#102: Fatted calf is off the menu - will the Easter Bunny save Lower Loxley's bacon, or will there be egg on Russ's face? Will Tom's sausage business get the chop? Join us here to discuss The Archers!

[GabrielleNelson]

Thanks due to @PseudoBadger for kicking off 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. Thanks also to all those who contributed to the thread title, principally Dumdedumdedum and MikeUniformMike on this occasion.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd like to be Susan's best friend or other odd unusual views.

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 this thread, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

So, to business: will Helen's new cheese be a success? Will Kate succeed in keeping her visiting Brummies under control? Will Pip, Toby, Tom and Natasha fall into the slurry pit, leaving Rosie to be brought up by Anthony Head Robin Fairbrother? Will we ever hear Lee again, and will he casually drop in a mention of his fine collection of framed Bruce Lee posters?

I don’t know Bertrand. I am waiting for her to suggest selling another tranche of land to Justin Elliot for housing.

Tom is the perfect example of the man who has had everything gifted to him on a plate - good education, supportive family, automatic senior role in the family business - but has never done anything to merit that. He feels himself infinitely superior to Jazzer, and fails to realise that the difference in their circumstances is all a result of life chances not ability or hard work.

I doubt whether he would have been promoted from the ranks if he had been working at McDonalds. He has no people skills, no resilience and would have expected someone lower down the pecking order to wipe the tables and pick up the trash.

Popping out from under my lurking stone- hello! Maybe this has come up before but I'm convinced that Jakob will be the first autistic character on The Archers. I hope so. I have an autistic teenager and welcome greater representation of autistic people (if done properly of course!). He seems diligent, careful, literal, and socially awkward- a bit like my lovely son! I loved the 'but I didn't want a cup of tea'. Exactly what my son would say!

mamie - yes I thought that when I heard that phrase too. But then we he said he wouldn’t join the cricket team as he wasn’t ‘clinically insane’ that sounded wrong to me.

I’m finally getting round to reading Sunday’s paper & spotted an article titled ‘Archers ghost to woo older listeners to BBC Sounds app’. A new attempt at Ambridge Extra?

That didn't sound odd to me taswama. Do you mean as a turn of phrase?

LizziesTwin how interesting! It looks more like a discussion podcast. I wonder if they will try to co-opt the DumdeDum people? I find their podcast quite entertaining but too long and in real need of professional editing. Graham Seed must be getting offered a lot if he is prepared to host a programme discussing the one that he was fired from so ignominiously.

“But then we he said he wouldn’t join the cricket team as he wasn’t ‘clinically insane’ that sounded wrong to me.”

Did it? I thought it was a turn of phrase anyone would use- “Fancy joining the cricket team.?” “No- because the last time I looked I wasn’t clinically insane” First glimpse of humour i’ve seen from him.

If he is the first autistic character, in real life, wouldn’t his boss have given Alasdair a heads-up about it? So he didn’t put his foot in it?

“I wonder if they will try to co-opt the DumdeDum people? I find their podcast quite entertaining but too long and in real need of professional editing”

Oh, I do hope not- I,love a DumdeRamble!

bertrandrussell I think it's up to people themselves whether or not they wish to disclose that info. Some might disclose it up front, others after they know people a bit better. And of course plenty of autistic adults don't know they're autistic, and only get a diagnosis much later.

@MullofKintire - perfect summary of Tom's character. I dislike him more than I dislike Pip because at least she is a grafter.

I'd have more faith in the pig storyline if there's been even a smidgen of a mention of Tom approaching the issue commercially. I think the whole point is that he has not approached it commercially. Natasha doesn't like the pigs - or Tom spending any time farming at all come to that - she saw her chance when she witnessed him criticising Jazzer for over-feeding them and capitalised on his complaining about how much time they take up. Tom will basically do anything to avoid upsetting Natasha. He doesn't challenge her on anything - I think this is partly because he is already married to her and he doesn't want there to be a bad atmosphere. She's got him treading on eggshells after any falling out. I have no idea what her plan is or what she is expecting, but I think the SW plan is for her to encourage force him to withdraw more and more from the farm while Johnny puts down deeper and deeper roots there - looking after the Monties, getting closer to Helen as they bond over the milk and new cheese until Tom suddenly wakes up one day and finds his role in the farm has dwindled away. Natasha's values are based on money and what it can buy (rather than how it is earned), a nice house, a fast car - no doubt an expensive holiday will be the next thing to go on the credit card - and she thinks others can be won round or kept sweet with expensive gifts. She has totally misread the Bridge farm vibe - recycling old furniture (actually I though the bookshelf offer was worthy of an AIBU MN mil thread) or the Bridge Farm Christmases which are all about putting the tree up together on Christmas Eve in the least commercial celebration imaginable. It won't end well, but Tom is still to infatuated for it to end quickly.

Autistic would make sense, though it's clunkily done if so.

Yes I think it's really clunky. The children's programme the dumping ground managed it much more successfully.

Yes clunky is probably a bit true too. Social awkwardness is the 'go to' for signalling autism, but I don't think it's being done badly so far.

“I think it's up to people themselves whether or not they wish to disclose that info. Some might disclose it up front, others after they know people a bit better. ”

Yes, I agree. But nothing about what’s his name from BigVet suggests he is even remotely concerned with HR or the proper way to do things. He would have said something like “Jakob’s a bit of an odd ball, but he’s good with horses” .Or something even less tactful “You know Me Spock? Well, that’s Jakob”.....

Unless, Vet Boss's plan was to set Alistair up to fall out with Jakob, then make it look like it's Alistair's fault and nudge him off to retirement.

(Grammar geek tangent: I love the way all those different prepositions have jobs to do in the sentence I've just written )

Did it? I thought it was a turn of phrase anyone would use- “Fancy joining the cricket team.?” “No- because the last time I looked I wasn’t clinically insane” What about someone who takes a very fact-based literal view of the world? The implication is that you need to be clinically insane to play cricket, or at least that Jakob with his level of sporting prowess would need to be clinically insane. It's a poetical rhetorical phrase, not a fact-based literal phrase when used in that context. I don't really know. I've always struggled with understanding the unspoken message behind what anyone says ("must you go?", "another time, perhaps?"), but have no experience with autism.

I don’t like Tom and can't feel sorry for him at all but I do think if Natasha was the man in this marriage she would be described as abusive. Her rant at the end of yesterday’s episode was quite unsettling: claiming that Tom was siding with his family and friends against her, berating him for ‘not noticing’ Susan’s alleged nasty look, the Jekyll and Hyde switch from sweetness and light (“look at this lovely present I bought your sister”) to rage was very unpleasant. Tom sounded utterly bewildered by it all.

I queried that phrase, but my DS will use stock phrases he has heard, just not always in the right context.

Eastie - judging from AIBU that was just typical female behaviour.

It won't end well, but Tom is still too infatuated for it to end quickly.

Beautifully put!

It is a joy to listen to because Tom absolutely deserves this.

Much as I loathe Natasha, Tom so deserves every little drop of misery she's going to give him.

I think that Natasha's overwhelming characteristic is that she needs approval. She tries to get it by giving expensive presents, and by displaying signs of success by being expensively dressed. We don't know what happened to her previous relationship; she told Tom that she ended it, but she may have been keen to be seen in a successful relationship ASAP.

She cannot take criticism; she immediately tries to deflect , change the subject, or shift the blame.

But surely they are not going to have both siblings having being through an abusive relationship. That would be weird. Or is the time when Pat will be the one who notices it and everyone ignores her.