🌱 Archers thread #131: A time to plant, a time to reap. 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 also have a few millions lying around you're not sure how to invest, or other unusual things.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the week night episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/4197199--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-6-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 @Roysnewshirt and @Edmontine for title suggestions, and apologies to anyone I’ve missed or forgotten. In the end, inspired by Edmontine's idea and a brief discussion at the end of the last thread, I remembered that it's autumn now and the Ambridge farmers are presumably sowing barley, winter wheat, potatoes etc, so I found myself recollecting Ecclesiastes 3 (King James version) - my Church of Scotland upbringing has a lot to answer for. This led me back to one of my favourite numbers by The Byrds (written by Pete Seeger):

Roysnewshirt suggested Prayer cards, rehab, a glass of scotch, a bowl of chilli or even a dish of lasagne…we offer a range of solutions here to help you solve any Ambridge problem - large or small etc etc, which is as good a point as any to start this thread. Do we think Neil and Susan are solid again? Will Alice relapse? Will Shula confess all to the Bishop?

Reflecting on last night's offering, Edmontine said I’m musing on Baby steps … - but we need the culmination of Alice’s story this week. We have a new nurse in training, a possibly resigning midwife settling in Ambridge, Xander, Martha, Alice somewhere trying to find her feet sans grog, Shula trying to find her saintly feet sans Neil …B(ill)eth & Ben. Lots and lots of newness. Stir in Three’s blood and jam …

The blood and jam made me laugh. A lot. Just as well, as the storyline that line inspired is pants.

Over to you!

@Chemenger
I wonder if The Intern can shed any light on how the entire writing, editorial and production team, as well as the cast, seem to have overlooked the fact that Lilian was the original owner of The Stables?

Lillian and Justin have their Arabs at livery at the stables, don't they? They presumably talk to Shula about all things horsey. Which makes J's attitude even more iffy.

After Shula had left, I thought I detected Justin coming up with the same ideas as Shula had put forward. Though some of them he had overblown. (Can't face listening again, I'm afraid.) If so, then a BOOP to the SW for portraying one of the strategies used by some many men.

Asking Questions has hastily (and to my mind unconvincingly) denied it when challenged in the past, but I remain persuaded that she is the erstwhile archivist

But Adam.

Adam …

again.

Tom sounded about 12-years-old as he whined to his Dad about his business woes. Good old Tony agreeing to step in and single-handedly pick the entire apple and potato crop! But surely a pair of high-flying entrepreneurs such as Natasha and Tom would have back-up plans rather than just relying on Dad!

Tom used to be a thrusting young Josh-esque entrepreneur. Now he’s a whinging man living above a shop with no one working for him?

Has ANYONE at all thought of offering higher wages to pickers?

@LucretiaBourgeois

Asking Questions has hastily (and to my mind unconvincingly) denied it when challenged in the past, but I remain persuaded that she is the erstwhile archivist

I agree with this. Although possibly she actually knows more than the archivist.

Hurrah for the storyline actually reflecting some of the problems facing farmers. I was pleased to hear Tom - I thought he could have been given some pig commentary as well.

Iain was far too nice to Adam IMHO…..

@LucretiaBourgeois

Asking Questions has hastily (and to my mind unconvincingly) denied it when challenged in the past, but I remain persuaded that she is the erstwhile archivist

And left after a serious stand-up row with Sean O'Connor in which I told him exactly what I thought of him?

Ooooh, I wish!

If Fridge Barm sold land for house building why do the offspring rent property?

I know, it's utterly ridiculous. If we had a family farm where planning permission for housing was available, my parents would have built/converted homes for us decades ago!

Hellin rents Kursedy's house, Tomtasha rent the flat above the village shop and Johnny is in a house share

@ILoveShula

If Fridge Barm sold land for house building why do the offspring rent property?

I have exhausted myself on this question. People would complain if I brought up the subject of Helen, paying a premium to rent a house built by other people on land that she very recently owned, again. But it is inconceivably stupid.

I've never really understood how Bridge Farm managed to do all those veg boxes. Didn't TomTash rent the flat that used to be Helen's above what was Ambridge Organics in a neighbouring town? So many shops!

If Asking isn't the archivist, is she Jacqui Smith (or perhaps whoever it was that wrote the questions for that Mastermind round)?

No, Tom & Natasha now rent the flat above the village shop/PO in Ambridge. It was previously rented by Helen.

Do you mean ‘so many shops’ in Borchester? As competition when they ran a shop there? Or that Bridge Farm couldn’t supply both a farm shop and the veg boxes?

Tom & Natasha now rent the flat above the village shop/PO in Ambridge I know this to be true yet I find it almost impossible to remember/believe. They are literally at the heart of the village and yet they have been utterly silenced and sidelined for so long. Pat I could just about accept - she could have lurking in a a recess of the farmhouse, pottering about in a out-building, embracing lockdown and staying on the farm - but Tom and Natasha are in a tiny flat going hither and thither to fruit farms, Bridge Farm, delivering veg boxes - back and forth all the time and yet they never crossed paths with anyone. In my mind I honestly thought they'd moved to a house outside Ambridge (did they once look at one or am I imagining that?) and had locked down there.

Natasha wanted to buy one that was way, way beyond their means at one point. I forget how Tom managed to prevent that from happening, but was that when she sulked off to spend time with her previous boyfriend and Tom was very sad because he thought she was gone for ever, while the rest of the country was very glad because we thought she was gone for ever?

He saw her credit card statements (iirc) …

It is rather shocking, when you put it like that Lil’G.

So hard to know whether the fault lies in the creative team, or whether Covid / Pandemic forced the actors into unavailability. Perhaps, even if not ill or quarantining, they had employment that didn’t accommodate odd hours of recording in a shed or under a duvet?

Is it just me that pictures Pat as Judith in Cold Comfort Farm, lots of shawls and pictures of Tom/Seth? While he makes a nuisance of himself in the village. I think Tom in real life would cheat on his partners, he’s very selfish.

That's funny but no I don't see her like that. I see her more like Pam Ayres in dungarees. I don't know why Pam Ayres.

Why was Adam going to make a special meal for his sweetie the chef?
Last night they were on the sofa, not watching television together. Tonight, the special dinner. Quite apart from the fact that cooking 'fancy' for a chef is a really bad idea, as they do it better and will resent having to be grateful and polite, why is Ian's hairy, angry arse not in the kitchen at GG where he belongs? He sure as lemon drizzle won't have had two evenings off in succession. And if he's split shifting, then the Special Meal is even more of a waste of effort than it already was for the reasons mentioned above. Plot, you say? But there are soooo many other reasons the embezzler and crashing bore could have been at the farm shop which might actually tie in with the real world. They only give Xander organic veg, say...

And I don't blame the three other blokes for wanting to strangle Blake. They had him 24/7. About 5 minutes is enough for me to be offering to watch the door/hold their coats. What's that you say, Sooty? No coats? Even so, I stand by my original sentiment.

@23minutesfromTulseHill

Stella can be sacked for any cause or none for about the next 22 months.

Of course, I was forgetting that particular evilness of employment law, legitimising unfair dismissal.

That was a hard listen tonight