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 can’t even remember what Tom’s Nuffield project was

Kefir and/or other fermented foodstuffs. Maybe best forgotten.

It’s not Alice’s strawberry picking machine. It’s a machine designed by an agricultural technology firm for which she works. She will not have invented or designed it single handed and any strategy around testing costs will be a corporate one not one personally devised by her.

Tonight's chat about the christening and Nat's revelations about her communist father and skipping chapel, together with the credit card, were designed to show that Chipolata Boy doesn't know anything about her.

As my Granny used to say

"Marry in haste, repent at leisure"

OTOH Natasha probably has a reasonable measure of Tom - she knows about the jilting (which may be why she didn't allow time for him to bolt?), are there any hidden shallows to him?

At this rate I half expect Natasha to say next “So Johnny, how are you related to Tom then?”. Son of his dead brother... Tom, you never mentioned you had a brother! “

Me too, Jessie!

Natasha isn’t brooking any discussion about her debts, is she? I bet there is more to be discovered there.

The SW are really teasing us getting us to the moment when Jill discovers Rosie’s middle name. Is she going to have a conversation with Leonard about what Toby said and strongly protest “how could Pip ever think I would object to her choice of name for my gorgeous Rosie”, setting herself up for a terrible moment of discovery?

Or even worse, is Pip dismally going to fail to check that Toby has told Jill so that she hears Grace for the first time at the baptism? Bore, you can have your crystal ball back now.. 🔮

And Leonard is going to discover Jill can indeed hold a grudge...

Could Bridge Farm put up the money for the app? Don't they have close to a million in the bank?

There's something I can't bear about Tom's voice. I think it was R4 who said he puts a tw sound at the end of his words.

100% she won’t hear Grace till Alan utters it at the font.

Do David and Ruth know about the middle name? I wonder if the penny will drop before the baptism...

I thought Natasha’s comment:“Pigs are a closed book to me although they do seem to take up a lot of Tom’s time” was fairly disparaging (not so much the comment, but the tone it was said in) Basically dismissing Tom’s entire raison and emphasising once again that she so not a farmer. It won’t end well.

It will be interesting to see Leonard's reaction to Jills stubbornness in relation to the Fairbrothers.

I guess it's a necessary oddity of radio drama in particular that supposedly (more than) normally closely connected families appear abnormal in their very basic failures of communication.

In my own family the exact naming of a child would have prompted a fair few summit meetings before and after birth. Of course the parents decide - but choice and order of names would be offered up for consideration by a slightly wider group.

So I can't imagine a situation in rl where you'd get as far as a christening with actual grandparents and great grandparents not knowing the child's full name.

It won’t end well.

No. I had the distinct impression Natasha would prefer Tom to separate himself, pdq, from the pig business. And what Natasha wants ...

Won't some of the land sale money have gone to pay for the barrister fees for Helen's triel.
Natasha's comment about the pigs was telling.

Agree about the pig comment.

I think that there is still a load of money from the land sale because they were going to build some eco-barn/education centre that got ditched by agreement and am fairly sure that was discussed by them all after Helen got out of prison.

I reckon Toby and Rex's Dad has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and that's why he is pushing for a christening.

Sorry, can't remember his name!

Natasha has a presumptuous way of bulldozing. When discussing godparents, N said, "I couldn't do it because chapel/communist" and I thought, "nobody was asking you!!"

I wondered about that too R4, it seemed beyond crass that Natasha would genuinely think that she might be in the frame for Rosie’s godmother when she has barely exchanged 2 words with Toby and Pip. I decided that it was just a clumsy bit of scriptwriting to shoehorn in the fact that Tom knew nothing about her father or her family’s religion.

If Natasha is such a business big shot ; how come the whole on line plan hasn't been market researched? For all anyone knows the bottom is going to fall out of ANY or ALL markets before and after (the BR. word) is finalised.

And it looks like they took a big business loan out before talking to Pat and Tony. I wonder how much the bank thinks Bridge Farm will be contributing?

Aren't there already online organic suppliers anyway?

I decided that it was just a clumsy bit of scriptwriting to shoehorn in the fact that Tom knew nothing about her father or her family’s religion

That was my take too - not Natasha expecting to be asked but giving us information based on the hypothetical possibility. It was clumsily done.