💰 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 ...

@BoreOfWhabylon

Very well done. Ruaruaruariii actor is very good.

And the Ambridge Housing Fairy is unfurling its wings - but will the law or ricketty wooden stairs put paid to Kirsty's dreams of her cottage?

Something is sure to: it is contrary to the Laws of Nature for Kirsty to have a happy ending.

Incidentally, if Monmouth is half-way between Ambridge and this cottage, where do we think the cottage might be? West side of the Brecon Beacons? Gower peninsular? Can't be all that much further north or the obvious half-way meeting-place would be Hay-on-Wye.

So the plan is for Gavin to take over the building firm - and stay near Ambridge? Thus facing the same attitudes that Philip wants to run away from?

How will Philip finance his retirement?

Is Philip still trying to sell one of the horses?

Boop for Jenny! She really is a brick!

Yes I think everybody except the SWs thought that the move to Willow Cottage was supposed to be a temporary (rent) move

Would she really not be on manoeuvres to escape Willow Cottage by now? They may not want to leave Ambridge but an astute businessman like Brian would definitely see long-term renting as throwing money down the drain. And there’s only so long Jenny - or indeed anyone else! - could cope in a kitchen that does not have room for two or three tagines...

How will Philip finance his retirement? Ambridge finance fairy. I have been wondering this too. If he and Kirsty give up work, what will they live on? I don’t think they’ve told Gavin their plans yet have they? Is he going to hear it from Helen or Shula and confront them? After last night’s episode I’m starting to wonder if Helen and Kirsty won’t end up living together in the house.

Helen and Kirsty sharing the house?

What an absolutely splendid idea!

@PoulePouletteEternellement

Helen and Kirsty sharing the house?

What an absolutely splendid idea!

Oh yes. Excellent idea.

As to Philip - he can spend some time at Her Majesty's pleasure, and then can go and live in whatever accommodation he has the 'horses' in, or similar, can't he. I expect other 'horse traders' can throw him enough work to survive. Gavin needs to get out from Philip - he shouldn't get off Scot-free for his complicity but I don't think he's irredeemable.

How can Helen possibly afford to buy Kirsty's house?

Jenny was amazing, much better than Brian.

@Taswama

How can Helen possibly afford to buy Kirsty's house?

Jenny was amazing, much better than Brian.

Mortgage? Loan from the pile of money bridge farm got from selling the very land the house is built on?

Re Jenny - I love it when she calmly deals with Brian, dispatching him to scrape the carrots or whatever.

I love it when she calmly deals with Brian, dispatching him to scrape the carrots or whatever. Me too. It's funny though, I can only ever picture them living in Home Farm (ie in the imaginary house I constructed for them in my mind). I think the move has been handled in a very strange way - indeed I had almost forgotten it had happened until posters brought it up again on here. Apart from a few early references to not having room for three tagine dishes or whatever the effects of the move have been virtually skated over and forgotten. Nothing to bring to mind their reduced circumstances - imagine them being locked down in their new shrunken quarters rather than the palatial splendour of Home Farm? And of course never any mention of the Gills. We might almost wonder whatever was the point of that particular story apart from to punish Brian for the ancient chemical leak. It just feels very lazy of the scriptwriters - almost as if they are unable to follow through on their most dramatic storylines. I'm fearing the slave story will go the same way.

Yes, Jennifer's a brick, and so well acted.
She has more emotional intelligence than the rest of her family put together.

Yes, Jennifer's a brick, and so well acted. She has more emotional intelligence than the rest of her family put together.

Another Jenny fan here. I hate it when she is dismissed as a glorified lady who lunches.

She has her silly and snobbish moments (who can forget Alice's vowels ) but whenever there is a crisis she is the one who pulls people together. She has also run chunks of the business alongside all the standard company wife responsibilities.

Except that many of the wasted storylines happened during the 97 Editors period, at least as far as I remember. One would hope that if they've halted the musical chairs for a while we might actually get some plots with a beginning, middle and end.

I'd assume Helen has her share of the mega-dosh they received from Justin for the land? (But only because I don't recall Bridge Farm doing anything significant with it. Could be wrong.)

The carrot peeling, now ... When they lived at Home Farm I'm not sure Brian could have found his way to the kitchen. And he'd have laughed in Jenny's face if she'd suggested he pick up any kitchen implement other than a corkscrew. Is it retirement, prosecution or plot that's mellowed him? (And I don't believe that Jenny having the whip hand over Siobhan-business would have been enough.)

I wonder if Helen is getting any maintenance payments from Knob?

She refused to accept any, at some point before he fled the country and she wouldn't be getting any anyway.

(As we know, America has always been keen to let in people with a criminal warrant outstanding against them.)

I thought Brian might unconsciously be jealous of R receiving the CD.

There OUGHT to be a fair amount of money sloshing around Bridge Farm. Perhaps they spent it all on the Montbéliardes, the cheese school and the App? Which farm bought the mobile milking unit?

I had in my mind that Helen was really sniffy about the residents of the housing estate. She and Kirsty are still really rude about Joy.

I had in my mind that Helen was really sniffy about the residents of the housing estate.

This is painfully true, and I did wonder how the SWs can reconcile that fact with her new eagerness to live there. But so much of what they put into characters' mouths is there to serve the purpose of a moment - I've given up expecting any consistency.

@TheSilveryPussycat

I thought Brian might unconsciously be jealous of R receiving the CD.

I thought it was more fundamental than that, even. Just the open acknowledgement of her existence, suddenly, in the present, nigh on gave him a heart attack.

Really, it must have been staggeringly painful for Jenny to see the maddened response a dead woman could conjure out of her husband.

I had in my mind that Helen was really sniffy about the residents of the housing estate

Wasn't that in the wake of halloween litter from the estate causing illness to the cattle? Floating lanterns with plastic bits wasn't it which caused some expensive visits from the vet?

@TheSilveryPussycat

I thought Brian might unconsciously be jealous of R receiving the CD.

Or he knows of some secret that might be revealed.

I seem to recall that Shove mentioned leaving a CD for Roarer.

So is Helen living at Bridge farm rent free with her boys and has some tidy savings from paying herself a salary from the dairy since she came out of prison? I can't imagine any pre-Rob savings will have survived.

I do not recall anything Siobhán was mentioned as having left for Ruairi apart from the memory box.

The CD had clearly not been mentioned to Brian; it came as a surprise and a shock top him. To whom else would Siobhán have talked of it on air? Elizabeth? But then she would have needed to explain why it was being left with a person she wouldn't trust to look after her son, and not with the person she would have allowed to adopt him.

I thought Brine was just being a typical example of his age/gender/class/outlook and being scared of anything emotional!!