💰 Archers thread #121: Brookfield digs for treasure, Alice & Philip try to bury the truth. Dish the dirt here if you dig The Archers. PS Send nudes.

[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 long to hear Pip again, 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/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, 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 @LillianGish and @PersephonePromotesEquanimity for the title suggestions.

Current events: as @Bailey0703 has astutely spotted, it's Anti-Slavery Day tomorrow - could this herald the beginning of the end of the horses storyline? I do hope so. Horrible stuff, but what a blow for Kirsty. They're laying on the dramatic irony with trowel at the moment.

What do we think will happen to Alice and Chris? I can't see this pregnancy going to term and ending well. I don't think the marriage will survive either, giving Brian a chance to revisit his classic line about having to treat this as Alice's starter marriage.

Will Elizabeth end up on a date with Vince Casey? That would put the cat among the pigeons at Lower Loxley.

Over to you ...

I'm pretty sure they had a tenancy agreement, which probably defines minimum length of tenancy, minimum notice period from either side, etc.

What's most annoying about all this is that Ruth and Pip seem to have decided on more dairy, Josh wants more eggs, David said yes to Josh about which field to use - what they just need to do is sit round the table, talk about plans and resources - and restrictions like tenancy agreements - and actually communicate and plan.

what they just need to do is sit round the table, talk about plans and resources
Brookfield usually do, to be fair. They aren't this time purely for plot purposes.

Josh was falsely accused of a criminal offence. I don't see that as his screwup! Allowing someone to borrow a bit of farm equipment you are not using is not as far as I know illegal or even bad behaviour. If it is, Brookfield has been in constant breech of that by allowing Grundys over the years to borrow (and often fail to return) various equipment. They certainly never bother to find out what crime will be committed using it...

Yes, he failed to establish that a trailer he had bought had been stolen; unless trailers have MOT and identity I don't see how he would have easily done so.

Compared with Pip's massive and expensive to Brookfield and their neighbours screwups he's pretty-much clean.

Josh was falsely accused of a criminal offence. I don't see that as his screwup!

The screwup was his laxness over record keeping.

Which was invented for that storyline. Previously, one of the very few things David ever praised Josh for was his meticulous record-keeping, using a (gasp) computer -- you could hear the positive awe in David's voice when Josh showed him how that was done.

Was she fighting Toby's corner? I thought she'd arrived rather easily at, oh they'll be able to find somewhere else

I have to agree with @ErrolTheDragon that Pip wasn’t remotely fighting Toby and Rex’s corner. Considering T is the father of her child and R is her business party I thought she seemed quite callous in the way she glossed over the potential hazards of eviction.

She didn’t seem to register that losing the still could potentially result in a loss of income for Toby (not that I think that Scruff’s Gin generates a fortune) and the knock on effect will mean he will pay less child maintenance (which he presumably pays even though we never hear about it). Also, as well as Rex being a business partner, he is a friend so she could have put up a bit a protest. But then Pip is loyal only to Pip.

I hope she does runoff to Coronation Street. It would be lovely if the only contact we have with her is when Ruth sighs sadly each year that it’s such a shame Pip and Rosie aren’t coming home for Christmas.

I was being sarcastic when I suggested Pip was fighting Toby's corner.

Compared with Pip's massive and expensive to Brookfield and their neighbours screwups he's pretty-much clean

I agree and I was also irritated by the storyline rewriting quite recent history about Josh's record keeping. Praise for his good record keeping was one of the very few positive things I'd ever heard David say about him (and even then IIRC it was couched it terms of astonishment).

Why would Toby have to move the still from the buildings to free up grazing land?

Don't they also have a field or two for geese and possibly some chickens, though I remain confused about how much was Josh's and how much Fairbrothers. Not to mention Bert's chicken hut. It doesn't matter as probably the scriptwriters won't remember such details, either.

I thiught that perhaps previously, although Josh may have started out with good intentions on the computer, he then failed to keep it up to date. But has since learned his lesson.

Increasing the dairy herd seems to have been agreed without us hearing. I'm not sure David would have agreed.

Y'know, I have been meaning to say, for weeks, what an utter joy this current pre-TA offering by Rob Newman has been. Astonished I haven't seen multiple threads about it.

He's just recalled how, when he - and I - were little, being accompanied by a parent on the walk to school once you were over seven would leave you open to general scorn. Glorious ...

Loved his dig at Eddie Izzard doing some shows in girl mode, so he's doing this series as a woman by demanding 40% less pay than any male comedy show presenter.

Yes ... I held my breathe, but he made it okay.

Anyway, what's happened to Mrs Whatsname, LL housekeeper? Elizabeth doesn't use the washing machine ...

'breath' - actually ...

OMG.

Finally we're getting to it!

Finally.

(Just wait till CMR gets wind of this.)

Will CMR try to sabotage the show or take a more subtle approach.

But someone remind me.... why exactly do Lizzie and Lily not acknowledge the question hanging there, why LL is Freddie's birthright even though Lily for all her faults would very likely be a better custodian?

The interference in the day to day running of LL from a Trustee is ridiculous, surely?

@PoulePouletteEternellement

Y'know, I have been meaning to say, for weeks, what an utter joy this current pre-TA offering by Rob Newman has been. Astonished I haven't seen multiple threads about it.

He's just recalled how, when he - and I - were little, being accompanied by a parent on the walk to school once you were over seven would leave you open to general scorn. Glorious ...

It was excellent, Poule

A lot of wisdom in amongst the humour.

@PoulePouletteEternellement

OMG.

Finally we're getting to it!

Finally.

(Just wait till CMR gets wind of this.)

Do you mean Freddy being disinherited in favour of Lily? I immediately thought of CMR's reaction to that too.

Well, the battle, at least. Too early to say who'll win, or if they'll find a compromise.

Carnage is coming ...

I wish they'd do a bit of a summary for these major plot-lines. When does Freddie inherit? What happens after him or will it be entailed again?

ErrolTheDragon
But someone remind me.... why exactly do Lizzie and Lily not acknowledge the question hanging there, why LL is Freddie's birthright even though Lily for all her faults would very likely be a better custodian?

Because it belonged to Nigel, and Nigel left it to Freddie in his will.

I am not at all sure that it is within the capability (or duties) of the trustees to withhold Freddie's inheritance from his father, or to give it someone else. I seem to remember that there was quite a long court-case over Longleat or somewhere, and it eventually went the person it had originally been going to in spite of the trustees trying to stop him from inheriting.

Any inheritance lawyers around? Can you simply overturn a will on some arbitrary basis completely unconnected with the wishes of the testator?

(Nobody knows when Freddie is due to inherit, since it apparently wasn't on his reaching his majority three years ago come December. It's never been mentioned on air.)

iirc, Nigel didn't have any choice about the way the inheritance is set up.

I'm fairly sure that by the beginning of this century, when Nigel would have been making that will after his children were born in December 1999, entails were no longer legally binding. "Fee tail (entail) as a legal estate in England was abolished by the Law of Property Act 1925." And it wasn't entailed to Nigel, or he would not have been able to leave it to anyone in his will: it would have gone automatically to his male heir.

He did what he wanted, and I suspect Elizabeth knew about it beforehand because when did he ever do anything without getting her permission?