The Archers #109: Pulp Fiction! Hammer Horror (Tracy), Carry On (Brian & Neil), Call the Midwife (Adam, Ian, Lexi) - but no political thrillers, Ambridge remains Brexit-free. Nitpick here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

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. grin

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 Bucking Frolics and LillianGish for the title ideas, which I had to edit down a bit to get under the character limit.

I wonder if Lily will have gone back to Manchester by the time we've filled this thread.

I'm stunned that they won having not secured even a postage stamp of land. Utterly ridiculous of Pip to assume she could just help herself to bits of Brookfield.

It's particularly ridiculous given the legalities around the ownership of Brookfield. If David and Ruth start giving bits away, are Kenton and Elizabeth entitled to require them to sell or lease them at full market value? There must be some sort of safeguard for their interests in the original agreement.

Last night's episode was great. Pip is even denser than I imagined possible.

Ben better get his UCAS form in to an agricultural college pronto!

I have disliked Ruth since she made her appearance 30 ish years ago. I never ever thought that I would be cheering her on against the even more appalling Pip.
I also seem to remember Debbie messing about with beetle banks and hedgerows at about the same time as OldPip was up to her food miles shenanigans.

BOOP for Ruth - even if if the ruck was entirely predictable (this is partly what this storyline is for surely?) I wonder where the land might come from - what could Phoebe’s idea be? Is it possible that she will persuade Brian to hand over some of the contaminated land (which presumably can’t be farmed) and thus he will salvage his reputation and we might even see some beavers in the Am (though as I’ve already had to remind myself on a previous thread - we won’t actually see the beavers so no point getting too excited about that )?

Did anyone think that the fundraiser signifies a future storline? The cause/charity seemed to get a lot of airtime. I know they needed an excuse to get everyone in the same room but it still seemed odd.

Did anyone think that the fundraiser signifies a future storline?
Definitely.

I'm still amazed that viability, i.e projected costs, etc. wasn't part of the criteria for awarding the money in the first place. Silly me, all is subservient to sustaining bonkers plot lines.

Why bother about viability when you have enthusiasm and vision? £500k of it apparently.

Why were the Rewilding Three bleating on about having no money to negotiate the land purchase? How do they think that people who buy houses with mortgages negotiate their purchases? They don’t need the money in the bank up front!

It won't take them long to exhaust all the options:

• Grange Farm (too small?)
• Bridge Farm ( unlikely)
• Brookfield (?)
• Home Farm (can't see Adam and Debbie allowing this)
• Country Park?
• Golf Course (Justin's bar bills must have made it loss-making by now)

Stupid stupid charitable trust storyline

Justin hasn't been heard from in ages.

Surely after the zillions Brian had to shell out decontanimating the polluted land it's farmable now?

I wonder what happens if they can't come up with a viable plan by the end of the month? Does the prize revert to the next one on the list? That could be a fascinating storyline.

I would so like all a large number of golf courses to be rewilded in RL.

It's so crap atm that I don't feel the characters who aren't featuring are even carrying on their lives off in the background. It feels like they don't even exist.

Given we are now into September and most universities will shortly be starting the new academic year and must by now have dealt with the outgoing students and given how prominent Pheobe has been in recent story lines have the SWs actually forgotten she has just completed her degree?

No-one has mentioned it.

They don’t need the money in the bank up front!

They do need a hefty deposit though, as does renting.

The way they seem to be floundering everytime Peggy asks a pertinent question, it sounds like they haven't considered the most basic of things. I'm also wondering if they lose the prize to the next on the list. Maybe that will be Brookfield. It would certainly add something to the conflict between Ruth and Pip, especially if Pip expects to just jump right in with the role that was originally planned, Pip being "front and centre" as Ruth said. I can't imagine Ruth would allow that now.

They do need a hefty deposit though, as does renting

Yes and also if they are publicising a scheme, doing presentations etc they will need a publishing/marketing budget for materials, communications and rental of space if they want to do public presentations.

Peggy must know this as the resident entrepeneur in chief and I was surprised one of them didn't pipe up to ask for seed money for that part of the plan.

I would have paid good money to see the Pip Consortium presentation bid. Bet anything it would have been a PowerPoint presentation with pictures lifted from the internet, an embedded homemade video, and inspirational memes in a pretty font.

Have they set up a website yet, or are they going to make do with Facebook and an instagram account?

Any deposits would come from the fund- they’re just being asked to show that they have got in-principle commitment from landowners. As for marketing materials, won’t they have most of that from their presentation to the fund already? And it has to be local so there won’t be that many potential landowners who weren’t already involved in or aware of the competition. That said, it would have been very easy for them to say “can we have a few hundred quid to make a brochure?” instead of just nodding and then whining after Peggy had gone.

The whole idea of Peggy being the one to communicate the Ts and Cs to them is ludicrous.

Just listening to the meeting. Give me strength!!!!!!!!

All this should have come out at the pitch and land acquiring, with no money, by Christmas, what a stupid storyline

Another disgruntled listener here. It's totally unrealistic that the nuts and bolts of how any of the shortlisted projects would work, wouldn't have been discussed. Especially given that Team ReWilding failed to answer some very obvious questions in their presentation. For that type of money there is no way there wouldn't have been rigorous checks of the plans and facts and figures going through with a fine toothed comb.

Where is mystic bore? What are the chances of Pip getting hold of some of Brookfield for this?

Given the number of MP resignations and de-selections this week, I reckon the scriptwriters should quickly create an alternative plot that sees Oxford PPE graduate stand as a prospective MP for Felpersham.

This is more credible than the "Novices Rewilding the Village Green and verges" storyline.

TheSilveryPussycat
I would so like a large number of golf courses to be rewilded in RL.

Oh, me too! And even more, grouse moors: if the one "upstream" of Hebden Bridge were allowed to revert to its proper state, there woud be a lot less flooding there.

I had a thought about the land Pip and co might be able to get hold of: does anyone else remember the farm that got out of dairy back at the end of 2015? Ron and Vera Meddler of Bank Farm, it was. Maybe Bank Farm is going to be sold.

Sorry; I forgot the link: britishbirds.co.uk/article/does-grouse-moor-management-cause-flooding/ and there are lots of other stories about this if you put "hebden bridge flooding grouse" into a search engine.