🎄Archers thread #122: Deck the Hall with Eddie, Freddie 🎵 'Tis the Season to be jolly (but orange juice for you, Alice)

[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 love Bert Fry’s poetry (as I do), 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 @C8H10N4O2 for requesting an annoyingly cheerful thread title which might take us up to Christmas and to @Prestissimo for the title suggestion. I was strongly tempted by @LillianGish’s suggestion: Eddie’s turkeys, Freddie’s show, village green with lights aglow, Stir Up Sunday, Deck the Hall, Merry Christmas one and all - with apologies to Bert Fry and @R4’s suggestion Wassail to the Ambridge Not-A-Panto where Freddie gets nine LESSONS in directing from CAROLe Lynda. Top work, all!

Three days to go until we can return to Ambridge.

My list for Father Christmas

In the next few weeks I’d like:

• Freddie’s show to be a huge success

• Philip and Gavin to be driven out of the village with pitchforks into the waiting arms of the police, and the three ‘horses’ rescued and taken in by kind people who will help them turn their lives around

• Pip to take a perpetual vow of silence and leave for a nunnery

• a terrific Grundy Christmas (although the travails of Alice and Chris will overshadow things)

• Alice to lose the baby, as this seems the least grim option for us listeners; she leaves Chris and makes a fresh start of some kind

What do you all want for Christmas from The Archers?

That's a thought @Roysnewshirt

Although obvs I hope RL "Pat" is OK!

@Augustbreeze

Er that otherwise wonderful scenario would require quite a lot of the Bedroom Fairy though!

I was wondering how big the house was when Tony said he was thinking about Helen 'all on her own in that big house'.

From memory, Philip and/or Joy bought the biggest homes on the estate (so presumably 4+beds and even more bathrooms).

So will the house be locked in a proceeds of crime battle? No idea how that all pans out

May be Pat will die and Tony will marry Joy
Hasn't he suffered enough?

So will the house be locked in a proceeds of crime battle? No idea how that all pans out

I thought Philip made a real point yesterday of telling us that the house is in his name and not the company’s which means it won’t be vulnerable when the company goes into liquidation. However, he also made it clear there’s a heavy mortgage on it so I shouldn’t think it will be locked in a PoC battle either. It definitely won’t provide much by way of compensation to the horses. If he goes to prison and the mortgage goes unpaid, then it will just be repossessed and what little remaining money there is will be used to settle any other personal debts.

@theThreeofWeevils. Can you imagine the wailing and handwringing from Helen and Tom if Tony married Joy? How could Dad do such a thing to his children, who are only in their late 30’s/early 40’s? It’ll ruin their lives.🤣 Plus they’d have to share attention with Rochelle and her family...!

If it is discovered that Philip and Gav are modern slavers, and successfully charged, their personal assets may be seized to fund the fine. So Gav had better start to prefer sudokus over Pac-Man.

Poor Cursedy.

@Roysnewshirt

So will the house be locked in a proceeds of crime battle? No idea how that all pans out

I thought Philip made a real point yesterday of telling us that the house is in his name and not the company’s which means it won’t be vulnerable when the company goes into liquidation. However, he also made it clear there’s a heavy mortgage on it so I shouldn’t think it will be locked in a PoC battle either. It definitely won’t provide much by way of compensation to the horses. If he goes to prison and the mortgage goes unpaid, then it will just be repossessed and what little remaining money there is will be used to settle any other personal debts.

Firstly the confiscation of property acquired as the proceeds of crime has nothing to do with the company going into liquidation.

Secondly if the company has bank borrowings Philip as director and shareholder might have been asked to give a personal guarantee.

Still puzzled as to how Philip would finance retirement. It certainly won't be by selling the business. Money in a Swiss bank account?

So they own a flat (one / two / I doubt 3 bedrooms?) in a probably scuzzy part of Borchester, where they house the horses. Philip is proposing to sell that and split the proceeds fifty fifty with Gavin.

How much would he get??

@TheSilveryPussycat

Still puzzled as to how Philip would finance retirement. It certainly won't be by selling the business. Money in a Swiss bank account?

The Ambridge Money Fairy- the one who is giving Helen enough money to buy a 3/4 bedroom "executive" house but won't give anything to Tom and Gnasher so that they can move out of their rented flat above the shop. (I'm assuming they are still there? I missed a lot of lockdown episodes)

Actually, it is all so nebulous and unexplained that I think it may be like The Great Move To Northumberland, in which we were expected to believe that dairy farmers bought a farm without a milking parlour.

Presumably the then-editor thought that they would be able just not to milk the cows for a month or two while the new milking parlour was built. He was male....

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Secondly if the company has bank borrowings Philip as director and shareholder might have been asked to give a personal guarantee

Sure, but given the house has a massive mortgage that won’t make much difference- there won’t be much left over once the mortgage + arrears have been paid off, although admittedly we don’t know what the deposit was...

Either way, Kirsty couldn’t be in a more vulnerable position...

Poor Soosan

I wouldn’t assume Philip is telling the truth about the house being mortgaged to the hilt. He could have been a cash buyer and it’s all to get Gavin on side.

MysticBore™️ predicts:

We have just heard the Ambridge Relationship Fairy fluttering her wings over Jazzer and Tracy and sprinkling them with love-dust.

They just don't know it yet.

I think that Alice's horse story could be about money. If her horse needs an operation this will cost a fortune and they've just paid for her rehab on their credit card. They're going to have to ask for help and tell someone because you can't sell a horse with back problems either. She might have to put him down which would drive her to drink again (then possibly go for one last drunken ride... lose baby + Chris).

I did think I heard that, MysticBore™️ - though it's really not what I would want.

Isn't it a bit Mills&Boon? They don't like each other at all, so they are destined for each other?

Incidentally, how would Jazzer, who did not live in Ambridge, know what someone nine years older than him was doing in that village when she was fourteen?

We have just heard the Ambridge Relationship Fairy fluttering her wings over Jazzer and Tracy and sprinkling them with love-dust

Didn’t Susan catch him ogling Tracey’s bottom on CCTV when they were trying to catch the shoplifter? Clearly destined for each other...

Very sorry to hear Susan’s show has been pulled. I potentially would have found Bert’s ploughing stories quite interesting...a bit like the ‘slow radio’ slot on Broadcasting House, may be?

Very sorry to hear Susan’s show has been pulled. Well, it takes all sorts