🍾 Archers thread 123: Goodbye & good riddance to 2020 – to Philip too? The Archers is 70 on New Year’s Day – celebrate or vent about it 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 wish we heard more from Shula, 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.)

So! 2021 beckons. Big anniversary next Friday, 1.1.21 (and to mark that we have episodes Tuesday-Friday next week). What would we like to see happen? I may be in a minority of one, but I'd like a nice gentle character-driven episode. I don't think we'll get that, but I really, really hope they don't kill someone else off, just for the headlines.

[Title edited by MNHQ at OP'S request]

Council farms existed when I was a child, but there weren't many. There are fewer now.

I grew up in a rural environment, and at school I think there were a couple of kids my age whose parents had council farms, that were just outside the nearest town.

It was quite an unusual concept then. Most farms were owned, estate farms or rented privately.

I'd never heard of them and was brought up by a farmer...

@TheSilveryPussycat

All that rant by Rex about inheritance and the Brookfield Archers - I wonder how much he and Toby stand to inherit when their father dies a long time from now, and after he has moved to Ambridge?

I am enjoying Trazzer. So there!

Just about to listen to Trazzer and Rex....

I am not sure Rex and Toby are going to inherit a huge amount TheSilveryPussycat. When Robin turned up after Rosie was born there were a few hints his wine importing business was not as successful as he pretended. Having said that, there is a certain type of person who says they have no money when they mean they don't have much in their current account but have lots of investments, savings etc.

@JanuaryChill, you wouldn't have heard of them unless someone had told you that they existed. When you were a kid, you probably wouldn't be told who owned and who were tenants.

I remember because one farm was close to the road so we drove past it often, and it didn't look like other farmhouses, which were either very old or built in the late 1960s/1970s. It looked post-war.

The other one, I was told about because the daughter always had new clothes and I had assumed that her parents were minted. I thought that her parents had 100s of acres and a huge old farm. Mother said they had a council farm.

That reminds me of one of my friends at school, always had a new dress for a special occasion, and poked fun at me because my parents rented. I didn't know that most of my contemporaries lived in rented or estate farms. Roll on a few years and her parents were sans farm and rehomed in a council house. Her DF wasn't paying his bills even if her DM dressed her children nicely. My parents were still farming after retirement age.

Can anyone explain to me what possible reason Tracy and Jazzer have (or think they have) for trying to cover up the fact they are having a fling? Who are they trying to conceal it from? It seems utterly pointless: they are both single, both over thirty, neither has a long term partner of any sort, so what is wrong with them being together that they have to manufacture public quarrels to ... do what exactly?

There were plenty of council farms and nurseries in my area, most post war, and all marked out by maroon fascia boards and drain pipes. Many have been sold off, but the council still owns 5,000 acres of tenanted land. Their website has a map of where they all are.

Tracy's kids @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime ? Or Jazza's mates in his case?

I doubt Tracy's kids would give a stuff, and Jazzer's mates are used to him by now.

Tracey and Jazzer live in a village where everyone know everyone else's business. I expect they just don't want to be the subject of gossip especially if the relationship is likely (or intended) to be temporary.

I doubt that they have a snowball's chance of not being the subject of gossip, given that Susan knows that she found them in a "love nest" in the cricket pavilion!

I'm loving the continuing fallout from the slave business (Shula aside). Last week we had everyone navel gazing about 'what if it means I'm not the nice person I thought I was', this week we've got old grudges and rivalries reignited. Brian should have been shaking Kirsty by the hand, he's back in charge at BL isn't he? plus he's no longer the Biggest Villain in the Village. Harrison's got a short memory. When he arrested Freddy he didn't turn a blind eye, and he copped a load of flak for it iirc. Agree that he should request a transfer to another area, or go off to AC12 and catch bent coppers with glorious Ted Hastings.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

I doubt that they have a snowball's chance of not being the subject of gossip, given that Susan knows that she found them in a "love nest" in the cricket pavilion!

Yes, but for dramatic purposes there is no point trying to keep it secret unless it's going to be discovered in a spectacular fashion.

Trazzer - They hadn't actually copped off when they had their "row" and seemed to be pre-empting erroneous gossip, as they deludedly thought they might be just friends. But since then they have DTD on Jim's sofa become closer.

@TheSilveryPussycat

Trazzer - They hadn't actually copped off when they had their "row" and seemed to be pre-empting erroneous gossip, as they deludedly thought they might be just friends. But since then they have DTD on Jim's sofa become closer.

Have they DTD????

MadameButterface
Brian should have been shaking Kirsty by the hand, he's back in charge at BL isn't he?

Is he? I thought he has been given oversight of Berrow Farm and the rewilding, not made Chairman of the Board. (Was he removed from that position? When? In favour of whom this time? He was kept on after the pollution scandal broke because, to quote Justin who engineered it, "It never hurts to have someone in your debt" and after that vote Brian owed him a great deal.)

Have they DTD????

We don't know, but I have assumed so for comedic purposes

Harrison in AC12 - Ted Hastings would have him for breakfast!

Did Trazzer just snog on NYE then?

Hmmm, i think Rex was quite in character. Or, at the very least, very believable.
Stillw waters run deep, and all that. It is just the sort of thing I would do if I had been shafted too!
Unlike the Trazzer afair...........😨
No doubt it will come back and bite him, but I did find it realistic. Unlike the

Oops, no idea whatvhappened there!

Found Rex believable, unlike the Trazzer affair!

Oh bollocks. What I would give for an edit button 🙄Would my first born be too much???

@TheSilveryPussycat

Have they DTD????

We don't know, but I have assumed so for comedic purposes

They have now .

Good old Jim.

I am glad they allowed him to make the point about covid ...

What a colossal bore the Jazzer and Tracey story line is.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

MadameButterface Brian should have been shaking Kirsty by the hand, he's back in charge at BL isn't he?

Is he? I thought he has been given oversight of Berrow Farm and the rewilding, not made Chairman of the Board. (Was he removed from that position? When? In favour of whom this time? He was kept on after the pollution scandal broke because, to quote Justin who engineered it, "It never hurts to have someone in your debt" and after that vote Brian owed him a great deal.)

Ahhhhhh right is that what that was? Someone was out and brian was in and i came on here and got confused about BL/damara/the pig farm and who does what and how and why 😭 anyway he’s got one of his old jobs back off the back of this was my point