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.

I wondered why Natasha wasn't around, because she may have had a mortgage broker or some ideas for Emma (hopefully not all credit card related), but oh well - too late now.

I’m sure when Emma refused to retake her GCSEs, at least one teacher would have warned her that it left her vulnerable to ending up exactly where she is now. Yet she still blames people like Alice and Kirsty for the effects of her own choices.

3 times higher and once lower (I think) 3 x higher and 0.5 lower.

Thanks R4.

Emma is muddled in her thinking. On the one hand, she was ranting against the community because they wouldn't help her. But on the other hand, she was saying that she didn't like that Eddie & Clarrie were reliant on Ed&Em's input to afford a roof over their head, and didn't want to repeat that in the next generation.
She seems to be saying that she has a right to help from neighbours but doesn't want to rely on help from family. She has her values all wrong. She is also really bad at choosing men. I hope that she doesn't go back to Will because he is not much better than Ed - he's always been a forelock-tugger, constantly scared of losing his job, with not much aspiration (beyond feeling superior to Ed, which isn't much of a push really).

he's always been a forelock-tugger, constantly scared of losing his job

I'm not sure that is a valid criticism of anyone.

I'm not sure that is a valid criticism of anyone. No. Nor is lack of career ambition.

I'm not sure that is a valid criticism of anyone.
Why not? He has been employed by BL for ages. If he hasn't got security of employment then nobody has. As long as he does a competent job - which he has done, for years - then he has nothing to fear. He was always scared of Brine and now he's scared of Martyn.
Nor is lack of career ambition.
It is in Emma's world.

Susie Riddell who plays Tracy played teenage Kate (89-94).

Do you realise how much that has messed with my mind?!

Aaaahhh I just got a week's trial of starzplay and I'm watching the Spanish princess. Trying to place where I know prince Arthur from and he's bloody josh archer! I couldn't work out why I knew his voice but not his face. Very discombobulating

Emma's mistakes around education are excerbated by class though. Lots of 16 year olds bugger up but if they are protected by middle class parents the results are different. Emma is intelligent and ambitious. Lack of career ambition would not be what I wanted in my partner. They are just mismatched.

@CodenameVillanelle Josh plays the creepy stepson in Fleabag too! So weird!

Ooh really! Thanks

I'm not sure what I think about Ed's intention to split up with Emmur. I was rather taken aback by it tbh. It seems a little too decisive for him, and given his rather casual "live in the moment" attitude to life, he seems to be thinking rather too far ahead to a place where his wife despises him and their relationship can't survive losing the house. I agree with the PPS who say that he was relieved to wriggle out of the responsibility of a mortgage and he is perhaps trying to deflect blame from himself by creating a further crisis. I still prefer him as a character to Emma though who has (perhaps understandably) become bitter and jealous.

Apologies if this has already been discussed, I can't scroll very well on this ancient device, does anyone know please if the Grundys can revert to sharing together again at Grange Farm or will Emmur & Ed be homeless? Has Oliver said anything about the rental agreement?

Thank you to those who have a better memory than me of Emma's GCSE results. I have been listening since before she was was conceived, but my memory was obviously wrong !

As birdsdestiny commented, Emma's mistakes regarding education were compounded by class. It's much easier to guide your child through a system you are familiar with yourself. Neil and Susan wouldn't have had the experience to be able to help Emma.

I've returned from the cricket. On the whole, I thing Ed and Emma was marginally the less depressing of the two.

Emma's mistakes around education are exacerbated by class though. Yes. Except that nowadays either "middle class" has changed its meaning, or a large proportion of the middle class have less ability than previously to help their offspring to recover from their mistakes.

Emma's story is realistic too in that there's less sympathy now for people trying to recover from their mistakes - various politicians are selling the line that poverty is due to "poor choices" as if you should be damned for life for having made poor choices in your teens and early adulthood.

My memory of Emma was of her having a good job in a cafe at one point where she was practically running the place but then something happened (she got pregnant perhaps) and she quit, much to Susan’s dismay.

It doesn’t sit right with me that Ed would leave the mother of his child, I think he’s the sort that would soldier on unhappily, maybe even have an affair or drink heavily out of unhappiness ....but leave Emma? Risk not seeing Kiera? Be in an EVEN WORSE position financially? Nah, I don’t buy it. He’s always loved her desperately ☹️

Emma was just horrible.

I don't care how hard she works, she deserves everything she gets.

I don’t buy it. He’s always loved her desperately
I think that he's just realised that he loves/loved her far more than she loved him. He is way down the pecking order after the DC and a house. He put himself in physical danger (Timotei's associates) and Em hardly even noticed nor cared.

I remember mortgages in the early 80s as 3 x higher salary + 1 x lower - after quite a few years of careful saving with a building society. I don’t remember many single people being able to afford to buy their own home. I also remember mortgage rates of 15% and not having any money to buy anything except the bare essentials to start off with. Lots of borrowing of odd bits of furniture, (some VERY odd!) towels, bedding, crockery and white goods.
It does make me cross to hear people complaining about how hard it is now. Maybe there was a time when things were easier, but it wasn’t when I was starting out, or my parents. Yes, I didn’t pay to go to uni, but only about 10% of young people went.
I am hating TA atm. I just feel so sorry for Ed n Emmur. It’s relentlessly depressing.

We bought our first house, two bedroom in a naice village for 45 000, this was in the nineties. It was a different world.

Another nonsensical episode. So Susan doesn’t know the whole story but goes off to the fete anyway? Ridiculous

Ah yes; the 80s property crash. I was lucky because I had graduated and gone on a 3-year prof qual route (so low salary, jumping up every exam I passed). On the basis of this I needed 10% deposit and could borrow at 7% at 3.5x salary in my early 20's. Then, a year or so on, the rate shot up to 14.5% within a month or two (it felt swift).

The housing market became VERY messy, but that is another tale.

Has Ed thought to shift the illegal chemicals, yet?