LL? Freddie? Lily? Elizabeth? Or is it Freddie who will head off?

I would also love Kaz to make an appearance!

Oh dear Tom. Shit is to come. Financial deceit is usually the tip of the iceberg in these types of situations so I wonder what else she’s hiding. I get the feeling Natasha only releases infomration on a 'need to know' basis .

I recall he recently said that they can move into the expensive house because once the app takes off all will be fine. So obviously the app is going to fail and they’ll be saddled with the lease on a property they can’t afford. It’s really quite difficult to believe he is almost 40 years old and supposed to be an experienced businessman. I cringed at the nonsense he spouted to Natasha about her opening him up to a 'whole new world' because she took him to a dinner party hosted by successful entrepreneurs in a smart house. He is behaving like an extremely naïve teenager.

He's an idiot. I love Jazzer. Kaz'n'Jaz.

Financial deceit is usually the tip of the iceberg in these types of situations

Is it financial deceit, or lack of due diligence on Tom's part? They've obviously talked about the Bridge Farm business(es), but we don't know if they've ever discussed personal finances in any depth, and I suspect there have been a lot of assumptions made, particularly on Tom's side. It might be that Natasha just lives on faith that it will work out in the end, and isn't that careful with money, and has been lucky so far.

But also, I am quite biased against Tom currently and have no sympathy for him getting himself into whatever this situation turns out to be, without any real forethought about possible issues ahead. You'd think after the deposit on the house with Kirsty that they lost... Obviously he doesn't learn.

My problem with Shula's renewed enthusiasm for St Stephens is that I've been binge-watching the most recent series of Fleabag. Where is Usha by the way?

Tom is in trouble, isn't he. I ALMOST feel sorry for his naïvety.

I wouldn't necessarily call it deceit, it's just that they were hasty in getting married, without discussing not just bank balances but expectations and attitudes around topics that can ruin a marriage further down the line (money, sex, children, in-laws, household chores etc - all the issues that we see regularly aired elsewhere on MN!).

My problem with Shula's renewed enthusiasm for St Stephens is that I've been binge-watching the most recent series of Fleabag.

Yes, I thought about Fleabag, too, as I caught up TA just after it last night.

The thing is debt can be deceit if you are joining finances with someone else. It will be Toms door as well as Natashas that the baliffs knock on if she has kept secret what she owes and if her spending habits are beyond her means. However I have no sympathy for Tom. Why is he impressed by a nice flat, it's not like he has never been in nice houses, his family owns half the county.

I don't think it was deceit on Natasha's part - worse, she simply thinks that level of debt is entirely normal and was rather mocking Tom for not similarly being in hock. I'm sure her car is on a finance agreement - it may be a necessity for many people but unfortunately it does lead to quite a lot thinking they 'should' or even 'need' a much fancier model than they can sensibly afford.

Surely becoming a vicar would be a demotion for Saint Smugula?

If there is deceit, I suspect it's as much to herself (about what a problem it is,) as to anyone else.

Tom veers from extreme to the other - he pulled out of his wedding to Kirsty, a girl he knew inside out and had been with your years, because he wasn't sure he was making the right decision and now he's rushed into marriage with someone he knows nothing about. I rather like the fact that we the listeners are in the same position as Tom in this relationship - we don't know anything about Natasha either so the SW have free rein. It's the opposite of the Lee and Helen story where we know everything about her past and are waiting and wondering when and how much Lee is going to find out.

Good point Angelina! and the money would not keep Shula in horses and hounds.

Re Shula become a vicar - didn’t she object to the ordination of women a few years ago?

Yes, she boycotted St Stephen's while Janet was the incumbent IIRC.

She absolutely didn't. Janet was her very dear friend, and she worshipped at St Stephens quite happily with Janet in charge there. It was Peggy who refused to set foot in the church while there was a woman vicar and went elsewhere.

Shula stopped going to St Stephens after Usha made it very clear she wasn't welcome, and Alan accused her of blabbing to the press when she hadn't (it was Susan) and Usha called her a racist in front of her pupils at the Stables; then Alan had a statue of I forget if it was Shiva or Ganesh in the vicarage and Shula couldn't stand it any more. She saw it when Alan invited her in because he wanted her to take some services for him over Christmas, I think, so this isn't the first time he has tried to shuffle some work for his six parishes onto her. She came back a few years later after Phil's death because Jill said she felt lonely and begged her to go to church with her.

Ah, right, my mistake.

Was it really not Shula who made it clear Usha was unwelcome as a Vicar's wife? (Not forgetting their previous history of course.)

I was about to ask for clarification on that if anyone has time. I remember there being a rupture, but none of the details.

Forgive me for being ignorant in these matters but how did Tom and Natasha manage to secure a large bank loan to fund a new and untested enterprise of their own? The veg boxes and the shop have always been part of Bridge Farm so surely not Tom's to use as collateral without the blessing of the other family members.

Wouldn't the bank check Natasha's financial position before finalising the loan or is the Archer name all they need?

I agree that Natasha is not being deceitful at all and I don’t think that she willl be deliberately hiding anything. I read this thread before I listened to the credit card debt episode and I fully expected Tom to have discovered the bill by accident/snooping, not for the completely open way that she let him go through her mail and wasn’t remotely bothered that he had opened the bill or defensive about how much it was for. I think the story is more one of mismatched attitudes to money arising out of, as a PP said, lack of due diligence.

I must admit that I don’t think that 8k credit card debt for a woman in her late 30s, who has just paid for her own wedding and who has a business of her own, is really a big deal. (My threshold for a big deal is probably about 12k). And agree with what someone else said about her car probably being leased.

If she’s truly getting 0% maybe not but generally credit cards are an expensive way to borrow money and personally a wedding comes under ‘save for’ rather than ‘get into debt for’ in my books.

She hardly had time to save for it! Yes, credit cards are expensive compared to loan/overdraft but they are not exactly Wonga if you are sensible about them, and can be handy if your income is irregular, as hers may well be. A lot of people pay off much more than the minimum. Anyway all I was saying is that Natasha is not particularly extreme in her attitude to credit.

I'm trying to get my head round what the issue is for Pat on the online shop and to see how its business model will make a profit. If it were part of the Bridge Farm business, Bridge Farm would need to bear the running costs of the website and app, and find a way to pay down the debt incurred in starting it up. If the online business is separate but just passes all of its takings straight back to Bridge Farm then how could it cover its costs - clearly it has to take a commission of some sort from the farm.

But if the debt is tens of thousands, then they are going to need a pretty big turnover if their small percentage is going to pay it off. If they go national, that might happen, but it's a big if!

I suppose that the juice will also be sold via the boxes so they do have at least one product of their own that will bring in proper profit not just commission.

Tony only has a small herd of beef cattle doesn't he?

They will have to find an organic supplier to meet demand.

I think Pat’s antennae are rightly twitching. The supposedly highly successful Natasha (so successful that she doesn’t actually own anything, but has everything on tic) has waltzed into Bridge Farm and is launching her latest enterprise off its back. She’s got an idea for an app which she can only launch and test with the help of the Bridge Farm enterprises and wants to charge them for the privilege. Compare this to Alice’s strawberry picking machine which she’s offering to test for free. And it’s all presented as a done deal. I can’t even remember what Tom’s Nuffield project was - he’s been entirely subsumed by Natasha. I’m looking forward to hearing Johnny’s take on it - he’s the only actual farmer left at Bridge Farm.