Archers thread #114: Bull banished, Bali beaches beckon, bickering bullshitters burgeon

[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 Gavin to stay around, 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 for all thread title suggestions! I've gone with a B theme which with a bit of luck will seem odd and irrelevant by the end of this thread. Here's hoping, anyway.

Haven't caught up with tonight's episode yet, so off to do that shortly.

Vince Cable indeed!

Who is the more 'entitled' - Kate or Pip?

I might have mentioned it before but I hate Pip. Josh has turned out wrong too, let's hope that Ben is a good 'un.

Ben's dug a tunnel out through the cereal cupboard and is hitchhiking his way south to join a French circus troupe.

Nobody will notice he's gone until at least 2028.

how the detective arresting Josh (hurrah and BOOP) could claim that they didn't need a search warrant

The Filth don't need a warrant if the search is in relation to the offence for which the arrest has been made, is of the premises where the suspect is arrested or where he was immediately prior to arrest, and if they have 'reasonable grounds'.

And no, of course this is not open to abuse.

...although it is unlikely that David and Ruth would have known that. I would have expected them to make more of a fuss about it.

But is Josh a wrong’un? It certainly looks bad - he’s known enough to actively avoid whatever’s going on, but ... It seems so random. He doesn’t need to duck and dive to keep afloat surely? And he doesn’t have Freddie’s childhood trauma excuse (though they do both have domineering elder sisters ...)

Tom, Helen, Freddie ... I don’t recall any arrests amongst the younger Aldridges or Bellamys. Kate? (I do vividly remember her being stopped at the boarding gates when she tried to run away with baby Phoebe.) Wasn’t there something with Alice while she was an undergraduate? Was on Ambridge Extra IIRC.

Well, shouldn’t complain - there’s been nothing exciting at Brookfield for about a million years.

brian's pollution conviction?

I suspect Josh has been blinded by ££ and so has cut corners on checking ownerships/serial numbers etc. If he looks he might find out something is stolen, so he doesn't look and gets a bargain.

I think Josh has probably been a bit dismissive of how much due diligence should be required in checking how legitimate equipment sales are, if it is from the real owner. I assume any road registered vehicle with a licence plate, such as tractors and diggers, have a V5, but I don't know what docs would be expected for trailers, ploughs, bailers and so on. I don't know how diligently the average farmer keeps relevant paperwork. (My father's desk had pretty much everything going back to about 1973, but that didn't mean it was accessible...)

I agree that Josh has probably gone with not asking too many questions, because if he's not told about it, it's not his problem. I suspect if he became known for this, then he'd have been offered more great deals on second hand equipment.

At the very best, he's been massively naive. I suspect he has had some idea that some stuff has been sourced in less reputable ways, and has decided to overlook that and not investigate in favour of making money, assuming he wouldn't be found out.

Josh has probably just been careless in a an attempt to add further glow to Pip's halo.
The Vince Casey character is too 2D, the Barn wedding too unbelievable.

Was Lexi just Ilona in disguise? Is Angie really Anna? Is Fiona really Max?

Got it. Vince Capop is Matt in disguise. He'll buy the B@shitAmbridge and rename it the PussCat.

Thank you theThree

Wait until that other jailbird, Radio Carter, hears about Josh's arrest!

When the police turned up.I really wanted Jill or Ruth to pipe up "Oh FFS David, have you been shooting badgers again"!

Does anybody else remember the Ch5 comedy, Suburban Shootout? Ambridge is turning into a bit of a crime underworld.

I can't really remember Alices Adventures in Uniland. I vaguely remember her being unfaithful to Chris...was there a raid for drugs too?

Based solely on my travels round Somerset this week, it must be about time that Adam, Ed and the Dopeys were getting everything ready for lambing.

I recently met someone who has a whole business as a "middle man" getting together Brides who want a rural wedding and Farmers willing to let a field. She makes her money doing all the tough middle bit of site inspections, marquees, caterers etc.
The Brookfield lot should certainly have approached someone like that before going "independent" and wasting money.

The really, really stupid thing about this storyline is that David does know very well what is involved in organising a wedding venue: he did it when he was helping Elizabeth after Nigel's death. He found it massively difficult, and hated dealing with the brides and their mothers and the fact that they required him to get things right for them.

Well remembered Asking. What TA needs is an archivist. You.
They could do with decent scriptwriters too. Where's the intern?

What TA needs is an archivist.

I’m sure I once read that they did have a card index system (and it really was a paper based system) to make sure they got things like this right. They definitely have some new scriptwriters so I assume that either the filing system doesn’t exist any more or they don’t mind inconsistencies. I also wonder what has happened to Graham Wotsit, the agricultural storyline editor. For all we know, warble fly could be totally endemic in Borsetshire now. Even I notice inconsistencies and I am quite a sloppy listener. As AskingQuestionsAlltheTime posted, David spent ages helping Elizabeth after Nigel’s death, as did Kenton when she had depression, so even self obsessed David must be aware of some of the potential pitfalls. I also think it is silly that he would have been so keen on having Vince’s daughter as a potential client, given Vince’s reputation at Borchester Market and the run in they had a few months ago. Still, I am keen on Josh getting arrested as he exploits Rex whom I like.

It puzzles me that they credit the agricultural advisor even when there is nothing agricultural in that day's script.
Maybe he advises that nothing much happens on farms this time of year.

Apart from lambing, foddering, hedging, ploughing...

machine theft is a big problem in farming.

Graham Harvey was better than the current one.

I am surprised that Josh wasn't warned about stolen farm machinery or that he wouldn't have considered it.

Some of my acquaintances think that farming is big business where farmers are minted and inherited it, or that it is like The Darling Buds of May, and that farmers struggling for money could always sell land for house building. One remarks regularly about insane setaside is and that farmers are paid £££ in subsidies to do nothing.
I wonder if they are closet TA listeners.

This is all so true re David and the barn. Letting it out as a venue is one thing. Organising weddings is one of the most all-consuming, people-skills requiring, patience-testing, drop-everything-else-even-if-it's-lambing sort of jobs I can think of. Something you'd have to plunge into whole-heartedly, to make all the relevant connections and gain the essential knowledge - exactly as Elizabeth did over a number of years to reach her current level of competence. So weird.

I suppose dealing in second-hand farm machinery is no different to being a second-hand car dealer and requires the same due diligence. I'd rather got the impression that Josh was phoning up small ads and driving to farms to check out possible purchases. I don't think there is any suggestion he has stolen them himself, more that he might have bought stolen goods and not bothered to make even the most cursory checks.I must say he was making the whole business seem remarkably easy and if he was skipping the paperwork that would explain it. Or are we supposed to think he was being more devious and that his "renovations" involved scratching off chassis numbers and swapping registrations and the like?

He found it massively difficult, and hated dealing with the brides and their mothers and the fact that they required him to get things right for them

Oh I don't for one moment imagine David sees himself as managing difficult people organising one of their most important life events.

That will be for Ruth to sort out, being mere people/woman's stuff. At most he would be swanning aournd as Mine Host whilst people praise his antique barn (which apparently predates any of the archer clan being at Brookfield - its hardly like they were farming the land in Victorian times, let alone before).

Vince’s daughter having her wedding at Brookfield is just the writers being lazy about realism. IMO anyway! Would anyone real actually advertise and try to set up a contract before they’ve had at least the plumbing for the lavs done? It must be really hard for people to visualise how the barn will look after it’s been all done up. They haven’t even got much in the way of photos to show AFAIK.

I envisage Josh walking with a definite swagger. He’s just arrogant enough to fly by the seat of his pants, thinking due diligence doesn’t apply to him. Or he’s been so busy setting up the business that he just hasn’t really got around to checking all the details- not unlike Brian and the chemicals all these years ago. I imagine the police have some evidence that links him to the theft? Or has he been arrested bc they suspect a link but he’s been so evasive they’ve had to take the next step?

The police would have come because not only was one of his diggers used in a cash point theft, but now a trailer that he sold to Rex turns out to have been stolen (and the owner it was taken to spotted it and has reported it).

Oh. Please don’t let this be that story.

Distressed young man. Can’t see a way out ...

I have never liked Ruth.