Discuss The Archers #107: Beware of the Dragon! Peggy's in her den awaiting bids - who gets the hoard and who gets flamed?

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads and @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. 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 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 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to @MrsGrindah for inspiration for the title of this thread. I was hoping to find a way to combine it with @C8H10N4O2's inspired suggestion of '"The Assumption of the Ambridge Angel' and @chemenger's comment 'I hope she gets kicked in the head by a horse and wakes up an atheist', but it all got a bit too lengthy.

Odds on Joe shuffling off this mortal coil before this thread ends? We've been marking/anticipating his passing for a while now.

Now I feel even sorrier for Emma, her entire world has been destroyed by Ed. I agree with her - Ed shouldn't have told the mortgage lender.

Magnificent episode though!

35ish.
They'll lose their deposit.

Wow. Excellent scriptwriting. I felt sorry for both of them. I think deep down Ed always felt he wasn't enough for her.

When Emma talked about Eddie and Clarrie..

I also feel very sad for Emma who was getting increasingly desperate and didn’t know what had hit her. I found it very emotional to listen to.

That was just amazing. I said before that I don’t see how they can survive this. They both said a lot of things it won’t be easy to forget! Not sure why we needed Eddie and Clarrie with her dreadful crying.

Yes Clarrie wasn't very convincing

If I were Emma - quite a few people would be feeling very afraid right now.

Tim. And Adam.

I can’t understand how she doesn’t think Will is partly to blame.

Ed is right though. Never mind their own relationship - things have changed between them and Ambridge now. Something’s broken.

That was like a proper play. A rural John Osbourne!

Never posted on these threads before although have been an Archers fan for over thirty years....

What an amazing episode. Such good acting from the actors playing Emma and Ed.

Ed is a disgusting coward. How many times did he run away from the issue? Then he leaves her and two children.

He messed it up. Why, if he's so law abiding, did he make that phone call? Because he can't cope and never could. He's a sop and doesn't deserve any sympathy. How many times on MN do we hear about stupid men who sponge and scrounge with a little bit of this and that on the side.

Emma (if I could talk to her)... You've got your deposit, your house, your loans and your jobs. Let him go!

When the going gets tough, Ed gets running. Again.

Ed should have kept his mouth shut to the mortgage company, It is not like he has a track record for honesty and openness. I think he deliberately sabotaged the house purchase because he doesn't want any responsibility.

And as for blaming Emma for wanting to have home of her own. It is funny how nothing is ever his fault.

Yes @ Concerto... the evil of zero hours contracts, disgraceful. Incredible acting tonight ( not Clarrie) Emma is so believable. Hope Ed doesn’t do anything dangerous. ( Is he a looker btw? Sorry)

Ooo harsh Tara! Ed desperately loves Emma and out of a wish to make her happy and under pressure from her got involved in dodgy dealing with Tim. He's seen what the effect of that was and wants to be back on the straight and narrow again. He HAD to make the phone call. They could have been prosecuted for fraud had their mortgage lender found out. He didn't want to start their life in their new home with that hanging over them. The children wouldn't have much security if he was in prison for fraud and dodgy weed killer!

Also my first post on this thread - that was a heartbreaker but so well acted. I tried to talk to OH about it but he just said "I thought Emma was married to Will?"

Came here but Tarara beat me to the gist of my point. A fine time to go straight and get a back bone Ed. Where was all this honesty law abiding schtick a few weeks ago when it actually would have helped them? Agree with PP he didn't want the responsibility, although as a millennial renter myself I am not in any rush to buy in our uncertain financial climate.

What really annoys me about Ed is the chucking away of his marriage and kicking Emma whilst she's down. Perhaps their issues are irreconcilable but don't they owe it to their children to try some therapy.

Also meaned

Emma has been so ghastly but so was Jim. Mental health issues aren't pretty. I hope the village can be more Lynda and less Jill for her. (Loved Neil's reprimands though - it was all hard listening.)

I tried to talk to OH about it but he just said "I thought Emma was married to Will?"

Outstanding.

The exchanges between MeanEd are far more realistic than most of the arch, overly-mannered dialogue that usually takes place in Ambridge.

Ed is loving but weak. Em is her mother's daughter. Tracey is fab.

Don't see how they can get past this.

Holy shit that was brutal

Check out the big moral compass on Ed all of a sudden, grassing himself up to the mortgage company, meanwhile all that dodgy weedkiller’s sat in his shed and Tim O’Plot-Device and his band of one dimensional baddies are all in the wind. Someone (sorry forgot who) in this thread said he’s not arsed about home ownership as he’s perfectly happy living at Grange Farm and i totally agree.

God that was so hard to listen to. And it’s not over yet: Chekhov's illegal weedkiller’s still lurking in the barn, Emma’s burnt a few bridges with pals and employers, both of them sound at absolute rock bottom, idk if i can take any more.

Thinking of all the paintwork in the new house, and the furniture (Keira’s bed!) is coming between me and my salad.

In MN spirit - Ed, red flags?

I know

I’m so so so gutted for Emma, she really has slogged her guts out all her adult life. I was so glad they made the point in the script that it was about what the house represented for her: security, a place in the community, enfranchisement, being a full human, because i am sick of hearing in some quarters (ok facebook) about how Emma is a snooty bitch who wanted to fritter her money away on coffee tables and curtains purely out of up-her-own-arseness. That feeling of being one pay packet away from total disaster is absolutely awful and far too many people can relate to it at the minute.

Ugh ugh ugh i CANNOT with this storyline it’s breaking my heart

That feeling of being one pay packet away from total disaster

That's the point where I think Ed was right. People who have such precarious finances (no savings, barely scraping enough together to get by month by month) really shouldn't be thinking about a large mortgage, or even a mortgage that has been made slightly lower through private loans. They're always one step away from disaster, and if they had managed to exchange contracts today, that wouldn't actually have given them any financial security going forward.

Delurking because wow. Just wow.

(And literally no one IRL has any interest).

I know 😢 but money begets money, mortgages are cheaper than rent and when disaster strikes there’s things you can do, payment protection insurance, you can ask yo go interest only for a while, lenders will generally try and avoid repossessing where they can because it’s not good for them. Whereas in rented you can be chucked out anytime, it’s a horrible way to live. It would be different of there were vast swathes of affordable social housing with security of tenure but that’s not the case for most people renting unfortunately. It was the affordable house or living with joe grundy picking his feet in front of countryfile for the rest of their lives which obvs ed was fine with but that’s no way to live for normal people 😢

I had been more worried about them moving in and losing the house than not moving in at all. That said, the inflated housing market int his country has rewarded people for taking big mortgages. Isn't there also a benefit that homeowners who can't pay their mortgage can receive? I only learnt about it because the government changed it from being a benefit to a loan a couple of years ago and most of recipients of it declined to stay on it (or so it was reported.)

I think it's harsh to say people shouldn't buy a house without having a decent war chest to se them through. Yes that's the ideal but for most young people it's hard enough to get the deposit together and if you don't take the gamble your paying money to someone else your whole life with no security. I never did like Emma but I love what she said about not wanting her children to worry about them. Eddie, Clarrie and Joe would struggle to find a place to rent privately without Will helping them. The system is broken but it's easy to ignore if you have deep enough pockets.

Here's hoping we'e headed for a recession and the house price bubble bursts. One day Emma will realise she's got off lightly and ditched Ed and found a more suitable partner in the process.