Archers thread #116: Pandemic fears, markets crash but it's BOOM 💥 time for Ambridge. Discuss The Archers 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 employ Philip Moss & Son to fix your soil pipe, 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! (New thread likely to be replacing that one very soon, in the current circumstances.)

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 @SurpriseSparDay for the thread title idea, which I tweaked, and @springydaff for the 💥 emoticon, which I hope is in the title! (Can't preview the title). Welcome, lurkers and lapsed listeners, drawn out of the shadows by the current crisis in Ambridge. In the OP of the last thread I said I didn't think we'd get to Easter on that thread. We certainly didn't!

I am very worried indeed about Lynda and concerned about Oliver too. Don't care about Gavin unless it means Kirsty is cheated out of yet another wedding. Freddie's redemption is now assured, though, surely? Roll on the return of the Lower Loxley crew.

I'll never forgive the SW for killing Kirsty's baby. Can't help thinking she'd have been a lovely mum and it would have made a much more interesting SL to have her co-parent with Tom rather than the borefest that is Pip & Toby.

TASWAMA

When Tony was gored by a bull (or whatever) he wasn't left with possible facial disfigurement like Lynda. I hope the Ambridge Health Fairy works her magic again.

Best possible story would be for her to be pregnant now and to deliver at the point when Philip disappears for good.

Farming Today has just mentioned a woman running three small businesses from a farm: sausages, jam and gin. She’s pretty much Ambridge compressed into one body.

(And maybe a MN-er?)

Also, I thought her and Phillip had a disagreement over whether to have children or not that they then forgot about when he proposed?

I'm very disappointed with this turn of events. Philip may have been dull, but he seemed like a decent man. Poor Kirsty.

Poor Kirsty. She's going to lose everything, including the house.
I wonder if EdnEmmur will finally get some good luck around the time that Kirsty gets her house seized by the crown in a nasty flip of the storyline where Kirsty got her starter home with marble surfaces and Emma got squat.

I feel a bit sorry for the SWs. They obviously planned a massively dramatic storyline, only to have it ruined by everyone wondering how come people are wandering into hospital without a qualm, and why they're still having get-togethers at the Bull

Freddie didn’t know Blake ..in a later scene when he was berating himself fir not getting Lynda out quick enough he described Blake as someone he didn’t know and had to call him “ mate”

So Phillip’s a wrongun. Poor Kirsty! I wondered why he was so anti employing Ed (or anyone) while he was so ‘flat out’

For once, I don't care how unrealistic it is to have Lynda sitting up and talking. I want her home, well on the road to recovery and totally unscarred, within the week, and sod realism.

Hear hear Gasp Lynda would be fantastic right now...can you imagine anyone daring to buy more than one toilet roll from the community shop?

Sadly, even if such a miracle occurred, Lynda (dob 29 May 1947) would be in glorious isolation at home with Robert.

I agree her apparent rapid recovery is a little hard to believe - but she’d make a brilliant Ambridge podcast narrator.

Btw @WobblyLondoner, my response to your question about the two Archers threads looks strangely snotty on my phone screen. It really wasn’t meant to be!

have I mentioned that Brian is my favourite? Nice to see him and Jennifer back.

@SurpriseSparDay no problem - I didn't realise that, am only an occasional poster about TA though a long term listener. But this thread is ok to post on so long as the episode has been broadcast?

I'm a bit surprised about Philip (and so sad for Kirsty) but v interesting reading all the little pointers along the way that you eagle eyed folks have noticed. Do we think that Gavin 'looks after' the gang (as others have said, no signs they are near Philip) - and might that be why his partner walked?

I wondered why he was so anti employing Ed (or anyone) while he was so ‘flat out’

He said it was because Gav and Emma were getting close and it was awkward- which was true, we had had plenty of scenes with Ed making it clear that he wasn’t happy about it. Seemed perfectly plausible to me at the time, even a mark of Philip being someone who was careful to make sure his team all worked well together.

A pp said it sounded like Philip was well aware of the use of petrol- I agree. Can anybody explain why petrol is so much cheaper than solvent?

Love that idea, I can visualise it.

Sorry but I don't buy it. Feels like a plot twist for the sake of it. Philip has been around for a long time without being dodgy

I assumed coronavirus had hit one of the script writers. Suddenly Philip has gone from amiable small builder working with his son to Baron Gangmaster - Head Slaver of Borsetshire.

Ed was complaining (only yesterday, admittedly) about Eddie's work drying up because Philip is undercutting him

Well both Ed and Eddie have a long history of whinging about anyone who gets in the way of their own scams so I'd still say that was largely sour grapes. Or possibly they simply recognised a kindred spirit.

Oh lord - Ed n Emma sharing domestic labour, watching family video

Emma deserves better but both deserve someone more suited to them. Ed didn't want Emma, he just didn't want Emma to have anyone else or to be free of him. Emma pining away single for the lurve of Ed would have suited him fine whilst he stayed at home with another woman doing his washing and cooking.

All the Grundy men regard the women in their lives in the same way.

Surely someone would have noticed Philip's bunch of starving slaves turning up at every job stolen from Edddie? It doesn't make sense.

Hold on, wouldn't Philip have done a runner as soon as this happened, he is not stupid, and would surely realise a health & safety investigation is going to bring it all into the open. He would have done a flit.

Completely disagree! Ed clearly wants Emma rather than any other woman in the entire world - just without the stress of determined upward mobility.

What’s horrid in yesterday’s revelation is that everyone thinks Philip and Gavin have been at Blake’s bedside day after day because they care about him. Whereas in fact they’ve been on guard to make sure he keeps his mouth shut.

I really don't understand the using petrol bit. How is that cheaper? How is it carried in?

Surely the accident investigators will be all over that?

I suspect the 'employment' model would be to put up the lads cheaply, in hostels or shared bedsits, maybe he has a cheap house in town, while giving them an 'apprenticeship' to a trade.

Emma is upwardly mobile though thank god, not wanting to live with your parents in law and until recently elderly grandparent in law in a very precarious rental situation, is not a bad characteristic. In my view it's a mark of sanity. If they make her loose that I will be really irritated.

Well well well. I must admit I laughed gleefully at Phillip’s snarling pantomime villain. Poor Kirsty indeed.

Ed clearly wants Emma rather than any other woman in the entire world - just without the stress of determined upward mobility

Which is why they don''t suit.

Emma has aspirations to improve her lot and give her DC a proper home. Like her or not she has always been a grafter, keen to work for her DC.

If Emma gets back with Ed in 20 yrs time she will be the downtrodden overworked Clarrie to Ed's hand-to-mouth feckless Eddie. She deserves better.

Ed doesn't want to graft for anything he isn't interested in and has always had a sense of entitlement to rival Freddy or Pip. Remember how put out he was when Jonny was offered the job at Home Farm and then when Jonny relinquished it for Ed he faffed about not wanting to feel "constrained" by a contract, even when they were supposedly saving for a home.

I don't dislike Ed but I don't have much time for him or men like him.